BIG C CATHOLICS

Feast Day - September 8th The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary has been celebrated since approximately the 6th century, although there are other, conflicting accounts of when this particular feast came to observed. It likely originated in the Eastern Church in response to the Council of Ephesus, in which Mary was officially proclaimed "Mother of God" ( Theotokos ). It is thought that the date of September 8th was chosen because the Eastern Church year begins in September. Later, this feast would help to determine the date of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. There is an apocryphal story associated with the birth of our Lady, found in the Protoevangelium of St. James. Though not historical in origin, it does reflect the piety of the times. According to this account, Anna, who was barren, and Joachim prayed in earnest for a child; as often happened in biblical accounts, the child they were blessed with was given to them to advance God’s plan for salvation. &

From the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: 66. In what sense do we understand man and woman as created "in the image of God"? The human person is created in the image of God in the sense that he or she is capable of knowing and of loving their Creator in freedom. Human beings are the only creatures on earth that God has willed for their own sake and has called to share, through knowledge and love, in his own divine life. All human beings, in as much as they are created in the image of God, have the dignity of a person. A person is not something but someone, capable of self-knowledge and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with God and with other persons. 67. For what purpose did God create man and woman? God has created everything for them; but he has created them to know, serve and love God, to offer all of creation in this world in thanksgiving back to him and to be raised up to life with him in heaven. Only in the mystery of

Fr. Charles Irvin Senior Priest Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for today’s readings ) There are three paths to knowledge that we frequently walk… thinking using concepts, thinking using pictures or images, and thinking using our experiences. They are all routes to truth even though experience seems to be the favored route these days. This is curious to me because learning through experience gives us some of life’s harshest lessons. We learn the hard way along that route. The other routes are not so harsh. From its earliest days, the Catholic Church has relied on images — pictures found in stained glass windows, statues of saints and holy people, and glorious mosaics found in so many of our churches. Television, movies, and computer images have surrounded us during the last century. As never before in human history our children are learning via images. Today I am going to share some thoughts with you about the Holy Trinity using mental images. It’s better that way.

Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. Provincial Superior, La Salette Missionaries of North America Hartford, Connecticut ( Click here for today’s readings ) Has it ever struck you as strange that the disciples were gathered “when the time for Pentecost was fulfilled,” i.e., on a Christian feast,? There couldn’t have been any Christian feasts yet, so soon after the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus. The explanation is simple. The feast we celebrate today already existed long before the time of Jesus. It was not unlike our Thanksgiving, a harvest celebration, celebrated fifty days (seven weeks) after Passover. In the Old Testament it is called the Feast of Weeks. Be that as it may, for us Pentecost means only one thing: the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Lord. The Spirit’s first appearance in the Bible is in the second verse of the the first book: “The earth was formless and void... and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” The Spirit’s last ap

Fr. Charles Irvin Senior Priest Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for today’s readings ) In speaking with you about Pentecost I must speak of what cannot be fully explained. All we can do is reverently gaze into the mystery of God’s final movement toward us, the alienated and distant men and women who, with Adam and Eve, have broken off relations with God. Words cannot capture the enormity God’s merciful love for us; they buckle under the weight of it. So Scripture and the Church employ symbols to try to carry Pentecost’s meaning to us. Sometimes symbols are more effective than words in conveying the truth of stupendous events. Essentially Pentecost is the final movement of God’s journey toward us. The initial movement begins in Genesis with God in the Garden of Eden. Note that it is God who makes the move. It is God who initiates; God who offers; God who loves us first. He chooses us. We do not choose him. He chooses us first because He is the superior. If it were other

Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. La Salette Missionaries of North America Hartford, Connecticut (Note: This homily is based on the readings for the Easter Vigil. The Old Testament readings cited are the third, fourth and seventh of those proposed in the Lectionary.) ( Click here for Sunday's readings ) Where to begin? There are so many readings to choose from, a real embarrassment of riches. A preacher can almost “pick a text, any text,” and just start talking. There are, however, certain phrases that jump out at me this year. Let’s see where they lead. In Romans, Paul declares emphatically: “Death no longer has power over Jesus.” A famous poet has expressed it even more powerfully and absolutely: “Death shall have no dominion.” That is what the women in the Gospel story found out. There they were, on their way to pay their final respects by completing the anointing of Jesus’ corpse. And then, out of the blue, an angel says, “He is not here,... he has been raised!” The message

On the 4th Sunday of Lent, we read in John’s Gospel about Christ healing a man blind from birth. We identify with the man who came to see and believe in Jesus as the Son of God. The Lord has anointed our eyes with His own divine hands and washed them with the waters of our baptism. Jesus used mud made with his own saliva, and told the man to wash in the waters of Siloam. Jesus did this because it was the Sabbath, the day, when it was strictly forbidden to make mud, spit, and wash. By breaking these Jewish ritual laws, Jesus proved that He is indeed the Lord of the Sabbath. As such, He is co-equal to God the Father, the One who works even on the Sabbath, the holiest of days, directing the world He created. The scandal totally transcends the fact that Jesus has healed the blind man, who is expelled from the synagogue because of his faith in Christ. The whole Church follows this man in his destiny, knowing that the truly blind are those who do not recognize Jesus as the Lord and pers

Fr. Charles Irvin Senior Priest Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for today’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 lig

Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. Provincial Superior, La Salette Missionaries of North America Hartford, Connecticut ( Click here for today’s readings ) One of my favorite Scripture quotations is, “As cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.” (Proverbs 25:25) Today, however, I feel I should quote Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “Water, water, every where, nor any drop to drink.” The first half of the quotation seems apt for today’s readings. Water, water everywhere! In their wanderings in the desert, the Lord led his people to an area where, as we read: “There was no water for the people to drink.” The dramatic scene depicted in the first reading follows immediately. Here water is obviously meant in the strictly literal sense. Water is even more prevalent in today’s Gospel. The word occurs eight times in Jesus’ conversation with the woman of Samaria. But here, as often happens in John, the literal sense is soon eclipsed by a deeper symbolic sense. As we read, it b

Fr. Charles Irvin Senior Priest Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for today’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 looki

The following is excerpted from Pope Francis' address to the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia: God did not want to draw near to humanity other than through a home. God did not want any other name for himself than Emmanuel (cf. Mt 1:23). He is “God with us”. This was his desire from the beginning, his purpose, his constant effort: to say to us: “I am God with you, I am God for you”. He is the God who from the very beginning of creation said: “It is not good for man to be alone” (Gen 2:18). We can add: it is not good for woman to be alone, it is not good for children, the elderly or the young to be alone. It is not good. That is why a man leaves his father and mother, and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh (cf. Gen 2:24). The two are meant to be a home, a family. From time immemorial, in the depths of our heart, we have heard those powerful words: it is not good for you to be alone. The family is the great blessing, the great gift of this “God w

In Saint John Paul II's Theology of the Body, he discusses the idea of "original innocence." He bases this teaching on Genesis 2:25, "The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame." Without original innocence it would have been impossible for Adam and Eve to recognize the nuptial meaning of their bodies. The nuptial meaning of the body is being made in the image and likeness of God and loving others as God loves us. Our very bodies testify to this reality. The interior state of our first parents before sin was markedly different from our own. The fact that Adam and Eve were naked yet felt no shame is a clear indication that they existed in a state of original innocence. It would never have occurred to Adam to use Eve as an object for sexual gratification. Eve would never have used Adam as an object for her sexual gratification. Their relationship did not entail exploitation or objectification. They acted out of selfless love. Original inno