BIG C CATHOLICS

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Last Sunday’s Gospel account was about the disciples who were locked up in the Upper Room out of fear and Jesus’ appearance among them. Today’s Gospel account is about other disciples dejectedly walking from Jerusalem to a nearby hamlet called Emmaus and Jesus’ appearance among them also. It is curious to me is that in today’s account the important point revolves around recognition of Jesus. Here we find this group of disciples at first failing to recognize Jesus and in the end, they recognize Him. What happened? Why did they at first think He was a stranger and later come to realize who He really was? What seems to be controlling deals with the question of how we see people. Obviously, we’re not talking here about simply seeing with our eyes, we’re talking, rather, about seeing with our hearts. We’re dealing with seeing at deeper levels of knowing and understanding. That’s something we all know abou...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) We just heard Jesus declaring to His apostles: Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” After saying this he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit; for those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained.” The importance of the work of the Holy Spirit needs to be seen. St. John in his gospel account tells us that as He expired Jesus “handed over His spirit.” What, then, of the Holy Spirit and Jesus? It was by the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. In the eighth chapter of St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans we hear St. Paul telling us: But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells within in you. It needs to be seen that God our Father in heaven sent...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Christ walks ahead of us into the mystery of evil. He knows suffering. All who suffer now have Him with us. Without giving us answers to why there is evil in the first place we are instead led by Jesus Christ to deal with suffering and death head on. The ultimate mystery is that sin has taken us all into rejection of God. It is prideful human rejection of God that is the root cause of all human suffering, separation from the source of our happiness, namely our turning away from the happiness of union with God. All of us have sinned; all of us are accomplices in bringing evil and the suffering that results in our world that results from it. How, then, are we to deal with it? Can we deal with it apart from Christ? The events of Holy Week give us answers. The voice in today’s first reading is the voice of the Old Testament’s Suffering Servant, the one who personifies not only the eventual Messiah but also...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) In Act 1, scene 4 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet we find Hamlet declaring: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” William Shakespeare writing in the late 16th Century had in inkling that moved him to bring us thoughts of realms beyond the world we live in. We are limited… our vision, our intelligence, and our beliefs about reality are limited. Can we definitively claim that there is no reality beyond that which we can see? In Celtic Britain and Ireland spiritual people spoke of Thin places, places, and times where the veil between this world and the world of reality beyond us is thin. When we find ourselves in such thin places, we sense the two worlds overlapping and bleeding into each other. Some recent novels have been written about such places, such overlapping encounters with a reality beyond what we can see and experience. Scientists and astrophysicis...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) When you encounter paradox, you’re close to the heart of the Gospel, a message in which we are presented with two statements that seemingly contradict each other. So here, today, we find Jesus speaking about His cross, His path to glory through humiliation, life through death, good through evil. Nothing in human history is so totally paradoxical as the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. About to be displayed in degradation, He speaks of His glory being revealed. In Roman times a crucifixion was supposed to be a public spectacle. Yet it is at the same time a personal matter for you and for me. Your salvation and mine are found in it. Yes, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on Calvary was a spectacular event. The characters were momentous. Rome was there in her imperial power. One of the world’s great religions was there in an hour of critical decision. Yet it is also true that this historical and monumental sp...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) When people are enduring great difficulties along with emotional and spiritual crises of various sorts you may have heard them say: “I’ve tried everything. Now the only thing left to do is to pray.” It’s as if praying is something to be done only as a last resort in times of trouble. Then, when all else has failed and we sense impending failure we, in desperation, turn to God and ask Him for a miracle. At first we try to solve problems on our own using our own judgments and powers. Some of our methods don’t make much sense at all. Some of our methods are harsh and mean-spirited. Some inflict pain on others while other methods only bring more pain down upon us. Smashing things on the floor doesn’t work. Giving the cold shoulder and the silent treatment doesn’t solve family disputes. Calling others names and refusing to negotiate is on display in the present crises in Washington. It’s childish. How many times h...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) We are all quite conscious of the fact that only one of the cured lepers returned to give thanks to Jesus. And we are conscious, too, that the one returning was a Samaritan, one of those people despised by the pious and orthodox Jews of Jesus’s time. But have we given any thought at all to what happened to the other nine? Well, what DID happen to them? Did their families receive them back into their homes or was there a lingering fear that they were still diseased and so they faced a frosty and unwelcome return home? Did their children recognize them? Did those who were cured experience greater devotion to God? Were they more consciously religious in how they lived their lives? Did any of them become followers of Christ and join the early Christians of their day? We don’t know the answers to these questions. But we can have answers to a question I want to put to you now. My question is: What are the effe...