Holy Week 2015

03-29-2015Pastor's LetterFr. Don Kline

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

There are times when a person is blessed with the realization that something is lacking in their soul. We all experience what has been referred to as a "spiritual battle". Perhaps you are struggling with an addiction to pornography or drugs or alcohol. Maybe you find it difficult to get along with certain family members. Everyone has demons that seek to destroy our relationship with Jesus Christ.

As we listen to St. Mark's account of the Passion, we see a spiritual battle. This battle led to what we recall today in the Sacred Scripture - the day Jesus carried our sins to Calvary. To be clear, this is not something that happened over 2000 years ago. As Catholics, we experience Calvary every time we come to Mass. Every Mass is a representation of Calvary.

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Prayer and Confession

03-22-2015Pastor's LetterFr. Don Kline

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The last two weeks I wrote about almsgiving and fasting in my pastor's notes. Now, I want to write about the final pillar of Lent, the pillar or prayer, most particularly—repentance and sacramental confession.

Some Catholics and nearly all Protestants report that they confess their sins straight to God. Certainly, I try to confess my sins nightly to God as part of my night prayers before bedtime. But refusing sacramental confession rejects a practice that has occurred since ancient times and was given to us by Jesus himself. St. Augustine dealt with this belief way back in the in the fifth century. He wrote: Let no one say I repent before God. God knows it and pardons me." What? Was it then said in vain to the priests, "Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven?"

St. Augustine is reminding us that after the resurrection, Jesus gave his apostles the authority to "bind and loose" or to forgive sins. This means that the priest must hear the sins and make a decision about a person's contrition, give a brief moment of counsel, a penance and absolve the sinner.

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Prayer and Confession

03-15-2015Pastor's LetterFr. Don Kline

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The last two weeks I wrote about almsgiving and fasting in my pastor's notes. Now, I want to write about the final pillar of Lent, the pillar or prayer, most particularly—repentance and sacramental confession.

Some Catholics and nearly all Protestants report that they confess their sins straight to God. Certainly, I try to confess my sins nightly to God as part of my night prayers before bedtime. But refusing sacramental confession rejects a practice that has occurred since ancient times and was given to us by Jesus himself.

St. Augustine dealt with this belief way back in the in the fifth century. He wrote: Let no one say I repent before God. God knows it and pardons me." What? Was it then said in vain to the priests, "Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven?" St. Augustine is reminding us that after the resurrection, Jesus gave his apostles the authority to "bind and loose" or to forgive sins. This means that the priest must hear the sins and make a decision about a person's contrition, give a brief moment of counsel, a penance and absolve the sinner.

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Penance and Fasting

03-08-2015Pastor's LetterFr. Don Kline

Dear Brothers and Sister,

In my column last week, I wrote about almsgiving, an important pillar of the Lenten season with the hopes that we can move to a more profound understanding of this spiritual practice. This week, I want to move on to penance and fasting.

Lent is a time of penance and fasting because we seek to identify ourselves with Jesus' 40-day fast in the desert, the first step in His earthly ministry. One of the things that I always try to remember is that as a Catholic, I am called to follow Jesus Christ as a member of His body and that includes penance and fasting.

At every Mass, we remember Jesus' ultimate sacrifice on the cross. Clearly, Jesus didn't need our help. Yet, we miss the point of our faith if we think we are mere onlookers of a grand drama. No, we are participants! Personally encountering Christ must include entering into the life, death, and resurrection of Our Lord. It is one thing to read about riding a bike. It is a completely different experience of actually riding the bike.

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Almsgiving

03-01-2015Pastor's LetterFr. Don Kline

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Part of the call to holiness involves almsgiving. So what does it mean to give alms? For some, almsgiving, one of the three pillars of the Lenten Season, is about writing a check and checking it off the "Lenten list."  Because it involves the transfer of cash or goods, I think we tend to see it as less than prayer and fasting.  And yet, in the only place where the Bible brings all three together, the Bible puts the emphasis firmly on almsgiving as the superior work.  

Almsgiving is more important than prayer and fasting because it is prayer and it involves fasting.  Author Mike Aquilina says that, Almsgiving is a form of prayer because it is "giving to God" — and not mere philanthropy.  It is a form of fasting because it demands sacrificial giving — not just giving something, but giving up something, giving till it hurts.

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1st Sunday of Lent - Temptation

02-22-2015Pastor's LetterFr. Don Kline

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

On this 1st Sunday of Lent, we are reminded that we are in a spiritual battle. We see this battle in today's Gospel as we hear about the devil leading Our Lord out into the desert to tempt Him. The devil is no match for Our Lord because Jesus is All Powerful, Almighty, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We, on the other hand, are not always able to resist temptation.

The devil tempts us to turn away from Jesus. I think about my own prayer life and when I try to speak with Our Lord. The devil will do almost anything to distract a person while praying. Mass is the greatest prayer of the Church and so the enemy will especially attack your efforts to pray at Mass. Even getting ready for Mass can be a big ordeal for some families. Do you think that these distractions or setbacks are just a coincidence? The answer is, of course, no. The devil is always tempting us to not speak to Jesus, especially at Mass.

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Lent 2015

02-15-2015Pastor's LetterFr. Don Kline

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Lent begins this Ash Wednesday. It is a season of fasting, self-denial, almsgiving, and prayer. The season of Lent begins with a symbol of repentance: placing ashes on our foreheads to remind us of the brevity of our lives and our need for a Savior. We have four Masses scheduled that day to allow you to get the season off on the right foot. The Mass schedule for Ash Wednesday, February 18th is: 7:00am, 8:30am, 5:00pm in English and 7:00pm in Spanish.

