BIG C CATHOLICS

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) God the Father inaugurated His presence among us when Abraham responded to Him in faith. The Nativity of Our Lord inaugurated God the Son’s presence among us when God’s self-expression became flesh and was born among us as one of us. This Solemnity of the Ascension of Our Lord into heaven inaugurates the time of God the Holy Spirit’s presence among us. Jesus Christ ascension into heaven opens the door to the Holy Spirit’s dwelling within those who have been baptized into the Body of Christ. Our Blessed Lord’s Ascension into heaven challenges us to see God in a new way. Christ’s ascension is not an ending, it’s a beginning. On the surface in appears that Christ’s Ascension is a departure, but actually it is not. Spirit-filled in His resurrection, Christ now comes to us in a new way – in His Holy Spirit. It is a new beginning. Christ in His humanity is now taken to a new status, the highest of all state...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) The readings of this Mass impel me to reflect with you upon two things which are interior within us, two things that are mysterious and can be known only in their expression. One is love and the other is the Holy Spirit. Both cannot be really known in themselves; both are made real for us in their activity, in their expression, in their external manifestations that we bring into our lives in our responses to God’s love for us. As we all know so very well, talk is cheap, and words are without meaning unless expressed in deeds. Love is not simply a nice feeling, a sentiment, or merely a warm emotion. Love becomes real in the decisions we make and in what we do. It is in its actions, actions that result from our choices, that love is realized. Don’t get me wrong, the words of love are of extreme importance. There’s nothing wrong with saying “I love you.” In fact those three little words can be the mo...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Many people believe that living the Gospel message is unrealistic. Numerous times people have begun a conversation with me using the phrase: “Father, out there in the real world …” Their unspoken assumption is of course that because I am a priest I am somehow not in the real world. History has given us a number of philosophers and thinkers who have told us that Jesus was a beautiful man, possessing tenderness of heart, infinite sweetness, and universal charm. In other words they are saying that Jesus was an idealist who saw and lived life in an idealistic dream world, not as it really is. They like to talk about Jesus, admiring His ethical code and His moral standards while at the same time they are locating Jesus out of this world, out of touch with reality. I suspect there are some here in church who are here just now for a few moments of relief in order to get out of this world and enter a dream wo...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Back in Jesus’ time everyone knew about shepherds, their sheep, and how they interacted with each other. The dynamics between them were well known. Not so today. Few of us have watched shepherds tending their sheep. So to understand the full impact of the imagery that Jesus used we need to take a look at a few points. During nights back then shepherds kept their sheep in sheepfolds that were large circles of stones that both penned in the sheep while at the same time protecting them from predatory animals such as wolves. There was a narrow opening to let the sheep in and out. At night the shepherd would spread his bedroll across the base of the opening and would sleep there. Predatory animals could enter the sheepfold only by crossing over the body of the shepherd and so of course they would not. Additionally, there were times when the sheep belonging to differing shepherds would get mixed in with ea...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Last Sunday’s Gospel account was about the disciples who were huddled in the Upper Room behind locked doors out of fear, and Jesus’ appearance among them. Today’s Gospel account is about another appearance of Jesus, this time with other disciples who were dejectedly walking from Jerusalem to a nearby hamlet called Emmaus. St. Augustine along with others of the Fathers of the Church suggest that Jesus didn’t want the disciples to recognize Him right away, that He wanted them to recognize Him in “the breaking of the bread.” Moreover Jesus, they believed, wanted the disciples to see and understand what the Jewish prophets had foretold in Scripture about how the Messiah was to be recognized. Hence Jesus spent some significant time opening up the Scriptures so they might see them in a new light, His light, and then recognize Him. We can easily overlook the importance Jesus placed on Scripture. He repeatedl...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) At the Last Supper, shortly before He suffered and died on the Cross, Jesus gave us the stupendous gift of His Body and Blood, now really and truly present to us in the Eucharist. He gave us this gift at the very core of His redemptive sacrifice for us. Then, when He rose from the dead, His very first act was to breathe out the Holy Spirit upon His apostles and into His Church. “Peace be with you,” He said to them. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” What does that mean for us? Our Church leads us now into what we might call “The time of the handing over of the Spirit.” To examine the significance of that time let’s return to God’s first breathing forth His Holy Spirit, that life-giving creative act of God that we find in the first verses in the Bible, in the Book of Genesis. There we find God’s Spirit “b...