Dear Friends in Christ,
Here are a few updates from our parish for the week of February 6, 2022.
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1) SJA School Open House WinterFest: RESCHEDULED for THURSDAY |
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Our School Open House / Winterfest has been rescheduled for THIS Thursday from 6 to 8 PM. Stop by and learn more about our great school.
You'll also have an opportunity to stop by the Church to light a candle and say a prayer as we will have an expanded Praise and Worship Holy Hour that night.
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2) School Open House Video |
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Watch this 2-minute video to learn more about SJA School! |
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3) Catholic Schools Week: How Catholic education can make a difference - from Detroit Catholic
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4) Expanded Holy Hour on Thursday 6 - 8 PM: |
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This Thursday's Holy Hour will be from 6 - 8 PM so that we as a community can pray for the success of our school and for our school community. The expanded Holy Hour will also give school families stopping by the Open House / WinterFest an opportunity to stop by the Church and light a candle and say some prayers for their family. |
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5) The Chosen Season TWO Watch Party ... It's NOT too late to Register! |
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Please know you can join us anytime. You did not have to watch all the previous sessions to join in on any of the discussions. Click on the image below for more information or to register. |
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6) Vocations Evening Prayer and Dinner with Archbishop Vigneron |
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Do you know of someone that might be thinking of a priestly vocation? If so, ask them to consider attending the March 23, 2022, evening prayer and dinner with Archbishop Vigneron. Click on the image below for further details. |
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7) This Sunday's Readings - February 6, 2022 |
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8) Jeff Cavins: Encountering the Word - Reflections on the Sunday Readings |
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Jeff Cavins reflects on the readings for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time:
First Reading: Isaiah 6:1-2, 3-8
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 7-8
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Gospel: Luke 5:1-11
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9) Grow+Go for the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time |
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Grow+Go, content is designed to help you understand what it means to be an evangelizing disciple of Christ. Using the Sunday Scriptures as the basis for reflection, Grow+Go offers insight into how we can all more fully GROW as disciples and then GO evangelize, fulfilling Christ's Great Commission to "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." (Matthew 28:19) The concept behind the weekly series is to make discipleship and evangelization simple, concrete, and relatable.
Click on the button or image below to download a PDF copy of this Sunday's Grow+Go.
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10) Giving to SJA:
I'm truly grateful for all of your support of SJA during this pandemic. Your support means so much. The increase in electronic giving has been tremendous. Giving electronically, whether on a one-time or recurring basis is pretty simple. For more information on online giving, please click on the following button.
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11) This Week's Edition of TALLer Tales |
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Some Things Never Change: To “tee up” this story, I have to go back to my days as Cardinal Maida’s secretary. I was this obnoxious young 29-year-old priest who was constantly trying to update the office with the latest and greatest technology. This was back in 1993, and we were just on the verge of the technology explosion!
In the early 90s, our primary way of rapidly communicating with the parishes was by fax. All of our important notices and information that had to reach the parishes quickly was done by fax. At first, we used this antiquated system where all the fax numbers were programmed into the fax machine, and the machine would sequentially dial each number and transmit the document. It would take several hours to communicate something to all the parishes.
I eventually discovered a few fax services that would broadcast the fax in a matter of minutes. Many of my innovative ideas were often met with intrigue yet skepticism. The 29-year-old new kid on the block had to become quite the salesperson to pitch his ideas. Eventually, I got permission to put this one fax service into place. All of the numbers were loaded into groups, and it required a bit of programming to make it all work. I created these groups to target specific regions or vicariates of the archdiocese or, say, all the auxiliary bishops. To send a fax to all the parishes, for example, required that you know all the group numbers and enter them when sending a particular fax. We used this system mostly to communicate the news of the death of a priest and the details of his funeral. I quickly became THE expert and often the only one who would send out these notices. I found it simple; others were intimidated by the process. Nancy McLeod, the Cardinal’s secretary at the time, and I would often laugh that I couldn’t die until I sent out my own death notice. My last act would have to be hitting the send button on the fax machine because no one else would know how to do it or deal with all the quirks involved in the process.
