BIG C CATHOLICS

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Most people that we know are carrying heavy burdens these days. Anxieties and fears burden us all, fears about our economy, the cost of food and fuel, home values and mortgages, what’s happening to our children, terrorism, our national debt, and so on. The list seems both overwhelming and endless. People are trying to stretch out paychecks, paychecks that never seem to go quite far enough. They are working on stressed marriage relationships they fear are breaking up. They’re unemployed or they’re under-employed and are looking for a better job that will give them a reliable and adequate source of income. Others are waiting for biopsy reports on certain abnormal cells that are growing in their bodies, filled with fear that they may have cancer. Or they’re trying to provide for and shape the characters of their children, children that are so influenced by all that is immoral and degrading in our culture. ...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) When I was a little boy and went to my catechism lessons the nuns, our teachers, used the famous Baltimore Catechism for their teaching guide. Many times, they required us to memorize parts of the Baltimore Catechism and today I want to begin with its first section in which the question was asked: “Why did God make you?” The answer we memorized was: “God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in heaven.” Later on we had to memorize the Ten Commandments, and the first one was: “I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not have strange gods before me. In the Old Testament’s Book of Exodus, we find God speaking to Moses about the covenant between God and His people. God tells the Hebrews: “You shall not worship any other god, for the LORD is the Jealous One; a jealous God is he.” (Exodus 34:14) In the New Testament’s Book of Acts we learn of St. Pau...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Sparrows are the most common and the most plentiful of all birds. This being so, they are not valued very highly at all. If as a species they were becoming extinct you can safely bet, however, that committees and campaigns would spring up to save them. But what about human life? There are over eight billion human beings alive on this earth today. In this century, more than in any other century in human history, human life is less and less valued. Paradoxically, our contemporary society is committed to individual rights, to individual expression and personal choice, to the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, and the sexual revolution as no other generation in human history. But what about commitment to the right to life? Perversely and paradoxically, the people of this century are given to abortion and euthanasia as never before. Human life is disposable on a scale never before known to man...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) At the sight of the crowds, as we heard moments ago, Jesus was moved with pity; He had compassion for the crowd of humanity in front of Him. They were lying prostrate with exhaustion. Jesus of course saw that they were not just physically exhausted. More importantly He saw they were spiritually flattened and empty. Lost and leaderless, they were like sheep without a shepherd not knowing where to find what they needed to sustain them in the life of God’s Spirit. Our spiritual world is much the same as theirs. Even though science and technology along with our transportation and communications industries have moved us much closer together in what we’ve come to call “The Global Village”, we are as divided and fragmented as ever… as lonely and as isolated as generations of humans who have lived before us. Our fragmented and divided world, our violent inhumanity toward or fellow humans, is the constant report...

June 11th While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, "Take and eat; this is my body." Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins." — Matthew 26:26-28 O God, who in this wonderful Sacrament have left us a memorial of your Passion, grant us, we pray, so to revere the sacred mysteries of your Body and Blood that we may always experience in ourselves the fruits of your redemption. Who live and reign with God the Father and with the Holy Spirit, one God, forever. Amen. ______________________________________________________ Today's celebration of the Body and Blood of the Lord originated in the Diocese of Liege in 1246 as the feast of Corpus Christi. In the reforms of Vatican II, Corpus Christi was joined with the feast of the Precious ...

Plenary indulgences are available to the faithful on the Feast of Corpus Christi. An indulgence remits one's temporal punishment in purgatory due to our sins. It may be either partial or plenary. It is partial if it pardons part of the temporal punishment due to sin, and plenary if it pardons all punishment. Only one plenary indulgence per day can be earned. The following acts will merit a plenary indulgence, should the conditions for a plenary indulgence be met. (See below.) Down in adoration falling ( Tantum ergo ) Down in adoration falling, Lo! the sacred Host we hail; Lo! o'er ancient forms departing, Newer rites of grace prevail; Faith for all defects supplying, Where the feeble senses fail. To the everlasting Father, And the Son who reigns on high, With the Holy Spirit proceeding Forth from each eternally, Be salvation, honor, blessing, Might and endless majesty. Amen. V. You have given them bread from heaven, R. Having all sweetness within it. Let u...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) All of us gathered here have approach Holy Mass (and indeed the Church and all of her Sacraments) in different ways. Hopefully we are here with the same agenda and the same expectations, but to be realistic we are here with differing views as to what we are doing. Each of us came into church moments ago bearing our own personal histories, both near term and long term, carrying our own burdens of personal problems, hungering and thirsting in our own personal wants and needs. We are all here with multiple expectations. Many of us arrived here with overburdened, complex lives filled with intractable problems, simply seeking the comfort and peace of Christ. Many of us hunger for the humble little flock, and want to experience the close and intimate family of faith, seeking out the faces of friends whom they know, feel close to, and whom they admire and love. All of us hunger for closeness with others and...