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) All of us have been hurt in one way or another. All of us have been held in the grip of pain… have been unable to rid ourselves of resentments. We have a sense of loneliness within us, the feeling of being isolated and that nobody cares. We feel separate, alone, and alienated. Added to these is a sense of fear for our future looming over us all. In the midst of all this we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead with its promise that our own Good Fridays will be followed by Easter Sundays. The Church presents us with that gift from God; she does not give us what is merely wishful thinking. The story of Adam and Eve is constructed in such a way that immediately following their sin they recognized that they were naked. Their nakedness was something far more profound than mere physical nakedness. They recognized at a much deeper level that they were exposed — vulnerable, alienated, ashamed...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Blood is life-giving; it is the essential element in sustaining us in life. Babies the womb receive oxygen and nutrients from their mothers’ blood. When natural disasters occur the Red Cross appeals for blood donors. During surgeries it sustains patients in life. In many cultures the bonding of people is sealed in rituals that mingle blood. In all cultures blood has a deeply religious significance. When God brought the Hebrew people out of their slavery in Egypt, the blood of sacrificed lambs marked their homes, and they were spared the punishment that fell upon their Egyptian captors. Later, on Mt. Sinai, when God bound Himself to His people, Moses offered animal sacrifices and then took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we w...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) All of us, I am sure, have read recent accounts about the decline of interest in religion among Americans. A recent survey reports that 20% of Americans have no religious affiliations at all and feel no need of God or belief in God. It seems they feel that they are self-sufficient; God is not necessary. So why are we here? Our motives are many and mixed. Some are here in their need seeking God’s help. Some are here seeking God’s forgiveness, others out of love of God, others out of thanksgiving for all that God has done for them. Some are here simply out of a sense of duty and others out of mere habit. All of us are looking forward to everlasting life with God in heaven. In the opening prayer of today’s Mass, we heard the words: “Help us to embrace the world that you have given us, that we may transform the darkness of its pain into the life and joy of Easter.” In the first reading from the prophet ...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) We have all heard the phrase “Seeing is believing.” The idea comes, I suppose, from skeptical people who won’t believe anything is real or anything is true unless and until they see it for themselves. In today’s Gospel account the phrase “Seeing is believing” is paradoxically both proved and disproved. It is proved by the blind man eventually seeing Jesus and acknowledging that indeed Jesus is “from God.” The blind man recognized Jesus for who He is. The Pharisees, on the other hand, men who were sighted, did not or would not see Jesus for who He is. The blind man could see, the sighted Pharisees were blind. Seeing, they would not believe. In this Gospel account Jesus gives us some additional clues as to who He really is. You will recall that in the Book of Genesis we find God creating us from “the slime of the earth.” Here we find slimy mud formed from Jesus’ saliva bringing light into the blind ma...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) If you’ve heard the soundtrack for the Broadway show Les Misérables you may remember a song sung by Fantine that is a lament. She sings a sad song to her lost youth, her lost innocence, her lost beauty. It reflects a song many of us have in our hearts as she sings: "I had a dream that life would be So different than the hell I’m living, So different now than what it seemed, Now life has killed the dream I dreamed."  Once upon a time, way back in my early twenties, my heart was full of a song like that. I thought I wanted to die, my life would never be happy again. What causes us to sing a song like that, to be filled with despair? What murders our dreams? And what, perhaps, is killing your dreams – or the dreams of someone you know and love? The first reading in today’s Mass, the reading from the Jewish Testament’s Book of Exodus, presents us with a whole tribe of people feeling that burde...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) God asked Abraham to leave his land, take everything and everyone with him and move to a new land. Later God asked Moses to take the Hebrews from Egypt into a promised new land. And Jesus? Well, He too had to leave Joseph and Mary back in Nazareth and begin his mission out on the road. Jesus once remarked: “The foxes have their dens and the birds of the air their nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” And when He was crucified and died, He didn’t even have a tomb of His own. One of the hardest things I face as a priest is not having my own home, a place I can call my own. My only home is the Church. My only family is all of you… along with all of the other members of Christ’s family throughout the world. Many people today experience homelessness. Lots of people, even young kids, live out in the streets. Many members of gangs belong to gangs because they are looking for family, for so...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” I have often pondered over the meaning of those final words in the Lord’s Prayer, and I want to pay some attention to them with you today. Throughout the centuries there has been any number of translations of the original Hebrew words that Jesus used when He taught the Lord’s Prayer. For instance, most of the original translations did not say “And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Instead, the phrase was translated as, “And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”  By the way, as an aside, just when or why the word “trespass” was substituted for the word “sin” is unknown to me. As for the phrase “but deliver us from evil” other ancient translations render it as: “And deliver us from the time of trial.” Still others render it “deliver us from the time of testing.” That being the...