Jump forward to last Saturday. We had two funerals that day. One was for Katherine MacMaster, a recently graduated school mom who passed away from multiple health problems. The other funeral was for one of SJA School’s most beloved and long-term teachers, George Zanotti. As we often do, Kristine Hass or I will remotely program the screens and video equipment. Before walking over to Church that morning, I uploaded Katherine MacMaster’s memorial video to the system and cued it up to start playing when visitation began. I just assumed everything was working and went about my other pre-funeral tasks. We program the start time of our livestreaming of a funeral based on the length of the memorial videos. We like to play any memorial videos until the funeral begins. When it was time for the livestream to go live and thus start showing the memorial video, Kristine Hass saw that audio was being streamed but no video. YIKES. HOUSTON. WE. HAVE. PROBLEMS. Streaming Katherine’s funeral was very important because most of her family, who lives in Canada, could not attend the funeral because of all the COVID travel restrictions in Canada. Once I got Kristine’s text, I raced upstairs and joined Kristine in trying to solve our problem. My easiest fix is always to reboot EVERYTHING. Before we started to power-cycle all of the equipment upstairs, I made an announcement over the PA about what we were going to do and that the funeral would be delayed until we got things working again. Since we had audio being live-streamed, that gave me a chance to tell our northern viewers that we would be back and that they hadn’t missed the start of Katherine’s funeral. Once I made the announcement, Kristine and I started rebooting everything. I’ve learned there is a particular order of rebooting the equipment to bring it all back to life quicker. At this point, I was starting to panic because I knew how important it was to make this live-streaming work for her family who couldn’t attend the funeral. After about 15 minutes of wrestling with all the equipment, we finally got a livestream going that had BOTH audio and video. It seemed like an eternity up there. And God bless Catherine Thomas, our Director of Music, who kept playing calm and reflective music to fill the empty time.
Once we were live again and all was running smoothly, I ran back downstairs, got vested, and started the funeral. Thankfully, we got it all working again, but it did take about 15 minutes to make it all happen. The MacMaster family was somewhat chuckling after the funeral because they said there was a bit of irony to what happened; Katherine was rarely on time for things, so the fact her own funeral started late made a few people smile.
After the funeral, Father Andrew and I and a few others were in the sacristy talking away while we were cleaning up from the first funeral and getting ready for Mr. Zanotti’s funeral. At one point, Father Andrew piped up and said, “We can never let Monsignor Mike and Kristine Hass be in the same car or same event together because if something happened to both of them at the same time, we’d be in serious trouble … how in the world would anyone else know what to do up there when things go wrong.” Seriously, it’s easy: Just tell Catherine Thomas to keep playing calm and reflective music and then push every button up there like mad until it starts working! It works MOST of the time!
New Year’s Resolutions: If you’re like me, you’ve probably already broken one or two or most of your New Year’s resolutions. After all, it’s already February! I can never figure out why New Year’s resolutions are so hard to keep. We often do great for a few weeks, but then the dead of winter sets in and we forget why we created those resolutions in the first place.
While we can make all kinds of resolutions, I wonder how many are spiritually related? Yes, we may use the Lenten season as THE time to make spiritually related resolutions, but we can’t let that be the ONLY time we make some concrete goals to deepen our relationship with Christ.
Let me bring us back to the story of the Magi. Those three kings went to Bethlehem to search for the newborn King of the Jews; that was THEIR resolution. And it was a hefty one! They were men on a mission, and they took significant risks to find the Christ child and pay him homage. And, thankfully, they let no one and nothing get in their way.
It may already be February, and we may have lost sight of the resolutions and goals we made at the beginning of the year, but let’s do what we can to set some goals NOW that will bring us closer to Christ in 2022. And, at the same time, let’s develop a plan of how we will make sure that no one and nothing will get in our way.
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Enjoy the week.
Know of my prayers.
In Christ,
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12) Tire Tracks in the d’Arc |
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It wasn’t me!: At the time of writing, we’re all awaiting the anticipated snow storm, traditional for Catholic Schools Week. By the time you read this, we’ll either be in the midst of it (if you are an early, online bulletin reader) or it will be history if you’re a weekend reader. You’ll either be thinking, “Yup, it’s definitely snowing,” or “Well, that was a fuss about nothing.” Either way, I want you to know…. I am not responsible for whatever it was! Yes, I know I was insisting last week that it’s pretty much Spring now, but I see no correlation whatsoever. Apparently, it was an “elongated baroclinic zone service,” according to the weather people… whatever that means. But is it Spring? Of course it is. Thank you to the kind parishioner who followed my logic last week all the way to it’s dubious conclusion and then emailed me to remind me that if it’s already March in my mind, it’s almost Mothers’ Day for my mom. True! So I’d better get on that so I don’t miss it like I did last year…..not that I can find a card anywhere except perhaps Amazon.
