BIG C CATHOLICS

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) The gospel account we’ve just heard is part of St. Mark’s introduction of Jesus. It has to do with Jesus’ identity, as have the gospel accounts over the past few Sundays. From the Sunday we celebrated the Baptism of the Lord through the Sunday before Ash Wednesday St. Mark is presenting us with the question: “Who is this Jesus?” Mark’s answer? “The One who has come to bring outcasts back in.” He has come for the outcasts, the outsiders, the lepers, the sinners, and those we disdain. The great irony is that Jesus, the One who came for outcasts, Himself had to get out of town. Note that in several of these gospel accounts we’ve heard, St. Mark reports: “Jesus could no longer go openly into any town but had to stay outside in places where nobody lived.” That’s true even today in our surrounding culture. It is not politically correct, we are told, to talk about Jesus in public. He has to be kept from where...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) My life is nothing but drudgery; I am filled with sadness, tired of dealing with the mess other people have made of this world. Life is an unbearable burden. Will it ever end? Is there a God out there who cares what happens to us, or are we helpless pawns on some cosmic chessboard, only accidentally born? If God is so good, why does He allow us to experience pain, loss, terrible depression, and various disasters? Answering the question “why?” gets us into a long philosophical and theological discussion. Suffice it here to say that God has chosen to put us into an incomplete world, living in our own personal incomplete lives. But by His grace we have the enormous dignity to be His co-operators, to work with Him while investing our own love and determination into the task of bringing ourselves and our world into completion and wholeness. This is a great gift – an act of faith that God has made in us...

Fr. Charles Irvin  Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings )  Two words in the Gospel account you just heard captured my attention… “astonished” and “amazed.” St. Mark reports that the people in Capernaum’s synagogue were astonished at Jesus’ teaching and all were amazed. So the question arises: Why? Why were they so astonished and amazed? After all they thought Jesus was a rabbi, someone who speaks God’s word, and they were, after all, in a synagogue, a place where one would expect to be hearing about what God had to say. So why were they so astonished and amazed? First of all we need to notice that this event occurred at the very beginning of Our Blessed Lord’s public ministry. St. Mark reports this event in the first chapter, twenty-first verse of his Gospel account. Jesus has just finished gathering His twelve apostles and was now “going public,” so to speak. Jesus had not as yet performed His dazzling miracles. He had not as yet cured the blind, hea...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Nineveh was the oldest and most populous city of the ancient Assyrian Empire. Its ruins are located on the east bank of the Tigris River opposite the modern city of Mosul in Iraq. The Ninevites were a great empire known for their ruthlessness. They were the sworn enemies of the Jews. Each despised the other and yet Jonah, a Jew, was sent by God to them. The Ninevites were going to end the Israelite civilization in a few years, but it was to them that God sent Jonah. Jonah definitely did not want to go to them, but God made sure that he did in spite of Jonah’s efforts to avoid the task to which God had called him. After the episode with the whale Jonah finally ended up on their shore. He went to them, and they repented of their evil ways. They acted immediately on God’s word. Jonah was there only one day in what was to be a three-day journey. That’s the key idea. On hearing God’s word proclaimed to th...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Here we are at the beginning of a new year with high hopes that this year will be better than 2011. We have our hopes even though we know that there is much in our world that is wrong. Without going into a long, dismal list of the many things that are wrong let me point out just a few of them. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening, not closing. Political corruption and the politics of gridlock darken our perceptions of those we have elected to office. Terrorism and abortion along with Mexican drug cartel murders cause us to realize that human life is cheap and is too often regarded as disposable. We face much that is sinful, evil, and criminal in our world. All of these things we know quite well are exceptions to the way things ought to be; they are out of the general order of what should present in our relations with others. How do we know that? What gives us this perspective and recognition...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) In today’s scripture passages the language is epic, the imagery apocalyptic, the action dramatic. There is ominous danger from a tyrannical and insanely jealous king, a king who mercilessly slaughters innocent babies. There are worldly rulers of great power, wisdom, and wealth, on a quest. There is a great escape, a long journey into the land of the pyramids, that land wherein the waters of the great river Nile push back the boundaries of the death-dealing desert in order that humans might live. The hero-child, the God-Man baby, is saved in order to grow in wisdom, strength, and knowledge so that He may push back the boundaries of arid human living, and even death itself, that we might live in eternal life. Light struggles against darkness. Discovery follows wandering and searching. Truth vanquishes deception. Good prevails over evil. A heavenly guiding star shines in night’s darkness, a darkness that d...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Today we continue our Christmas celebration with a consideration of the Holy Family. This feast has the same first two readings every year but one of three different Gospels. The first reading is always the reading from Sirach about the honor that children should extend to their parents. The second reading is always the reading from Colossians about respecting each other’s position within the family. It is not a divine decree that women should be subordinated to men any more than was St. Paul’s admonition to slaves to be faithful to their masters is a divine endorsement of slavery. In today’s Gospel Mary and Joseph present Jesus in Jerusalem’s Temple in fulfillment of their religious tradition. You parents can remember when your children were infants. You couldn’t wait to show them off to family and friends. You probably had a big celebration on that very special day when you went to your parish church a...