BIG C CATHOLICS

Memorial - August 21st St, Pius X did great things for the Church during his relatively brief pontificate — he was pope from 1903 until 1914. He is perhaps best remembered as the "pope of the Eucharist," because he transformed the way ordinary Catholics regarded reception of Holy Communion. Among the modifications he introduced included lowering the age at which children received their first Communion to seven, the "age of reason." He believed that earlier reception of the Eucharist would lead to an earlier and deepened devotion to Jesus Christ in the most Blessed Sacrament. He was born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto on June 2, 1835, in the village of Riese near Venice, Italy, the second of ten children to a poor postman and his wife. He was baptized the following day. Though exceedingly poor, his devout parents valued education. At every stage of study, Giuseppe's intelligence and high moral character attracted notice. On September 18, 1858, Father Sarto wa

August 20, 2017 Saint Monica endured a troubled marriage for many years. Through her suffering and prayer, she eventually converted her husband. Today let us pray for troubled marriages and for spouses who have no faith or have fallen away from the faith. St. Monica Novena - Day 3 Dear Saint Monica, you were once the mournful mother of a prodigal son. Your faithfulness to prayer brought you and your son so close to God that you are now with him in eternity. By your intercession and God’s grace, your son St. Augustine became a great and venerable Saint of the Church. Please take my request to God with the same fervor and persistence with which you prayed for your son. (Mention your intentions here) With your needs, worries and anxieties, you threw yourself on the mercy and providence of God. Through sorrow and pain, you constantly devoted yourself to God. Pray for me that I might join you in such a deep faith in God’s goodness and mercy. Above all, dear Saint Monica, pr

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Today’s Gospel account contains one of the most memorable verbal duels recorded in the four Gospels, and one of the most important. We need to draw some golden nuggets out of this wonderful passage. First of all, it is important to note that Jesus is speaking here to a woman, something rabbis back in those days did not do in public. Not only that, but she was a foreigner, a Canaanite woman from the area that these days we call Lebanon. The Jews and the Canaanites did not get along well at all. Like the Magi, those wise men from the East that we find at Christ’s birth, this non-Jew presents herself to Jesus and addresses Him as “Son of David” as she begs His help for her daughter who is possessed by some mysterious inner demonic force. In this account, there are three movements. The first involves Canaanite woman’s journey of faith. Leaving her own religion behind she turns to a Jewish rabbi, Jesu

Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. [T]here is nothing cute about the exchange between Jesus and the Canaanite woman in this Gospel. I once read an author, bent on finding humor in the Bible, who claimed that this was just a friendly little repartee, what Webster’s Dictionary describes as “amusing and usually light sparring with words.”  I couldn’t disagree more. The scene presented here by Matthew is no game of wits! Let me digress briefly with a little trip down memory lane: [Click on this link:] Kyrie eleison from the Missa de Angelis The point isn’t the music, the Gregorian chant or any other classic settings. The point isn’t the Latin Mass vs. English. It isn’t even that “ Kyrie eleison ” isn’t Latin at all, but Greek. What is the point? It’s that we find those very same Greek words in today’s Gospel, and the point is especially what they mean. The woman says “ Eleison me kyrie .” This is translated in the Lectionary as “Have pity on me, Lord,” but it means equally well, “Ha

The Office of Readings has this excerpt from a treatise by St. John Eudes on the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus: "You belong to the Son of God, but more than that, you ought to be in him as the members are in the head. All that is in you must be incorporated into him. You must receive life from him and be ruled by him. There will be no true life for you except in him, for he is the one source of true life. Apart from him you will find only death and destruction. Let him be the only source of your movements, of the actions and the strength of your life. He must be both the source and the purpose of your life, so that you may fulfil these words: None of us lives as his own master and none of us dies as his own master. While we live, we are responsible to the Lord, and when we die, we die as his servants. Both in life and death we are the Lord’s. That is why Christ died and came to life again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living."  — St. John Eudes

August 19, 2017 Saint Monica is the patron of mothers and wives. The vocation of motherhood (and fatherhood) is extremely important for our society and in the eyes of God. St. Monica prayed diligently for her children for years on end. May she intercede especially for the children and grandchildren in our lives. Today, let us pray that all mothers and fathers be good and holy examples of love for their children. St. Monica Novena - Day 2 Dear Saint Monica, you were once the mournful mother of a prodigal son. Your faithfulness to prayer brought you and your son so close to God that you are now with him in eternity. By your intercession and God’s grace, your son St. Augustine became a great and venerable Saint of the Church. Please take my request to God with the same fervor and persistence with which you prayed for your son. (Mention your intentions here) With your needs, worries and anxieties, you threw yourself on the mercy and providence of God. Through sorrow and pain

Saint John Eudes, was a 17th century missionary priest who spread devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary throughout his native France and beyond. Known for his prayerful piety and deeply inspiring homiletics, he founded the Society of Jesus and Mary (Eudists) to preach parish missions, direct seminaries, and conduct retreats for the clergy. The quotations below evidence his great love for the wisdom and eternal beneficence of God. A Christian has a union with Jesus Christ more noble, more intimate and more perfect than the members of a human body have with their head. *** Faith is a beam radiating from the face of God. *** A man is no true Christian if he has no devotion to the Mother of Jesus Christ. *** Every Saint belongs to the court of the Queen of All Saints. *** No one who shall invoke this Mother of Grace with devotion and perseverance can possibly perish forever. *** The crosses with which our path through life is strew