BIG C CATHOLICS

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) In many situations asking the right question is critically important, but coming up with the right question at the right time is an art. If a scientist doesn’t ask the right question, he or she will follow paths that do not lead to solving a problem. If the president of a corporation doesn’t ask the right questions at the right time he will not successfully provide for his company’s future. If you are an employee, think of the importance of questions you put to your bosses. Asking the right question can lead to your promotion. Think of how important it is for a police detective to ask the right question, or a doctor, or a psychiatrist. Asking the right question is a skill, an art, one that allows you to avoid going down a lot of blind alleys. And then there those who are in love. Lovers spend hours and hours and hours asking each other questions because they want to know everything there is to know about the

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) We spend enormous amounts of our resources, time, and energy on things that give us a sense of security. We buy expensive insurance policies to protect ourselves from any and every sort of disaster. We have high-tech alarm systems in our businesses, homes, and automobiles. Some of us work and even live in buildings surrounded with security fences. Closed circuit television eyes balefully stare at every living thing from the nooks and crannies of our habitats continually recording every movement. And still we are not secure. Moreover, no amount of money, protection systems, medical effort, or bodyguards can protect us from the ultimate confrontation we each will individually face. For each one of us, you along with me, will one day stand face to face before Christ at the end of our earthly existence. Yet we live our lives awash in distractions, busily engaged in a whole lot that’s seemingly very important to

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Jewish sages wrote the Book of Genesis as a series of meditations on the origin of the universe and the genesis of humankind. A popular form of Jewish writing was employed setting forth very profound ideas in simple forms of storytelling. Everything happened, they told us, because a caring and loving Creator in the beginning willed it so. All that has happened comes from His personal love and inner drive to share Himself. All lovers know of that inner drive. God did not create anything by chance – everything is purpose made, especially man and woman who are created in God’s own image and likeness so that He can share Himself with them as He does with no other creatures. He breathed His life, Genesis tells us, only into man and woman, not into His other creatures. Note that the creation of man was prior to the creation of any other form of life. Into man God breathed His Spirit, His very life and love. Th

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) After we were born our parents found days and months of sheer delight as they cuddled us, held us, played with us, and watched us become little persons. Each boasted of the characteristics they saw in us that they were sure came from their own genes. In generous moments they gave attribution to the other parent or the other parent’s family. It was not long, however, that our parents had to begin dealing with something within us that I can only describe as “The Imperial Self.” We all had one, you know – and still do! And what is amazing is how soon that Imperial Self asserts itself after we’ve been given life. The darling, lovable baby soon strives to become self-willed and demanding. In that emergence the words “I,” “me,” and “mine” become no longer descriptive, they become imperious. Our parents soon became more willing to break the wills of those little wild horses by trying to put bit and bridle on the

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) You just now heard an old Aramaic word: “Ephphatha.” It means, “be opened” and was used by our Blessed Lord, the Son of God, as a divine command. He was, of course, dealing with a deaf man who lived in a city name Tyre located in what we know of today as southern Lebanon. Immediately prior to this event Jesus had driven out an evil spirit from the daughter of a Phoenician woman. They lived in a nearby city called Tyre. Jesus delivered this man from the bondage of deafness. In the bible passage immediately before this one Jesus had delivered a little girl from some sort of evil spirit that had taken over her inner soul. Both the man and the girl had been blocked from experiencing the goodness life in which God intends for us to live. Ephphatha – be opened. Are we open or are we closed? Ephphatha — be open to what life offers you. If you are living all closed up and apart from the goodness that surrounds yo

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) HEAR O ISRAEL, THE LORD IS OUR GOD, THE LORD ALONE! This cry struck a deep chord in the true sons and daughters of Israel. Throughout their long and turbulent history this cry always forced the Jewish people back to a consciousness of their origins and their national purpose. This was the cry of Moses when God first formed the Israelites into a nation. It is the First Commandment… the re-forming commandment when every restoration of Judaism was needed. There came a time when ideas and concepts about God and about who He was were attempted to be concretized. All such attempts, both long ago, and even now, fail. They fail because God is free to be who He is in His mystery and cannot be restricted by our human and limited conceptualizations. For instance, there came a time when the Jewish people saw God as exclusively identified with the Promised Land, with the land flowing with milk and honey. Only th

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Who’s in, and who’s out? That’s a question that cuts through so many areas in our lives these days especially in this political season. Here are a few for instance: What do the opinion polls tell us about the standings of those who are running for the presidency of the United States? Who’s in, and who’s out? How should we treat undocumented aliens? What benefits of U.S. citizenship should they enjoy, and what should they not be entitled to in our legal system and governmental social service programs? Who’s in, and who’s out? Which student applicants should be admitted and which should not be admitted to our public universities and what criteria should be applied to them? Some Catholics are busily concerned with “Who is a real Catholic and who is not?” Some Fundamentalist Christians are busily concerned with “Who is going to hell and who’s going to be saved?” Who’s “in” and who’s “out”? We he