My Dear Ordinary Brothers and Sisters,
This week we begin the Second week of Ordinary time. Funny enough, there is never a First Sunday of Ordinary time because this season always begins on the Monday after the celebration of the Baptism of the Lord. So, we must call that week the First week of Ordinary time and, therefore, by the time we get to the first Sunday celebrated in Ordinary time, it’s already the second Sunday!
Note that I called Ordinary time a “season” just like the season of Advent or Christmas or the Lenten or Easter. That’s because our liturgical calendar is meant to reflect the rhythm of life. There are big events in all our lives: births, baptisms, and marriages, and all kinds of celebrations. Of course, there are some not so good big events too, like major illnesses, tragedies, and eventually our own death, not to mention, our resurrection!
But it seems like most of life is just ordinary. That is why most of the liturgical year is Ordinary time. But what does ordinary mean in this context? Well, it comes from the word Ordinalis, which means ‘numbered’ or ‘ruled’ or, as I think best conveys its meaning for us, ‘ordered!’ This reflects that, though most of life may seem mundane and plain, nevertheless, all things in life have an ordered purpose. They are meant to be moving us along a sure path ever closer to our completion as mature images of Christ in the world, in other words, true disciples of Jesus.
If sports teams won major championships every day, then those championships would quickly lose their value and become plain and mundane. Rather, teams must learn to accomplish, each day, more and more little things if they are ever going to compete for major championships, let alone see the value of being a champion.
Jesus is always working to accomplish something more in each of us daily. He knows our nature and how it takes lots of time to accomplish good patterns, which we call virtues. Christmas and Easter and other major Feasts and Solemnities in our Church year will never mean as much if we are not working daily on our spiritual life in “order” to fully appreciate such special events.
We have entered the season of ordering our lives and so let me leave you with a little Wisdom of God found in the Book of Sirach that may help to tie this all up: “Stand by your covenant and attend to it and grow old in your work...trust in the Lord and keep at your toil; for it is easy in the sight of the Lord to enrich a poor man quickly and suddenly. The blessing of the Lord is the reward of the godly, and quickly God causes his blessing to flourish.” (Sir 11:20-22)
A Merry and Blessed Ordinary time to all,
Fr. John
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
If you didn’t catch it in Faith Magazine yet, I have news for you! We are going to be part of the pilot phase for the Realignment of Resources for Mission (RRM) along with our sister parishes of Immaculate Conception in Milan and St. Mary in Manchester. And as I was afraid might happen, Bishop Boyea has asked me to be the moderator of our
In Solidum (in solidarity) of parishes.
Like our Blessed Mother Mary had been when she first heard the greeting of the Angel Gabriel, I was troubled by what sort of thing Bishop Boyea was asking! However, what Mama Mary and I don’t have in common is fullness of grace!!!
So, I needed her help and she simply told me to repeat after her, “Be it done unto me according to your word.” I didn’t like that advice, but to drive home her point, she talked her Son Jesus into making it two of her parishes that we will be “in solidum” with (Immaculate Conception and St. Mary)! I had no means of getting out of it, save what seemed to me like denying our Mother’s choice, and I hope never to do that! So, here I am, a lowly son of the lowly handmaid of the Lord, having the title “moderator” being done unto me!
What does this all mean? Honestly, I don’t know yet. Mary didn’t know how her “yes” would ultimately play out, but she determined to be faithful no matter what that was to be.
What we do know is that this all starts in July.
We won’t be able to know much more than that until we first grow closer to our sister parishes and see what there is that we can do together to help Jesus and Mary in their mission in our parishes and in our communities. After talking with Fr. Vince and Fr. Bosco, pastors of Immaculate Conception and St. Mary, we are not going to change anything immediately or drastically. For the time being, it will mean simply discerning what type of cooperation can be most helpful for all three parishes. And NO, I am not a type of mini bishop (so don’t call me junior!). Each pastor remains pastor and the father of his own parish family. As I see my role, it will be facilitating a functional relationship with our sister parishes that assists the good of all.