Anyway, motivated by talk of the storm/ not storm last Sunday, I finally did something I’d been thinking about for a while. It is the inevitable habit of every British person to be at least a little obsessed with tracking the weather — we have a lot of it in the UK, much like Michigan, even if it’s different weather. So it finally happened—I bought my own weather station… not just a little sensor to put outside with a wireless digital read-out. No, this is the whole kit and kaboodle, solar-powered, rain collector (I already began to work out how to adapt it to stop that part becoming a storage box for the squirrels), a wind-vane, wind-speed spinning cups, a barometer, a temperature gauge, a lightening range sensor. And the whole assembly will need to be mounted on a raised pole in my back yard. Then it will upload the information it collects to a website for other users to benefit from.
So I think this means that I will now have my own weather and nobody can tell me it’s not Spring if I say it’s Spring, even if we’re under 17 feet of snow! Maybe Fr. Andrew’s weather will be a regular feature in this column…. Maybe if you don’t like the kind of weather the weatherman is offering, you’ll find something better at Fr. Andrew’s Exceptionally Local Weather Station, where only the most optimistic of weather will be permitted and there’s always a reasonable connection to Spring. Time will tell, once I have it set-up. But I guarantee… no “elongated baroclinic zone services” here! Stay tuned.
Put Out Into The Deep: I just love today’s Gospel. Some of you may have a good visual of the scene on Lake Gennesaret (the Sea of Galilee). This is one of the scenes depicted in episode 4 of series 1 of The Chosen, with its own take on events of course. One of the reasons I love this show and especially this episode is not so much for what it tells you, because it certainly uses a lot of license to fill-in the gaps of what is not said in scripture, but for the questions it raises and often doesn't answer for you. If you watch closely, there are so many nuances to what the character says, so many glances and looks between Jesus and His disciples and the other character. As they say, a picture it worth a thousand words. I don’t mean to imply that the show is more valuable than reading scripture, of course, but being attentive to the unanswered questions is a valuable approach to our own study of scripture. When you read scripture, don’t only pay attention to the words and the stories. Ask yourself what is meant by them. Ask how the words Jesus says might have been understood or not understood. How might they have sounded? How would this particular character have heard those words, coming to them with their own experiences and prejudices. Jesus constantly challenges his listeners (and us) to “get used to different,” as he tells Simon Peter at the end of the first series.
In the particular scene in The Chosen where this Gospel account of the Miraculous Catch is portrayed, from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus has a challenge for Simon Peter. He tells him to “put that down for a catch,” referring to the fishing net, or in the words of scripture, “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.” There is a poignant momentary exchange of glance between Jesus and Simon Peter after Simon’s initial response. Simon tells Jesus that they’ve been fishing all night with no success. He sounds weary and really ready to give-up. Jesus doesn't react to Simon’s protest. He just waits him out, looking directly at him. What is Simon thinking? We don’t know. But certainly there is a lot going on in his mind. In the series, he is in dire straights, financially. He is in trouble with the Romans, and fishing that night is, Simon, thinks, his last hope.
Jesus, of course, knows what the result will be if Simon only does as he asks. It’s a sign of Jesus’ powerful confidence that He has the answer and that He will reveal His power to Simon if he, Simon, will only do as He tells him. But it is also a sign of Jesus’ compassion and respect of Simon’s need to learn this lesson for himself if he is to learn to trust Jesus, that Jesus does not enter into a debate with Simon. He just waits—no persuasion, no argument, no re-proposing the plan in different words. He just waits. The look in His eyes, however Simon interprets it, breaks down the wall of his stubbornness and he acquiesces to Jesus’ command.
