BIG C CATHOLICS

Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. La Salette Missionaries of North America Hartford, Connecticut ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) When a child asks you what an unfamiliar word or expression means, you may well find yourself beginning the explanation with, “Well, it’s something like...” You start with something the child already knows, in hopes of providing the appropriate insight. This is a natural and quite universal teaching method; recognizable images and interesting stories have always sparked understanding. It should not amaze us, therefore, that Jesus used this approach so often, thirty-two times that we know of, in three Gospels. Surprisingly, there are no parables in John, and only four of Jesus’ parables occur in all three of the other Gospels. Some of the parables have a moral, such as, “So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart,” at the end of the parable of the unforgiving servant. In other cases the evangelist gives us th

In Matthew 6, Jesus teaches us how to pray the "Our Father," which includes the petition, "Thy kingdom come." "Our Father, who art in heaven hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." .Jesus references the first heir to the Davidic Kingdom – Solomon – several times, including Matthew 6:29, and 6:33, when he urges people to seek the kingdom above all else and trust that in this kingdom, God will provide for their needs even more than he provided for Solomon’s. Jesus’ wisdom was greater than Solomon’s, but he still used many of the same methods of passing on that wisdom; Both taught through parables. In Matthew 13, Jesus teaches about the kingdom through seven parables, including: The Parable of the Sower, the Parable of the Mustard Seed, the Parable of the Leaven, the Parable of the Hidden Treasure, the Parable of the Wheat and Weeds, the Parable of the Pearl of Great Price, and the Parable of the Dragnet. Through

René J. Butler, M.S. La Salette Missionaries of North America Hartford, Connecticut ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) I presume all the adults reading this have made a will, your “last will and testament.” Perhaps you made it a long time ago and it is no longer serves the purpose you had in mind. Nothing prevents you from changing it if you so choose. And if you do, you will then have your very own “old testament” and “new testament.” For many years now, the word formerly translated as “testament” in the Bible is more often given as “covenant.” The meaning, in English at least, is actually quite different. When you write a will, you can do that on your own, with or without the help of a lawyer, but you are not required to involve the persons to whom you will be leaving that jewelry or that moose head or your millions. There is no covenant, no contract with them. A contract or covenant, on the other hand, implies at least two parties who agree to its terms, preferably in writin

The following is from Pope Benedict XVI's homily  delivered during the Mass for the solemnity of Corpus Christi, in the square of the Basilica of St. John Lateran on May 26, 2005. Afterward the Pope led the Eucharistic procession to the Basilica of St. Mary Major. He explains how the feast of Corpus Christi relives the events of Holy Thursday, but in the light of the Resurrection. Benedict reflects upon the gift of the Eucharist, in which we truly receive the body of the Lord.   Homily of Pope Benedict XVI on the Feast of Corpus Christi It is not possible to "eat" the Risen One, present under the sign of bread, as if it were a simple piece of bread. To eat this Bread is to communicate, to enter into communion with the person of the living Lord. This communion, this act of "eating", is truly an encounter between two persons, it is allowing our lives to be penetrated by the life of the One who is the Lord, of the One who is my Creator and Redeemer. The purp

The Visitation of Our Lady, May 31, 2021  By Msgr. Bernard Bourgeois “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” (Lk 1:45)  In Catholic tradition, May is reserved as a month in which the faithful honor Mary, the Mother of God. As a student at Sacred Heart School in Bennington, each May we took part in the “May Crowning,” a ceremony in which a statue of Mary would be crowned with a wreath of flowers. It was a way to honor her presence and remember our devotion to her. The ceremony was followed by a “Living Rosary,” in which each student would take one prayer of the Rosary. In my sixth-grade year, I was designated by Sister of St. Joseph Mary Ancilla, our teacher, to carry the cross into the Church, and then to start the Rosary in praying the Apostles’ Creed. I was nervous! While the event began with me, thankfully Sister Ancilla was right there directing our efforts. The final day of May is the feast of the Visitation, t

Disputation of the Holy Sacrament, Raphael, 1509-1510 Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. La Salette Missionaries of North America Hartford, Connecticut ( Click here for today’s readings ) Do you like jigsaw puzzles? Do friends and family give you “the world’s most difficult” puzzles? Amazon.com has one called “Dalmatians,” with dozens of virtually identical black-and-white dogs filling the entire picture. It’s also two-sided, by the way. Now imagine a futuristic puzzle in which the pieces keep changing shape, and the picture on the box is never the same twice. And let’s make the pieces slippery while we’re at it. We might think the Trinity is like that. If our goal is to understand how one God can exist in three “persons,” when even the word “person” in this context is not at all what we usually think of when we say it, we are doomed to failure. We will never get the pieces to fit. Yet here we are, as always on the Sunday after Pentecost, celebrating the Solemnity of the Most Holy Tr

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity is May 30th. The Divine Family that is God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit is the central mystery of our Christian faith. The mystery of the Trinity is the life that dwells in us and sustains us. ___________ "God in his deepest mystery is not a solitude but a family, since he has in himself fatherhood, sonship and the essence of the family which is love." — St. John Paul II The Exchange of Persons in the Trinity The three-leaf clover used in religion classes to explain the mystery of three Divine Persons in one God does not begin to penetrate the incomparable majesty, boundless love, and total communion, which the Church in her Tradition and creeds ascribes to the Trinity. To the early Church Fathers the idea of perichoresis (the exchange of Persons in the Trinity), was indispensable to understanding God. This sublime, metaphysical concept is central to John Paul’s Theology of the Body. The inner life of Fa