We first need to grow in knowledge of each other as unique parish families and learn to appreciate our similarity in faith along with our differences in culture. It will be our task to learn about the different cultures that two parishes, just 20 minutes away, have developed over the years of their existence. St. Mary for instance, can trace her history back to 1839, and Immaculate Conception goes back to 1854! St. Andrew, on the other hand, only goes back to 1950, so we are kind of the teenager in this new little family of parishes.
Even though we don’t exactly know where we are going, one thing we can do is grow in knowing where we are from. That would be a good and fun start to our relationship. Where we go from there will be what we all discern together with the Holy Spirit. Prayer will guide us, and love will bind us. For now, let us accept God’s will together, so that we can enjoy the journey and have fun along the way making some new history together.
God bless you all,
Fr. John
For more information on the Realign Resources for Mission (RRM) initiative, visit www.dioceseoflansing.org/RRM
My Dear St. Andrew Family,
I want to thank all of you for your love, prayers, and support for me this Christmas. I especially want to thank the many who offered cards and gifts and well wishes in overwhelming abundance!
This was the most difficult Christmas that I have ever experienced in my entire life. Difficult because of all those who weren’t here to celebrate it with.
But as I opened your cards, I felt your love in great measure. This happened not only this Christmas but over the last 16 months of losses in my family while your outpouring of sympathy remained constant.
However, I must admit, there were moments of deep sadness during Christmas that almost overcame me. It was at those times that I purposefully chose to open your cards and the sadness always gave way to a peaceful and overwhelming joy.
As I said at Mass last week, you have been an Epiphany to me of Jesus’ love, just as you all seem to want to tell me that I am for you. This is how it should be as a family, and I have never felt so much a member of the family of St. Andrew as I do now.
May the Lord always give us enough strength on the journey to help carry each other. May he give us a hope that will bring peace into all the many lives that surround us. May we always be those on whom His favor rests. Merry Christmas, and a happy and blessed New Year to you, my family.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Christmas is the only time of year when practically everyone thinks of family. Many greatly anticipate the joy at being united again with loved ones. For others, getting together with family may bring a feeling of trepidation. For some, Christmas is bittersweet - a time of great celebration and joy, but also sprinkled with sadness and memories of loved ones who have passed.
Whatever the situation may be, Christmas is still, by God’s grace and design, a time that family takes up a prominent place in our hearts and minds - whether we experience this with joy, anxiety, sorrow, or some combination of all three.
What did the Son of God feel when he anticipated becoming part of the human family? Did he experience joy, angst, or sadness? Maybe for him, too, it was a combination of all three.
One thing we do know is that he is the only person to ever choose to become part of the human family. None of us chose to be in the human family before we were already a member, nor did we choose the individual human family that we were born into.
I may not have had the choice to become a member of the human family, nor to be brought into my immediate family. However, God had the choice, and he chose me. He also chose the souls he gave to me for my family.
Maybe Christmas for some of us can be a time to make a more convicted choice to accept God’s choices. After all, it was because of the firm choice of a young handmaiden in Nazareth to accept God’s choice that we and our families are together again at Christmas.
May we all be strengthened by the knowledge of Jesus’ choice, Mary’s choice, and everyone else’s choice here at St. Andrew Parish to be with us this Christmas. And may we evermore make the choice to stay with those who have chosen us.
I pray that each and every one of you experiences joy, comfort and peace this Christmas, and I am grateful to our entire St. Andrew Parish for shining the light of Christ into the community and the world.
St. Augustine tells us that a “Christian is a mind through which Christ thinks, a heart through which Christ loves, a voice through which Christ speaks, and a hand through which Christ helps.”
As we look around and out into the world, we do not have to search too far before we come face to face with inequity and injustice. There is so much unfairness, prejudice, anger, hatred, violence and want. The stories of human heartache, people being hurt, deprived of life’s necessities, loneliness, and sickness are far too commonplace. For many of the world’s ills, the vices of greed, lust, pride, gluttony and jealousy are clearly among the more significant root causes.