Who knows exactly the reason Simon relents? But whatever it was (and it can be a powerful meditation to spend some time with and to see ourselves in that situation), it opens up for Simon an opportunity to allow Jesus to work and to reveal to him who he, Jesus is, and who He, Simon, really is. And the result is that Simon will never be the same again. He is still the same headstrong Simon. He will still fail to understand his new role as a disciple of Jesus. But now he has seen enough to know that there’s no going back. And so Simon makes that two-fold declaration, “Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Simon now knows that Jesus is the Lord; and he knows himself better now too—he recognizes he’s a sinful man. Now he can have a more honest relationship with Jesus, because Simon sees his need for Jesus in the light of this revelation.
At times we may feel exhausted, frustrated and discouraged. We may want to just pull in our nets and head to the shallow waters that feel safe, but are not full of life. But Jesus doesn’t change his words to us in those moments. Those are the times we need to see the face of Jesus, powerfully gazing into our eyes and imploring us, “put out into the deep,” “follow me.” Even if those words feel like an intrusion into our sense of security; even if it seems safer to cling to the despair than to risk trusting Jesus to free us from that place. Still, in these moments, Jesus is holding out for us an invitation to allow Him to show us his power—to show us that what we cannot do in the boat alone, even if we try over and over again, we can do by His word and by entrusting our future to Him. At times, like Simon, we might just wish that Jesus would leave us well alone and not challenge us to look to Him for the answer. But He won’t. But He will never stop looking at you lovingly, saying, “Trust me. Put out into the deep.”
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You are in my prayers this week.
Fr. Andrew
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13) Ascension Presents: Father Mike Schmitz |
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If God is Good, Why Do We Need to Pray?
Today, Fr. Mike delves into this age-old question..
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14) Words on the Word: February 6, 2022 - Lean on Them
Our beloved priests, God bless their souls, are people, too.
It may be easy to overlook that sometimes, given the super-human energy, compassion, organization, leadership, and shepherding qualities they constantly display.
But whether we’re talking about diocesan priests or those who belong to an order, those who serve parishes or administer schools or work directly with the poor, they are all human.
And as such, they have their own views and opinions on what is happening in our communities and in the world. They, just like we, have political and theological leanings, as well, though most often we don’t see too much of that in our day-to-day interactions.
It was interesting, then, to read a report a couple months ago on a Catholic news portal about a survey of Catholic priests that found “an increasing perception of ‘more theologically conservative or orthodox’ … priests.”
The article went on to parse the data in terms of age and placed everything in the context of similar surveys that go back to the 1970s.
Whether any given priest is more conservative or liberal with respect to politics and theology is not the point for us, for now.
Instead, the takeaway is that, regardless of such inclinations, as long as our collective shepherds’ approach is carried out with a genuine love of God and the faithful, and is theologically sound and morally upright, we can be thankful they are called to serve. Our priests, to be sure, are as important to us spiritually as water is to us physically.
Thank God they are called.
“Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men,” we hear in today’s gospel from St. Luke. “When they brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.”
© 2022, Words on the Word
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15) The Bible in a Year Podcast by Father Mike Schmitz |
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If you’ve struggled to read the Bible, this podcast is for you.
Ascension’s Bible in a Year Podcast, hosted by Fr. Mike Schmitz and featuring Jeff Cavins, guides Catholics through the Bible in 365 daily episodes.
Each 20-25 minute episode includes:
- two to three scripture readings
- a reflection from Fr. Mike Schmitz
- and guided prayer to help you hear God’s voice in his Word.
Unlike any other Bible podcast, Ascension’s Bible in a Year Podcast for Catholics follows a reading plan inspired by the Great Adventure Bible Timeline® learning system, a groundbreaking approach to understanding Salvation History developed by renowned Catholic Bible teacher Jeff Cavins.
Tune in and live your daily life through the lens of God’s word!
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16) FORMED Pick of the Week: |
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Our parish has a subscription to FORMED, a premier online platform filled with over 4,000 Catholic studies, movies, audio dramas, talks, e-books, and even cartoons for our children. FORMED has content from over 60 apostolates, including Augustine Institute, Ignatius Press, and the Knights of Columbus, with material that is professionally produced, engaging, and solid in its catechism. Best of all, this material is free to you because of our parish subscription.
You have easy access to all of the material on FORMED to support your own faith journey and that of your family members.
You can enjoy FORMED on your computer or on your television with an inexpensive Roku device or Apple TV. You can even listen on your phone as you commute to work or do chores.
