BIG C CATHOLICS

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) My life is nothing but drudgery; I am filled with sadness, tired of dealing with the mess other people have made of this world. Life is an unbearable burden. Will it ever end? Is there a God out there who cares what happens to us, or are we helpless pawns on some cosmic chessboard, only accidentally born? If God is so good, why does He allow us to experience pain, loss, terrible depression, and various disasters? Answering the question “why?” gets us into a long philosophical and theological discussion. Suffice it here to say that God has chosen to put us into an incomplete world, living in our own personal incomplete lives. But by His grace we have the enormous dignity to be His co-operators, to work with Him while investing our own love and determination into the task of bringing ourselves and our world into completion and wholeness. This is a great gift – an act of faith that God has made in us

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) My dear brothers and sisters, all of our ideals, all of our dreams of what we want to be, and of what our world can be… all of our visions and understandings of God, and of God’s ways with us, are focused now on a child… God’s Anointed One, God’s Christ. For a child us born unto us, a son is given us, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying powerless in a manger, there being no room for him elsewhere in our world for his birth. It is a sacred moment into which we now enter, a precious moment, a holy hour observed all over the world in Midnight Masses. Midnight Mass gathers so many different people in a lovely moment of peace and happiness – Blacks and Whites, Asians, Africans, Latinos and Anglos…. Catholics, both active and devout as well as marginal and estranged, Protestants, members of others great faiths, and even doubtful believers with hesitant faith. It is a transcendent moment when we suspend busine

Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP, PhD  St Dom/Carmelite Laity/OLR, NOLA ( Click here for today’s readings )  Job is not a happy man right now. He's lost everything. His life is drudgery. He's a like a slave who works away his days in the sun, longing for shade. All his nights are troubled. He's soaked in months of misery. Restlessness while trying to sleep; hopeless while he's awake. He says, “. . .my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again.” We know all too well why Job is having such a tough time. He's lost everything. His wealth. His health. His family. All of it. He might be able to suffer well under his material losses, but he's lost one thing that all of us need most. He's lost his purpose. He's lost his end, his reason for living. If he had a purpose, he could look forward and place his losses within a bigger plan to reach that goal. But without a goal, Job has no way to give his suffering meaning. Jesus has a purpose. Paul has

Fr. Charles Irvin  Senior Priest  Diocese of Lansing  ( Click here for today’s readings ) My life is nothing but drudgery; I am filled with sadness, tired of dealing with the mess other people have made of this world. Life is an unbearable burden. Will it ever end? Is there a God out there who cares what happens to us, or are we helpless pawns on some cosmic chessboard, only accidentally born? If God is so good, why does He allow us to experience pain, loss, terrible depression, and various disasters? Answering the question “why?” gets us into a long philosophical and theological discussion. Suffice it here to say that God has chosen to put us into an incomplete world, living in our own personal incomplete lives. But by His grace we have the enormous dignity to be His co-operators, to work with Him while investing our own love and determination into the task of bringing ourselves and our world into completion and wholeness. This is a great gift – an act of faith that

The Feast of Saint Andrew, one of the twelve apostles selected by Our Lord, is November 30th. Andrew has the distinction of introducing his brother Peter to Jesus, saying, "We have found the Messiah." Overshadowed henceforth by his brother, Andrew nevertheless appears again in the Gospels as introducing souls to Christ. After Pentecost, Andrew took up the apostolate on a much wider scale, and is said to have been martyred at Patras in southern Greece on a cross which was in the form of an "X". This type of cross is known as a "St. Andrew's cross." Andrew did not belong to the inner circle of the apostles, Peter, James and John, and the evangelists record nothing extraordinary concerning him [John 6:8]; but tradition extols his great love for the Cross and for the Savior. The Church distinguishes him in the Mass [his name occurs in the Canon and in the Libera since the time of Pope Saint Gregory I] as well as in the Divine Office. The story of hi

Fr. Philip N. Powell OP, PhD Church of the Incarnation Priest of the Archdiocese of New Orleans ( Click here for today’s readings ) I believe that most of us are idolaters. Now there’s a way to begin a homily! Idolaters. Most, if not all, of us. Think about what it is that you spend the most time worrying about, mulling over in your head. What is it that claims the most time, most attention in your day? What is that you call on when you are anxious or feeling insecure or doubtful? What is it that you call on to build up your confidence, your trust? Does stress become an occasion of sin for you: some form of gluttony—food, drink, sex, public piety. Or maybe some form of pride: a false sense of self-sufficiency, or an arrogance that comes from your created beauty or talent. What gods do we run to when things get stressed out, ragged around the edges? What gods do we worship in the silence of our hearts? Ah, but the temptations are legion, right? A whole pantheon of worthl

Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. Provincial Superior, La Salette Missionaries of North America Hartford, Connecticut ( Click here for today’s readings ) Let’s start today with an informal survey about Scripture. Of the following two prophecies from Isaiah, which one do you like better: “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you;” or: “Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil”? Which of the following two verses from the Psalms do you prefer: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,” or: “My only friend is darkness”? What about the Gospels? “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest;” or: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.” You see the trend? It is the most natural thing in the world that our favorite Scripture texts are those that comfort and encourage. (My personal favorite i

Angels Announcing the Birth of Christ to the Shepherds , Flinck, 1639. Fr. Charles Irvin Senior Priest Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for today’s readings ) Homily originally delivered in 2010 While Christmas is delightful for children and it is nice that we get caught up in their joy, Christmas is something that we adults vitally need. We celebrate Christmas this difficult year with dark clouds of terrorism looming over our heads. The gloom of the recession darkens our spirits. Our broken governmental establishment in Washington spends our future incomes on earmarks attached to spending bills that stagger our comprehension. Joblessness and hunger are not confined to Third World countries, they stalk our own populace. Amidst all of this darkness let there be light. I give you the message of the angels. There is also another darkness that afflicts many of us – an inner darkness of spirit, of heart, and of soul. Many folks have spoken to me about the pace of life i

Fr. Charles Irvin Senior Priest Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for today’s readings ) My dear brothers and sisters, all of our ideals, all of our dreams of what we want to be, and of what our world can be… all of our visions and understandings of God, and of God’s ways with us, are focused now on a child… God’s Anointed One, God’s Christ. For a child us born unto us, a son is given us, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying powerless in a manger, there being no room for him elsewhere in our world for his birth. It is a sacred moment into which we now enter, a precious moment, a holy hour observed all over the world in Midnight Masses. Midnight Mass gathers so many different people in a lovely moment of peace and happiness – Blacks and Whites, Asians, Africans, Latinos and Anglos…. Catholics, both active and devout as well as marginal and estranged, Protestants, members of others great faiths, and even doubtful believers with hesitant faith. It is a transcendent moment when

June's blog of note, Domine mihi hanc aquam! , has long been a fixture of the Catholic blogosphere. Since November, 2005, Fr. Philip Neri Powell, a Dominican seminary professor, formation advisor and parish priest, has preached and commented about Christ, the Church, popular culture and events of consequence. Featured are Fr. Powell's thought provoking homilies through which readers know and love the mind of Christ. The wide ranging scope of HA's subject matter is reflected in a quote from Pope Benedict XVI displayed on the blog's masthead: "A [preacher] who does not love art, poetry, music and nature can be dangerous. Blindness and deafness toward the beautiful are not incidental; they are necessarily reflected in his [preaching]." In addition to faithful homiletics, readers are just as likely to see advice for discerning a religious vocation , a presentation of original paintings or a polemic against the "Culture of Death." Domine mihi hanc