BIG C CATHOLICS

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Imagine you are back in your parents’ home where you lived as a youngster and that you are exploring its attic filled with the many items collected from your family’s past history. Imagine yourself coming upon your grandmother’s trunk and how much you really want to discover what’s in it. To open it, however, you need to find a key. The same is true with sacred scripture… you need keys in order to open up its various passages. We need a key to open up what is hidden in the suffering, death, resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus Christ to the to the right hand of the Father in heaven. For today’s scripture the key is found in understanding that there is chronos time and there is kairos time. Chronos time is linear and quantitative. It is human time; we humans measure things by it. Kairos time is God’s time. Scripture tells us “in the fullness of time God sent His only-begotten Son into our world.” Nor...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) One of my favorite passages in all of Sacred Scripture is contained in today’s Gospel account wherein we find Jesus saying, “I no longer call you slaves, I call you friends.” Jesus is saying something very beautiful in those words, something really wonderful about the humility of God, making us His friends. Some people prefer a God who is a sort of benevolent Emperor, a sort of plantation owner who provides for us as one would provide for his slaves. Other people want a God who gives clear laws, rules and regulations, one who sets our boundaries for us. Under such a God there are no hard decisions to make; no real thought given to the most creative responses we can make in any given situation. Under such a God, all one need do is simply follow the rules. Nevertheless, God continues to insist: “I no longer call you slaves, I call you friends.” That puts burdens on us. We have to figure out how to fully re...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) God has created us in His own image and likeness in order that we might share His care and love with others, particularly with those who, because of Jesus Christ, are no longer strangers to us, no longer our competitors. Christ’s love is not exclusive, it is inclusive. Do we, Christ’s followers, exclude others from our care and concern? Who did Jesus exclude? Who do we exclude? The root meaning of the word “religion” is this: “to bond together”, “to re-ligament” that which has been fractured, dislocated, and broken apart. To share Christ’s love means we should join Him in bringing us all back into a holistic union with each other, a holistic union with all of nature, with the world’s natural resources, with our world, and with God Himself. The work of religion goes way beyond our own private, personal and individualistic relationship with God. The work of religion and our response to God’s call moves us ...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) It appears to me that in today’s gospel account Jesus isn’t talking about sheep. He isn’t suggesting that we are a bunch of totally dependent dumb sheep who don’t know where they are going or how to get there. He isn’t demeaning us or disrespecting us evening though in some aspects we do need God’s tender loving mercy and care. I know I do! No, I think rather He is calling us to care for those who in the great scheme of things are placed in our charge. He is calling us to have attitudes like those found in Him, the Good Shepherd of our souls. Anyone who is in charge of others is called by God to care for those placed in their charge. Who are they? They are parents and grandparents; they are teachers, doctors, nurses, lawyers, priests, ministers, and mentors. Are you responsible in any way for the well-being of others? If you are, Jesus is calling you to shepherd them as He shepherds us. Care? What ki...

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...