BIG C CATHOLICS

January 23, 2017 Day 8 – Pray that this sickness will teach me to depend more and more on God. Saint Peregrine is the patron saint of cancer patients. He was known for his holiness and for a miraculous healing he received. Peregrine was scheduled to have his leg amputated due to a cancerous growth. The night before the surgery, while praying for healing, he received a vision of Christ coming down from the cross to touch his leg. The following morning, he was completely healed. Cancer patients and those suffering from terminal diseases seek his intercession. Dear holy servant of God, St. Peregrine, we pray today for healing. Intercede for us! God healed you of cancer and others were healed by your prayers. Please pray for the physical healing of… (Mention your intentions) These intentions bring us to our knees seeking your intercession for healing. We are humbled by our physical limitations and ailments. We are so weak and so powerless. We are completely dependent...

The Sermon on the Mount, Cosimo Rosselli, Sistine Chapel, 1481-1482.  Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) A critic once challenged me by declaring that my homilies were preaching a message of failure to a bunch of losers. He was suggesting that the Good News of Jesus Christ is directed at losers, not at winners. Today’s Gospel account in which we find Jesus giving us the Beatitudes provides us with a good background to take a look at winners and losers. As in so many things, a lot depends upon your viewpoint, the angle from which you are looking at things. St. Paul puts that issue into sharp perspective in today’s second reading which was taken from his letter written to very cosmopolitan and sophisticated Greeks living in Corinth: Consider your own calling, brothers and sisters,” writes St. Paul, “Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the fo...

Saint Marianne Cope of Molokaʻi's feast day is January 23rd. Although St. Damien De Veuster has rightly been called the "Apostle to the Lepers" in Hawaii, he would be the first to acknowledge the invaluable help of a most kind, but seemingly unstoppable Sister of St. Francis named Mother Marianne Cope. It was she who, in the last years of the dying priest’s life, not only remained his friend, but assured him that the work he had begun for the lepers of Hawaii would continue long after his death. Mother Marianne was born to Peter and Barbara Cope in Hessen-Darmstadt, Germany, in 1838. She emigrated with her parents to the United States two years later, where they would eventually settle in Utica, N.Y. Although she knew at an early age that she had a vocation to the religious life, Barbara delayed entering the convent because she was needed at home; her father had become an invalid, and in order to support her parents and siblings, she went to work in a nearby factory ...

Christ Calling The Apostles James And John , Edward Armitage, 1869. Fr. Thomas J. Lane S.T.D. Associate Professor of Sacred Scripture Mt. St. Mary's Seminary Emmitsburg, MD  Fr. Lane's website ( Click here for today’s readings ) "Come after Me" - Call of the Disciples When Jesus called Peter, Andrew, James and John they were not called to be like the disciples of Jewish rabbis (Matt 4:18-22). The disciples of Jewish rabbis were not called to “follow” their rabbi. The disciples of a rabbi would not speak of following their rabbi, instead they would have spoken of learning the Torah. A rabbi would not even have called his disciples, it was the disciples themselves who chose their rabbi, not the rabbi who chose them. But Jesus called his disciples, and called them to spend time with him. The call was firstly to enter into friendship with Jesus. We could say that the disciples of a rabbi studied the Torah but the disciples of Jesus studied Jesu...

(Note: Due to January 22nd falling on a Sunday this year, the designated observance for the 2017  Day Of Prayer for the Protection Of the Unborn is Monday, January 23rd.) A great prayer for life is urgently needed, a prayer which will rise up throughout the world. Through special initiatives and in daily prayer, may an impassioned plea rise to God, the Creator and lover of life, from every Christian community, from every group and association, from every family and from the heart of every believer. — St. John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae , no. 100 The General Instruction of the Roman Missal designates January 22 as a particular day of prayer and penance, called the "Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children”: “In all the Dioceses of the United States of America, January 22 (or January 23, when January 22 falls on a Sunday) shall be observed as a particular day of prayer for the full restoration of the legal guarantee of the right to life and of penance ...

January 21, 2017 While legislation and public witness are important to end abortion, our most powerful weapon is prayer. From the Priests for Life website: The Catholic bishops of the United States have designated January 22 as a special day of prayer and penance in reparation for the massive killing that has resulted from the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision [handed down January 22, 1973] which permitted abortion throughout a woman's pregnancy. We at Priests for Life invite you to prepare spiritually for that day by joining a Novena that starts on January 14 and concludes on the 22nd . We invite you to say the following prayer each of those days, and to let us know [see end of post] that you have committed to say it. Prayer of Reparation [ Click here for Spanish – En Español ] God and Father of Life, You have created every human person, And have opened the way for each to have eternal life.  We live in the shadow of death. Tens of millions of...

January 22, 2017 Day 7 – Pray that in our pain we will not become selfish but ever more selfless. Saint Peregrine is the patron saint of cancer patients. He was known for his holiness and for a miraculous healing he received. Peregrine was scheduled to have his leg amputated due to a cancerous growth. The night before the surgery, while praying for healing, he received a vision of Christ coming down from the cross to touch his leg. The following morning, he was completely healed. Cancer patients and those suffering from terminal diseases seek his intercession. Dear holy servant of God, St. Peregrine, we pray today for healing. Intercede for us! God healed you of cancer and others were healed by your prayers. Please pray for the physical healing of… (Mention your intentions) These intentions bring us to our knees seeking your intercession for healing. We are humbled by our physical limitations and ailments. We are so weak and so powerless. We are completely depend...