Happy Sunday!
A big thanks to all those who have so generously helped us on our goal to meet the matching gift we presented last weekend. It is so gratifying to see so many supporting the parish in this marvelous way. I am grateful to God for the family who offered this gift and to all those who have responded. If you haven’t heard yet, a family from outside of St. Joan of Arc has offered us $27,060 as a matching gift. All you have to do is begin giving a recurring gift online, or if you already offer a recurring gift, increase it by any amount and the whole amount will be matched. All gifts given through August will go towards the match. Thank you so much!
READ MOREHappy Sunday!
This Sunday we hear the parable of bad seed being sown amongst the good seed. An enemy comes and sows bad seed in the field of wheat. When the servants ask their master if they should pull up the weeds he tells them, “If you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them.” At times it can be tempting to think it's our job to root out evil entirely. As Christians, we certainly have a responsibility to speak for truth and goodness. And yet, we are servants of the Master. Wherever we find roadblocks to our task to bring more goodness, to share the light of Christ, we are invited to surrender to Jesus more completely. He is the true Master of the Harvest. We labor but ultimately He is the one who brings about the good work.
READ MOREHappy Sunday!
I hope everyone has had a safe summer so far. Over these past few months things have been very different. We are so fortunate to be back at Mass, continuing perpetual adoration and confessions. These things don’t just happen though. I am so grateful to all of our amazing volunteers who have given their time to help our liturgies run smoothly and our adoration chapel to remain open. We have so many generous people here who have given extra hours of time to make sure things have run smoothly. Thank you so much to all of you!
READ MOREGrowing up in an Italian-American home on the south side of Chicago, I was blessed with a great deal of love from my family, a constant supply of the most delicious food in the world, and…saints! The saints, our heavenly intercessors, were a big part of our lives. And my earliest memories of any saint are of a broad-faced nun with large, luminous eyes, a warm, welcoming smile and a big bow beneath her chin.
READ MOREHappy Sunday!
This weekend we celebrate the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time. In our Gospel this weekend, we hear the Lord Jesus reminding us, "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." Here we learn once more from the Lord about the need for complete abandonment into the Father's hands. Our life is only truly found in Jesus Christ. To find one's life and then to lose it means to recognize and live from the truth that everything comes from God and goes back to him. If I find my life, I must surrender it back to Jesus who is the desire of ever y human heart. If I lose my life for his sake, then it is as St. Paul says, "Christ who lives in me." This is one of the paradoxes of Christianity, that to find my life I must give it away.
READ MOREIn the summer of 1989, on the Solemnity of Mary’s Assumption, Pope St. John Paul II gave the Church an apostolic exhortation on Mary’s husband, St. Joseph (Redemptoris Custos [RC], “The Guardian of the Redeemer”). In this exhortation, the Pope wished to shed light on Joseph’s fatherhood, highlighting that he was not an “apparent” father or a “substitute” father of Jesus. Rather, Joseph was a true father in every sense of the word because, through the mystery of the Incarnation, he “fully shares in authentic fatherhood and the mission of the father in the family” (RC, n. 21). The Pope said that Joseph is more than just a “model” of fatherhood, or that he merely “shares” in God’s Fatherhood; he also authentically gave a fatherly face to the human growth of the Incarnate Son. In fact John Paul II went so far to say that God the Father in some sense made a kind of “covenant of fatherhood” with Joseph, giving him a role more important than Abraham!
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This weekend the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, or the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of the Lord. We celebrate and revere the great reality of Christ's presence with us in the Eucharist. In the Mass when the bread and wine are consecrated they no longer have the substance of bread and wine, but are actually transformed into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Pope Benedict XVI reminded us of this mystery in 2011 when he said, "changing the substance of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is the fruit of the gift that Christ made of himself, the gift of a Love stronger than death, divine Love which raised him from the dead. This is why the Eucharist is the food of eternal life…" Not only do we encounter God physically and tangibly in the Eucharist, we encounter Him to our benefit. God literally gives Himself to us for our own good. This is the great gift of the Eucharist, that in receiving Him we continue to receive from His bounty.
