BIG C CATHOLICS

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Here we are with Christmas just two and a half weeks away. The shops and malls are loaded with goodies. Christmas songs fill the air. Parties are being arranged and delicacies prepared. Thoughts of home, of family, and of a lovely time fill our hopes and imaginations. With all of these lovely sentiments in our hearts and minds we come to church today and hear about a weird guy living in the desert, wearing scratchy and horribly smelling clothes made of camel’s hair, eating locusts, calling people a bunch of snakes while telling them that fire and brimstone will come down on them, all the while threatening them with axes that will cut them down. The gospel picture ends with John the Baptist threatening the Sadducees and Pharisees with hell. Aren’t you glad you came to church today just before Christmas to hear all of that? Well, John the Baptist reminds us that it’s likely we all need to pay attention to a ...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) In today’s first reading we hear the prophet Isaiah calling us to climb to the top of the mountain and look for the Lord’s advent, the Lord’s coming into our lives. At the end of today’s first reading when we hear Isaiah cry out, “ O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord! ” We need to understand that Isaiah isn’t simply talking about nature’s daylight nighttime’s darkness, he is talking about what we see with our minds and hearts. He’s calling us to rise above our daily worries, concerns and anxieties in order to take a look over the whole of our lives with all of their peaks and valleys. As Christians we do that in the vision of Christ, the Light of the World, God’s gift to us. The problem you and I face comes not from the fact that we are unconcerned or apathetic or lazy. The problem you and I have is that we’re far too concerned about so many other things. Often these are legitimate...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for today’s readings ) If there is no divine being above us we will be consumed by all that is around us. If Christ in His kingship is removed from our lives we will be at the mercy of any and all forces in this world that are more powerful than our own powers. In the world of philosophers those who reject God or the reality of God are known as nihilists who claim we exist in nothingness. What we think to be real is, they claim, only a construction that we have made in our own minds. The problem with nihilism is that it leads to anarchy, the complete loss of order in a world that they view to be essentially irrational. Tyrants come to power and thrive in such a world view. Our nation’s Founding Fathers recognized the threat and grip of tyrants when they wrote: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Li...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Who is your judge? I mean in the ultimate sense who do you look to as the judge of the true worth of your actions and your worth as a person? Some of us turn to our parents and judge our actions and our lives on their approval alone. Some of us look to peers – it is peer group judgment that is the ultimate criterion that determines our actions in life. Still others look to no one but themselves to judge the relative goodness, or lack thereof, in their choices and deeds. One of the distinguishing marks of a Christian is the fact that he or she looks forward to the judgment of God. The Christian is aware of the constant in-breaking of God into his or her life. A true Christian sees this not as a threat or in negative terms but rather sees it as a summons, a calling, or as an invitation from God for us to grow. To believe in and assert that Christ will come again is to believe in and assert that we are in the...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Wisdom is one of those often-used words the meaning of which, for many in our world, can be elusive. From time to time, we ought to pause for a few moments and reflect on its meaning. It’s a word that frequently appears in both the Jewish and Christian Testaments, particularly in the Jewish Testament, a word having a great deal of religious significance. Thus, we hear Jesus speaking of it in today’s Gospel account. Prudence is a word closely associated with wisdom. From Our Blessed Lord’s statements, we might associate foresight even more closely with wisdom. Certainly, wisdom moves beyond mere data processing or the accumulation of facts. Facts and data are necessary in order to arrive at wisdom, but wisdom is something greater than simply knowing facts or processing data. The purpose and meaning of our lives should always guide our choices. It is wise for us to remember that we came from God and a...

Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. La Salette Missionaries of North America Hartford, Connecticut ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Today we celebrate the dedication of the oldest Church in the West, the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the cathedral of the diocese of Rome, the Pope’s cathedral. This provides us also the opportunity to celebrate our catholic identity. The word “Catholic” is most often distinguished from “Orthodox” and “Protestant,” referring to “Roman” Catholics as opposed, for example, to “English Catholics” (Anglicans), or the “Polish National Catholic Church,” etc. “Big C Catholics,” the blog on which this homily is being published, refers to especially faithful members of the “Roman” Catholic Church. Every Sunday in the Nicene Creed we profess our faith in “one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.” Notice that “catholic” here is not capitalized. That is because the Creed as we know it was originally composed in 325 AD and revised in 381 AD, long before there was eve...

Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. La Salette Missionaries of North America Hartford, Connecticut ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) The Bustle in a House The Morning after Death Is solemnest of industries Enacted upon Earth – The Sweeping up the Heart And putting Love away We shall not want to use again Until Eternity – I often quote this poem of Emily Dickinson as the best description of what we go through in a time of mourning. We have all had this experience. As we remember today all those who have gone before us, we are aware of an ever growing store of Love that we shall not want to use again until we are reunited with those we have lost. Anyone who deals with those who grieve knows there is little we can say to ease their pain. Fortunately, the best that can be said has been said, in the Scriptures and by many poets. From the Bible, we have in today’s readings at least two well known comforting texts. The first is, “The souls of the just are in the...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) The gospel account we just heard is famous, one with which we are all familiar. It tells the well-known story of the sinner who sat in the back of the Temple beating his breast while seeking mercy and the Pharisee who sat up in front reminding God what a laudable and holy person he is. The “holier than thou” argument is often used as an excuse by those who don’t go to church in order to criticize those of us who do, calling us hypocrites. But the story goes much deeper than the comparisons people make between themselves and others. The parable deals with our perception of who we are in the eyes of God. This parable reaches to the core of our relationship with God. We need to understand that the basis of that relationship is the fact that God chooses us. He establishes the relationship. We haven’t won this relationship with our prayers, or our actions. God has chosen us. This has not been easy for many to a...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) When people are enduring great difficulties along with emotional and spiritual crises of various sorts you may have heard them say: “I’ve tried everything. Now the only thing left to do is to pray.” It’s as if praying is something to be done only as a last resort in times of trouble. Then, when all else has failed and we sense impending failure we, in desperation, turn to God and ask Him for a miracle. At first we try to solve problems on our own using our own judgments and powers. Some of our methods don’t make much sense at all. Some of our methods are harsh and mean-spirited. Some inflict pain on others while other methods only bring more pain down upon us. Smashing things on the floor doesn’t work. Giving the cold shoulder and the silent treatment doesn’t solve family disputes. Calling others names and refusing to negotiate is on display in the present crises in Washington. It’s childish. How many times h...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) We are all quite conscious of the fact that only one of the cured lepers returned to give thanks to Jesus. And we are conscious, too, that the one returning was a Samaritan, one of those people despised by the pious and orthodox Jews of Jesus’s time. But have we given any thought at all to what happened to the other nine? Well, what DID happen to them? Did their families receive them back into their homes or was there a lingering fear that they were still diseased and so they faced a frosty and unwelcome return home? Did their children recognize them? Did those who were cured experience greater devotion to God? Were they more consciously religious in how they lived their lives? Did any of them become followers of Christ and join the early Christians of their day? We don’t know the answers to these questions. But we can have answers to a question I want to put to you now. My question is: What are the effe...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Like unpacking an old trunk, we need to unpack today’s Gospel and take out the hidden treasures within it and then appreciate them. We are dealing here with the reality of faith, the substance of things not immediately obvious. It takes a bit of courage to do that because we are all governed by fear, the fear that we don’t have enough faith, or the right kind of faith. Then there’s the fear that God really isn’t there, that there’s no next life, and the ultimate fear that faith is but a dream. We all need to be realistic and recognize that every act of faith has the element of failure within it, just as in every act of courage an element of failure is present. But only cowards follow the path of least resistance and simply give up. Faith is gutsy; it’s a tough decision. But faith is not unreasonable. It’s not a mindless act in which we hand over our intellects. Nor is faith merely a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) You and I are engaged in a common struggle, a struggle against complacency. The struggle is between two spirits, one good; the other evil — spirits that roam about deep within us, below the level of our consciousness. One is the spirit of generosity and self-sacrifice; the other is the spirit of complacency and self-satisfaction. You and I share this common struggle against spiritual inertia and smugness in the loneliness of our hidden souls as we strive to have a modest share and portion of the goodness of God. It’s never easy because the devils we fight against in our souls jam and clog our efforts with the sticky, gooey substance of cotton-candy rationalizations. The devils that beset us are always hiding their vices under the appearances of things that seem attractive and tasteful, in many cases the feeling that we deserve the abundance that is ours. The devil always seeks to mire us down and lead us int...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) The Gospel passage you’ve just heard is a part of a series of parables dealing with spiritual crises that are generated when we misuse our possessions, when we end up being possessed by our possessions. Last Sunday’s Gospel was about the Prodigal Son who demanded his share of his father’s estate and then went out and squandered it all. Next Sunday’s Gospel will be all about the rich man eating a sumptuous meal at his table while poor Lazarus sat starving at the rich man’s gate. The lesson today involves, as you all know, the devious and clever wicked steward who doctors the accounts of his master’s books in order to win friends, friends who will care for him after he faces his impending firing. We need to give attention to some background before we unpack the meaning of today’s parable while noting the number of instances when in His parables Jesus uses business practices so familiar to His listeners. In th...