Why doesn’t God just step in and fix this mess? After all, God created this world, and one would hope that he would step up and take some measure of responsibility for it! Once we sit with this thinking for a while, we can begin to realize just how flawed it really is. God did take responsibility and God did fix the problem! God sent us Jesus Christ as the divine solution to the world’s ills. It is not God who has the shirked responsibility that we have. We are the ones who continually fail to set our own personal needs, wants and securities aside so that One more powerful than us can use us.
Mary had to set her needs aside in order for the Son of God to come into the world. Put simply, Mary listened and believed. Having opened herself to being an instrument of the Divine, God could use her as his mind, his heart, his voice and his hand. She became God’s vessel so that God’s greatness could reach the ends of the earth and peace could come upon the world. God’s fix for the world’s difficulties is you and me. We are the ones who confess that Jesus Christ came into this world as the Son of God,
the Prince of Peace, and the herald of justice. All we have to do is believe, as did Mary, that what has been spoken to us by the Lord will be fulfilled. Then, we can step aside and be the Christians we claim to be. What a difference it would make if every person who professed to be Christian truly understood that their one and only vocation is to be God’s instruments. What a beautiful, equitable, and just world it would be. Copyright LPi
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
We lost another good one and another valuable member of our parish staff and family last week in our beloved Kathleen Craig.
She is now the third in just over three years here at St. Andrew to have been called by Jesus away from us. My heart goes out to all of you, as we yet again mourn a beautiful person and a great office manager.
She will be sorely missed, and we will all need to be patient as we transition into the future of our office configuration. However, Katheen would be the first to tell us to “pull up our bootstraps and get to going.”
Yet, it is getting harder for many to understand why we are losing so many and being tested so much.
I don’t believe that it is ever wise to ask questions you can’t answer, so I suggest we don’t ask why. Yet, what can we gain from all this loss? Faith - that’s what we can gain; faith and trust in God. He knows what he is doing and there is something good we can gain in all of this.
Certainly, Jesus reminds us that death is the only way to the fulfillment of life. “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” (Jn 12:24)
I think we are being given a gift: to look death in the face and not be so afraid so of it anymore. As I said at Mass last week, if we can overcome our fear of death, there is no fear greater to overcome. And if we conquer it, at least a little more, we are a little freer to get to work on the good things that still can be accomplished, right here and now, as long as we are still here to do them. I think Kathleen, Fr. Francis, and Deacon Paul would all confirm this.
So, what are waiting for, and what are we afraid of? Jesus has led the way and he is very much still alive! Death will eventually come for us in this world, but it ain’t here for us yet. So, let’s get to work and leave behind a worthy example, like our dear sister Kathleen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
As you most likely are aware of by now, my brother, Donald, did pass to the Lord on Tuesday, November 23 with me at his side. I thank you all for the prayer that you offered for him and for me and our family over these past two months of his suffering. I can tell you that there was no wasted prayer.
Even a nurse was a bit taken aback when she said to me that this may not turn out the way I want it to. She thought my top priority was that Don would recover in this world. Though, that would have been nice had it been God’s will, I told her that “my top priority is that he gets to heaven.” She didn’t quite know how to take that as I am sure it is not the normal response.
Indeed, that was what Don and I worked on for those eight weeks. He was incoherent in that he couldn’t make any normal communication with me, but there were plenty of signs from him that he was engaged in this preparation for turning himself over to Jesus.
We had a beautiful two months praying together (he just listened) and reading spiritual books aloud for him and me to reflect upon. We began a Consecration to our Blessed Mother together that he, I pray, will complete with me on December 12. He, I pray, will be right there with our Blessed Mother while I will complete my consecration still continuing my preparation here on earth.
There were many moments that God made clear signs of his presence in the things that we read and prayed together. It helped me to realize more than ever that every day is preparation day for heaven. Time is too precious to waste on things that will never last and concerns that only distract us from our true goal. Rather, I now want to concentrate on using every moment I have left here in helping prepare the ones I love for readiness to go to heaven. In doing so I pray that I, too, will be abundantly prepared.
