BIG C CATHOLICS

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 ) Over the past few decades, we’ve all become increasingly concerned with preserving and protecting the natural environment in which we live and upon which we must survive. Ecology has entered our vocabulary. We know now about rain forests, the ozone layer, global warming, and the toxic effluents generated by our means of production. Pollution is a terrible reality. We know, too, about our terrible rate of consumption of the world’s natural resources. A lot of evils and human suffering result from the way we live not only here in America but in other parts of the world as well. There is another problem equally as serious to which we’re giving some attention these days… that’s the toxic presence of moral pollution that’s pervasive in our culture and that’s threatening the future lives of our children and grandchildren. Living in a clean world involves more than simply what we’re doing to the material creati

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Today’s readings prompt me to share some thoughts with you about choices, decisions, and commitments. Each and every day we consider choices presented to us, and then make our decisions. There comes a moment when our consideration ends and we raise a choice to the level of our wills, and thereby make it a freely chosen decision. A decision can be of a short-term sort, or one intended to last over a long period of time, perhaps a lifetime decision carrying a permanent quality – a “forever” decision. Some of those permanent decisions are raised to the level of vows. They are given and placed in the hands of God; they are made and given in God’s presence, power, and love. Being human we all suffer from a weakness imbedded deep within us, namely the original sin depicted in the story of our first parents, Adam and Eve. Their resolve was weakened, their choices and decisions were corrupted, their willpower

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) When you love someone, you want to be a part of the life of the one you love. Love seeks union, a union of heart, mind, soul, and life with your beloved. You want to belong. So much of life, perhaps all of life, is about belonging, the belonging that takes us to family reunions, weddings, anniversaries, and all those other special moments when once again we experience and share in each other’s lives. Texting, twittering, e-mailing, cell phone chatting, and all manner of other modern methods of being a part of the lives of others now abound. But they do not bring real belonging. That impetus to belong is ancient, as old as humankind. We hear those ancient echoes in today’s first reading: Wisdom has built her house, she has set up her seven columns; she has dressed her meat, mixed her wine, yes, she has spread her table. She has sent out her maidens; she calls from the heights out over the city:” Let w

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Recently I received an e-mail telling me about cactus plants, a topic that had not in the past provoked much interest on my part. After all, I pictured them to be gawkish and unattractive, although I have seen some cacti that appeared to have surrealistic heads and arms resembling human forms that exercised my imagination. Nevertheless, I read on. Pictures came as attachments to that e-mail, and when I opened them up and viewed those pictures, I was delighted to find that cacti produce stunningly beautiful blossoms, all of which brought me to reassess my judgments about cactus plants. Evidently there was a whole lot more to them than I thought. My “know-it-all” previous judgments about cacti completely blocked me from seeing the beauty that lay hidden within them. That lesson can be applied to the way we see people, especially people about whom we have a “know-it-all” attitude. All of us are familiar

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) At many points in our lives, we all must face and deal with change, change that requires us to abandon old familiar patterns in which we live and move into new and unfamiliar ways of living. We seem at times to want change and when it occurs, we don’t like it, don’t want it. President Obama promised us change and we find ourselves now in the midst of changes. The collapse of our banking institutions has brought with it changes that are causing us a whole lot of stress. Obviously, our former spending based on credit is undergoing enormous change giving us new patterns of spending and habits of saving money. Fear, loss, anxiety, worry abound within us and around us as we face the joblessness that is on the rise. In times of change our emotions must cope with fear of the unknown. The loss of our sense of security forces us to muster up the courage and strength to enter into what changes bring to us in the

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) What is the worst four-letter word your child can use? Well, I can imagine some of the words that must have come to your minds. Let me now suggest that the worst four-letter word your child can use is the word can’t. The child who believes he can’t do math will likely not be able to be skilled in mathematics. The child who thinks she can’t compete in sports will likely not try. Both will miss out on the pleasures of success they might otherwise enjoy. Other four-letter words are vulgar and obscene; “can’t” is a deadly word… it deadens one’s spirit. If we tell ourselves that something is impossible then we will in practical effect make it impossible. If we tell ourselves we are unattractive, ugly and unlovable … well, that’s the way we will act and in doing so make ourselves unattractive to others. If we face life’s tasks with a predisposing despair, we will never be able to stop smoking, lose weight, ov