The season of Lent invites us to surrender something important - be it TV or sweets or meat, or snacking or negative attitudes or less than noble habits. All of these sacrifices are meant to bring us to a greater connection to the awesome love of Jesus Christ and the ultimate sacrifice that He offered for us and for our salvation. He died for us so that death may no longer have power over us.

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The Vocation and Mission of the Family

02-08-2015Pastor's LetterFr. Don Kline

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Did you know that your family has a vocation, a calling from God? Pope Francis has called for a synod in Philadelphia focusing on the family. The goal is to show the importance of family and to strengthen the family bond. In a world that often devalues and even manages to undermine the family unit, our Holy Father recognizes the need to give thanks to the Lord for the generosity and faithfulness of so many Christian families.

As the bishops have said: "Within the family are joys and trials, deep love and relationships which, at times, can be wounded. The family is truly the "school of humanity" (Gaudium et Spes, 52), which is much needed today. Despite the many signs of crisis in the family institution in various areas of the "global village", the desire to marry and form a family remains vibrant, especially among young people, and serves as the basis of the need of the Church, an expert in humanity and faithful to her mission to proclaim untiringly and with profound conviction the "Gospel of the Family", entrusted to her together with the revelation of God's love in Jesus Christ and ceaselessly taught by the Fathers, the masters of spirituality and the Church's Magisterium."

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St. Joan of Arc Respect Life

02-01-2015Pastor's LetterFr. Don Kline

Sundays at SJA
3rd Sunday of the month – 4:00pm – Weidner Hall – Free Admission

Feb 15
Lee Ann Able - Adoption: Can We Do Better?
A life affirming choice, but many of us are unsure how we truly feel and think about it.
(See Lee Ann's bio on page 4.)

Mar 15
Nik Nikas - What Every Catholic Should Know About End of Life
Issues surrounding our ability to have a natural and holy death.

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Prayers for Granted and Granted Prayers

01-25-2015Pastor's LetterFr. Don Kline

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

People tell me after Mass (especially visitors) how Mass is so prayerful. This parish is very blessed to have many people who are sincere about their relationship with Our Lord. Hopefully every parish is recognized as a place of prayer.  Whether you are at Mass, Adoration, bible study, That Man is You, religious education, youth group, senior group, preschool, and all of other activities in our parish, prayer is central.  This is something we cannot take for granted. Our Lord wants us to turn to Him, every day with sincere hearts.

It doesn't matter how nice the beautiful the parish looks, how great the choir sounds, how amazing the homily is… none of those things matter if we don't understand that we are called to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.  This seems so obvious, and yet, in day-to-day activities, we can become very busy and forget that Jesus died for us that we might have eternal life.

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Catholic and Pro-life through the years

01-18-2015Pastor's LetterFr. Don Kline

Twenty-eight years ago this month, I took my first trip to Washington D.C. Fourteen years past the January 22, 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, my seminary took a day trip to the Washington D.C. Right to Life March.

I remember it vividly. It was powerful. I realized how my view changed over time. There was a time when I vilified anyone involved in the abortion industry, particularly mothers and fathers who "killed their babies." I couldn't get my mind around the "why" of abortion.

So, many years later, I still am a pro-life Catholic doing what I can to demonstrate respect for human life from conception to natural death. As the U.S. Bishops have reminded us, a human being has "a unique dignity and an independent value, from the moment of conception and in every stage of development, whatever his or her physical condition."

But in addition to remembering those millions of children who were denied the right to life, I remember the theme of the March many years ago that demonstrated the pro-life commitment to women's emotional health and stability as well. The slogan that was duplicated on placards throughout the city read, "No more babies die, no more mothers cry."

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In the Flesh

01-11-2015Pastor's LetterFr. Don Kline

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In today's Gospel, we hear a strange conversation between Our Lord and John the Baptist. It is strange because John called people to repentance, to turn away from sin and turn to God. Jesus had no sins. Jesus is the Savior. Jesus doesn't need to repent, and, therefore, He has no need to be baptized. And yet, Our Lord shows up by the river and gets in line anyway. John sees Him and objects, but Jesus insists on taking His place right beside the rest of the sinners.

This is exactly what Our Lord does for us at every Mass. Whenever we receive Holy Communion, we are receiving God Himself as our nourishment. Our Lord could not be any closer to us than He is in Holy Communion. He desires to take His place right with us!

Whenever we stop by a Catholic Church, we can go and kneel before the tabernacle, the golden box behind the altar, where the consecrated hosts not used at Mass are reserved. We are also blessed to be able to be with Our Lord in our adoration chapel 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Jesus is waiting there for us all the time. Our Lord is ready whenever we need to talk to Him. You always know where to find Him. Please consider spending one hour per week with Our Lord here at St. Joan of Arc.

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Solemnity of the Epiphany of Our Lord

01-04-2015Pastor's LetterFr. Don Kline

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Epiphany. What exactly is an epiphany? Some would say that it is a sudden, profound realization of something important; a breakthrough; a deep and profound understanding of something once mysterious. The Church uses the term to describe God as being made manifest in Jesus Christ. On Christmas we focused on Jesus' humanity. On Epiphany we turn our attention to Christ's divinity. We pause here today, just like the wise men, to pay this Divine Child homage and adoration as only a true King deserves. Next week we celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, a dramatic leap forward in Jesus' life when we celebrate the initiation of Jesus' public ministry.

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