To gain access to all of FORMED’s content, follow these simple steps:
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Go to https://signup.formed.org/
- Enter our parish’s zip code 48080 or enter St. Joan of Arc
- Enter your name and your email address
That’s it! You’re in. Now you can get the free FORMED app for your phone by searching FORMED Catholic in your app store.
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Are you looking for a one-stop app for prayer and meditation? Look no further than Hallow. Hallow is an awesome prayer app. Hallow is a Catholic prayer and meditation app that helps users deepen their relationship with God through audio-guided contemplative prayer sessions. The app launched 2 years ago and is already the #1 Catholic app in the world.
We have a number of parishioners who are already using the app and loving it (my mom being one of them and she is on the app most of the day). Great for praying alone or together with your spouse/family, Hallow truly has something for everyone, no matter what you are going through (see below for their different content categories).
Hallow is free to download and has tons of permanently free content, as well as a premium subscription, Hallow Plus.
To get started, simply click the button above/below to activate your free account on the Hallow website. Make sure to select “Sign Up with Email” when registering. For step-by-step instructions, you can visit this process guide. Enter the code stjoanofarcmi to obtain a discount on individual pro plans.
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18) Mass Intentions for the Week: |
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Monday, February 7, 2022, Weekday
7:00 a.m. John Frahm and Al Rogier
Tuesday, February 8, 2022, Weekday Saint Jerome Emiliani; Saint Josephine Bakhita, Virgin
7:00 a.m. Raymond VanBeccelaere and David Pochmara
Wednesday, February 9, 2022, Weekday
7:00 a.m. Karam Karam
Thursday, February 10, 2022, Saint Scholastica, Virgin
7:00 a.m. Matt Hunsucker
Friday, February 11, 2022, Weekday Our Lady of Lourdes
7:00 a.m. Zenaida DeLeon and Maura Marquez Mallare
Saturday, February 12, 2022, Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
4:00 p.m. Bonnie Batche and the deceased members of the Batche Family, Albert Czekaj, Ronald Napoli and Special Intentions for the Thomas Family, the J. Champine Family, the Zelenak Family, Adrienne Weidenbach,
6:00 p.m. Michael Forrester
Sunday, February 13, 2022, Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
8:00 a.m. For the Intentions of Saint Joan of Arc
Parishioners
10:00 a.m. Helen Riley
12:00 p.m. Peter & Louisa Sarra, Robert Connolly, Frank L. DiVozza, Delores Bertrand, Alice Kresta, Bernadette Frankland, Carlo F. Clavenna, and a Special Intention for Adrienne Weidenbach
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19) This Week on St. Joan of Arc LIVE: |
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This week's LIVE Stream
Schedule at St. Joan of Arc:
Monday (February 7):
7:00 AM - Mass
Tuesday (February 8):
7:00 AM - Mass
8:30 AM - All School Mass
Wednesday (February 9):
7:00 AM - Mass
10:00 AM - Funeral for Virginia McCarthy
Thursday (February 10):
7:00 AM - Mass
6:00 PM - Holy Hour (Praise and Worship Music)
Friday (February 11):
7:00 AM - Mass
Saturday (February 12):
1:30 PM - Baptism of Violet M. Harry
2:30 PM - Baptism of Gianna E. Peterson
4:00 PM - Mass
6:00 PM - Mass
Sunday (February 13):
8:00 AM - Mass
10:00 AM - Mass
12:00 PM - Mass
Please note that all of our masses and events can be accessed through the ARCHIVE section of our Live stream page if you are not able to watch it live!
We also have our own ROKU Channel. Search for "CATHOLIC" in the ROKU channel store, and you will find SJA's channel. A Fire TV Channel is also available.
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20) SJA's Bulletin for Sunday, February 6, 2022 |
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Click on the image below
to download a copy of the bulletin
for February 6, 2022
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21) Weekly Bulletin Mailing List |
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Sending the bulletin has been greatly received by so many people. If you are getting the bulletin online and would prefer that it not be mailed to your home, please click on the button below to be removed from the mailing list.
At the same time, if you are NOT getting the bulletin and would prefer to get it, click on the same button and ask to be ADDED to the list.
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Read the latest from the DETROIT CATHOLIC
Click on the image below.
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