Brothers and Sisters,
This year on Tuesday, November 30, beginning at 6:00pm, we are going to be blessed to celebrate, with a little more gusto than usual, our Patron, St. Andrew, the First of the Apostles! We will do this with a Solemn Mass and a tasty dinner along with games and, most especially, enjoying each other’s company.
A little book called The Directory of Popular Piety and the Liturgy for use to help develop and maintain devotional practices in a parish, notes:
“A ‘Saint’s day’ also has an anthropological significance: it is a feast day. The feast also echoes vital human needs, and is deeply rooted in our longing for the transcendent. The feast, with its manifestations of joy and rejoicing, is an affirmation of the value of life and creation. The feast is also an expression of integral freedom and of the human tendency toward true happiness, as it interrupts the daily routine, formal conventions, and need to earn a living. As a cultural expression, the feast highlights the particular genius of the certain people and their cultural characteristics, and their true folk customs. As a social moment, the feast is an occasion to strengthen family relations and to make new contacts.” (DPPL, paragraph 232)
In reading this, I couldn’t help but think about how much this explanation of celebrating a feast is what St. Andrew did when he listened to St. John the Baptist, and then became one of the first to follow Jesus and then went and told his brother Peter who also left everything to follow the Lord. (Jn 1:35-42) Talk about an interruption of the daily routine! It was an interruption of a life routine.
This is what Jesus does in all of our lives; He interrupts. It may not always seem like the best thing at the time but it always, in the end, turns out to be just what we needed to save us from the threat of losing our way.
Let us, on this occasion, come together with St. Andrew to celebrate him as he invites us to be interrupted from our daily routine, in order to be brought closer to Jesus and each other.
Brothers and Sisters,
This past Thursday, November 11, we celebrated Veterans Day, honoring all those who have served our country in the military. Next weekend, November 20-21, our fellow parishioner, Bob Heskett, will once again set up a Military Chaplaincy display in Fr. Francis Mossholder Hall. This is in honor of all veterans, but most especially the chaplaincy corps that often set out into battle to save the souls of the men and women who were thrust into the one most difficult ordeals on earth – war. Two of these chaplains are both declared Servants of God; meaning they are in the first stage of becoming declared saints. The following details are mostly taken from Wikipedia:
Servant of God, Fr. Emil Kapaun, gained a reputation in the Korea War for bravely serving the troops, rescuing the wounded and dead, and ministering to the living by performing baptisms, hearing confessions, offering Holy Communion and celebrating Mass on an improvised altar set up on the front end of a Jeep. Several times his Mass kit Jeep and trailer were destroyed by enemy fire. When his battalion was being overrun by the opposing army, he willingly remained behind with a band of troops who could not get out. He was captured and sent to a POW camp. Kapaun refused to give in to despair and spent himself entirely for his men. He dug latrines, mediated disputes, gave away his food and raised morale among the prisoners. He also stood up to communist indoctrination, smuggled dysentery drugs to the doctors and led the men in prayer. After much suffering, he died of malnutrition and pneumonia on May 23, 1951.
Servant of God, Fr. Vincent Capodanno was widely known during the Vietnam War for his willingness to share the hardships of suffering Marines on the front lines – "Radiating Christ" to those around him. He was the "Grunt Padre", in the words of his Marine companions. When Capodanno heard that two platoons from his battalion were taking casualties and about to be
overrun by the enemy, the unarmed chaplain went among the wounded and dying Marines, helping and comforting them and giving last rites. That afternoon, he was wounded in the hand, arms and legs. Refusing medical evacuation, in the early evening he went to help a seriously wounded Navy corpsman and two wounded Marines only yards from an enemy machine gun and was killed on September 4, 1967.
These chaplains, and many others like them, lost their lives in battle. Nevertheless, they may have helped save many a life for heaven! Let us honor those who have stood strong in the fight for freedom on earth and especially those who have battled for the freedom of heaven.