BIG C CATHOLICS

The Fifth Sunday of Lent (A) March 29, 2020 By Msgr. Bernard Bourgeois Ezekiel 37:12-14; Psalm 130; Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45 "Untie him and let him go."  (John 11: 44)  Nearing the end of the season of Lent, the Church this Sunday is knocking at the door of Holy Week (which begins next Sunday, April 9, with Palm Sunday), seeking entrance to the events that together form the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the annual reminder of God’s love for His people! During Holy Week, the faithful will visit the Upper Room during the Passover. At this meal, Jesus takes bread and wine and declares it to be His body and blood, which will be poured out for the many. Good Friday is the next stop on the journey. Kneeling at the foot of the cross, the people of God will adore that wood on which their Savior died. The story does not end there! At the Easter Vigil Mass, the people will stand in awe and wonder at the empty tomb. Jesus is risen! All

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 prop

Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. Provincial Superior, La Salette Missionaries of North America Hartford, Connecticut ( Click here for today’s readings ) We are faced today with such an embarrassment of riches in the readings, one hardly knows where to begin. It would be interesting to ask each of you what struck you in particular. Let me share what struck me. I begin with... the Responsorial Psalm! “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.” The Psalmist certainly had his fair share of the experience of “the depths.” Many Psalms have a similar theme: “I cry aloud to God, cry aloud to God that he may hear me” (Ps. 77). Perhaps the bleakest of all ends with the words, “My only friend is darkness” (Ps. 88). Virtually everyone knows what it is like to be swallowed up by that ocean, drowning in what Shakespeare calls “a sea of troubles.” It can be the boundless depths of grief, the remorseless depths of misery, the hideous depths of rage, the black depths of fear, the pathless depths o

"What good would it have done Lazarus when he came out of the tomb, if it had not been said, ‘Unbind him and let him go’? He came forth bound; not on his own feet, therefore, but by some power leading him. Let this be in the heart of the penitent: when you hear a man confessing his sins, he has already come to life again; when you hear a man lay his bare conscious in confessing, he has already come forth from the sepulcher; but he is not yet unbound. When is he unbound? By whom is he unbound? 'Whatever you loose on earth,’ he says, ‘shall be loosed in heaven.’ Rightly is the loosing of sins able to be given by the Church, but the dead man cannot be raised to life again except by the Lord’s calling him interiorly for this latter is done by God in a more interior way."  — St. Augustine of Hippo ____________________________________________________ Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, our Savior and Redeemer You are the resurrection and the life. No one else can give et

Dear Saint Lazarus, friend of Christ Incarnate and patron of the poor and the sick. I request your intercession, with the aid of the Holy Spirit; May the Lord, Who prefigured His Resurrection through your own miraculous rising, always guide me in my earthly pilgrimage and protect me in sickness and in health. Together with Saint Martha and Saint Mary, you welcomed the Savior into your home. May I do the same by welcoming Jesus into my heart and serving Him faithfully in my brothers and sisters. Help me to imitate Christ more perfectly. Holy St. Lazarus give me the strength to overcome all temptation and difficulty. May your witness inspire me to have faith and hope in Jesus, especially amid great trial. Pray that I will display heroic virtue and persevere in love so as to merit to be received by God into the halls of heaven. I ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who lives and reigns with the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever. Amen. Sain

The Fifth Sunday of Lent (A) April 2, 2017 By Msgr. Bernard Bourgeois Ezekiel 37:12-14; Psalm 130; Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45 "Untie him and let him go."  (John 11: 44)  Nearing the end of the season of Lent, the Church this Sunday is knocking at the door of Holy Week (which begins next Sunday, April 9, with Palm Sunday), seeking entrance to the events that together form the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the annual reminder of God’s love for His people! During Holy Week, the faithful will visit the Upper Room during the Passover. At this meal, Jesus takes bread and wine and declares it to be His body and blood, which will be poured out for the many. Good Friday is the next stop on the journey. Kneeling at the foot of the cross, the people of God will adore that wood on which their Savior died. The story does not end there! At the Easter Vigil Mass, the people will stand in awe and wonder at the empty tomb. Jesus is risen! Alle

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