BIG C CATHOLICS

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...