READ MOREHappy Trinity Sunday!
With great joy the Church celebrates Trinity Sunday this weekend, the first Sunday after the Easter Season. In seminary we took a course on the Trinity which was called "God Revealed". I remember thinking at the time that they should have just called it "The Trinity". However, God Revealed is a great way to understand it. We speak of the Trinity often, we know we refer to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but the novelty is that God has revealed Himself as three persons. That is, the Trinity is not something we have discovered by our own powers, but rather God sharing with us His life.
READ MOREIn every generation, Jesus has called upon men and women to literally be His hands and feet, to act on his behalf as His messenger and speak for Him directly, either to His Church, to a specific culture or to the world at large. Those men and women who said "yes" to Christ and did what He asked them to do, accomplished the Will of God with His help in amazing ways. Many of them have been recognized officially by the Church for their heroic witness to Christ. We call them saints.
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This weekend is the 7th Sunday of Easter, but we also commemorate the Feast of the Ascension today. Typically on Thursday of the 6th week of Easter, many bishops choose to transfer it's celebration to Sunday. The Ascension marks forty days since the Resurrection when Jesus, by His own power, ascended into heaven in the presence of the disciples. It's a unique event which Christ wishes to draw us into as well. The Ascension of Jesus reminds us of the beauty of humanity. When Jesus' earthly life had run its course, he didn't discard his humanity, but brought it with him into heaven, thereby affirming its inherent goodness. It is a reminder for us as well that our bodies are not an occasion of sin, but something that God wishes to entirely redeem and bring into the heavenly kingdom.
READ MOREHappy Sunday!
What a week! We resumed daily mass at a limited capacity. While we still practice safe social distancing we are grateful to be resuming some "normalcy" to life. I write normalcy in quotes because the truth is normal can have odd connotations attached to it. Is it normal to be quarantined and sheltering in place? I suppose not. But what is normal? My point is that in whatever situation we find ourselves, just because it may not seem normal does not mean we cannot achieve holiness. It does not mean that life is on pause. St. Josemaria Escriva liked to say, "Don't say 'this person annoys me', say 'this person sanctifies me'." I think the same can be said now. The situation is not a pause from our call to holiness, rather in the midst of it God invites us to a deep holiness. Many of you feel this way as well. I have been so impressed by how many people offer to help other members of our community, even without knowing them. There is truly a wonderful spirit here and I would hope not to return to "normal".
READ MOREHappy Sunday!
This past Sunday brought some much needed relief. After a month and half without Mass, we were finally able to distribute communion to those who watched the livestream Mass. A big thanks to our ushers and volunteers who helped things run so smoothly! We are grateful to God to be able to invite people to receive the Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. This is the beginning of coming back to full strength in our active life as a parish community. I am grateful to God for each of you for your patience during this time. It has no doubt been incredibly difficult, and yet we have seen so much beautiful growth in people's spiritual lives.
READ MOREMay has arrived and we dedicate this entire month to the Blessed Virgin Mary out of reverence for her great dignity. One of the signs of this honor is placing a beautiful crown on her head. Pope Saint Paul VI said: "For this is the month during which Christians, in their churches and their homes, offer the Virgin Mother more fervent and loving acts of homage and veneration; and it is the month in which a greater abundance of God's merciful gifts comes down to us from our Mother's throne." (Mense Maio) During this month, we invite you to decorate an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary with a crown made of flowers in your homes in unison with the images at the church. Please note, if the image has the Child Jesus in Mary's arms, the crown gets placed on him too. Offer prayers for the church, the world, the sick, and the most vulnerable such as children in the womb, the elderly, good health and your own family intentions. During Eastertide (Easter through Pentecost), the Regina Caeli is prayed at dawn, noon and eventide. Below is the prayer:
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