Dear Friends in Christ,
Here are a few updates from the parish for the week of Sunday, January 17, 2021.
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1) 9 Days for Life Novena: JANUARY 21-29, 2021: 9 Days for Life is a novena for the protection of human life. Each day’s intention is accompanied by a short reflection and suggested actions to help build a culture of life. Click on the image below to sign up for daily emails to pray the novena.
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2) The Chosen: Recently, I had a chance to watch several episodes of The Chosen. The Chosen is the first-ever-multi-season TV show about the life of Jesus. Created outside of the Hollywood system, The Chosen allows us to see Him through the eyes of those who knew him.
The series is incredibly done and I have been mesmerized by each episode I have watched.
Below is the series official trailer. If you are interested in being part of the watch party and discussion group, please click on the watch party flyer below.
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3) 2020 Tax Statements: With the many changes to the tax laws, itemizing deductions will not benefit as many people as in the past. As a result, many people will not need or benefit from the usual end of the year tax statements normally generated this time of year.
Please consult with your tax preparer to determine if you still need a contribution statement from us. If you need a statement of your offertory, capital campaign and sponsorship appeal contributions for your 2020 income taxes, please click on the button below and complete the form found there. We will then generate a statement for you toward the end of January.
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4) American Red Cross Blood Drive: St. Joan of Arc will be sponsoring an American Red Cross Blood Drive Sunday, January 24th, from 8:00 am until 2:00 pm in the Multi-Purpose Room. If you are a regular donor, we thank you and hope to see you there. If you've never given before, it takes a little over an hour to donate and can save many lives.
The American Red Cross will not be taking walk-ins and you must have an appointment. To make an appointment, log onto RedCrossBlood.org (sponsor code: stjoanblooddrive) or call John Staperfenne at 248-789-8274. Please help save a life and become a Red Cross Blood Donor.
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5) Holy Hour This Week: Please consider joining us for Holy Hour this Thursday (also live-streamed) at 7 PM. This week's Holy Hour will have Praise and Worship Music.
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6) This Sunday's Readings - Sunday, January 17, 2021
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7) Grow+Go for the Second 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. Look for Grow+Go in our weekly emails. |
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8) Sunday Reflection by Jeff Cavins:
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In this week’s Encountering the Word video for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Jeff Cavins teaches us how to better discern if and when God is calling us. |
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9) 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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10) This week's edition of TALLer Tales:
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Timing is Everything: As I mentioned in last week’s column, my dad’s death happened so quickly. Even though I had an idea things weren’t going well when they took my dad by ambulance from Regency to St. John Hospital, I wasn’t so prepared for how fast everything would unfold.
As I held my dad’s hand and watched his breathing grow shallower and shallower, it wasn’t hitting me right then that my dad was dying in my midst. I then saw his blood pressure and heart rate plummet. It was happening all too quickly, and it was all too surreal. I then distinctly remember the nurse and doctor saying “1533.” At first, I wasn’t comprehending what they were saying. And then it hit me. My dad had died, and they were pronouncing the time of death. 15:33 (3:33 PM). That will be a scene etched in my memory.
On the day after my dad’s funeral (last Friday), many of us gathered at the condo to be with my mom and to just sort through a bunch of stuff. I was very much aware of the fact it was a week since my dad’s passing. I also wanted to stop whatever we were doing at “15:33” to say a prayer as a family. I set an alarm on my phone so I wouldn’t forget. When the time came near, I gave everyone a “two-minute” warning to come down to the Great Room (the living room), so we could gather and say some prayers for my dad. We turned off the TV, joined hands, and said our prayers. It was hard to believe that a whole week had passed since his death.
Almost immediately after finishing our prayers, I went to check something on my mom’s computer. She had her email up, and the email at the top of the list (the newest one) waiting to be opened caught my attention immediately. I did a doubletake and then started howling with laugher. I couldn’t believe it. I called out to the family gathered in the condo so they could see what I was seeing. My mom joined us and started to laugh as well. The email was from eharmony.com, and it was promoting eharmony.com’s senior dating services! Timing is everything. We laughed about that email all afternoon.
THANKS! My family and I want to thank you for all the prayers, kind words, and support you have shown us. It’s been an interesting journey, but the support and kindness from the SJA community, and our family and friends, have been such a blessing. Because of the COVID related restrictions, we could not broadcast the details about the wake service and details about the funeral Mass too widely. It was odd not to share that information, but for everyone’s health and well-being, we didn’t want the funeral to turn into a COVID spreader event. Like so many funerals over the past ten months, we had to rely on our streaming capabilities as the primary way for people to join us. It was a beautiful funeral, and my mom, sisters, and all of our immediate and extended family thank you for all the love, prayers, and support you showed us. Thanks from the bottom of my heart!
The Card at the Top of the Pile: I’m just now going through some of the cards I received from the school children. The card at the top of the pile made me laugh and also helped put things into perspective. The card was from William Steil, a fourth-grader at our school. William’s dad, Captain Kenneth Steil, a 20-year veteran of the Detroit Police Department, died as the result of gunshot wounds sustained while chasing a subject who attempted to carjack a vehicle back in 2016. Captain Steil’s funeral was celebrated at SJA in late September 2016. The card had an angel on the cover and a huge heart on the inside. And it simply said: “Dear Monsignor Mike. I hope you and your family are doing well. I bet you my dad and your dad are partying in heaven. Well, I hope you’re okay. From William Steil.” Yes, William, I’m sure your dad and my dad are partying in heaven!
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Welcome Catherine Thomas – SJA’s New Director of Music Ministries: This weekend, we welcome Catherine Thomas to SJA as our new Director of Music Ministries. For the last seven years, Catherine was the Director of Music Ministries at St. Kieran’s Parish in Shelby Township. She was intrigued by the posting for SJA because of the parish and what we are trying to accomplish by enhancing our Sunday liturgies, AND the fact her daily commute to the parish would be cut in half. She lives in a historic home in Detroit, and the drive one way to Shelby Township is about 45 minutes. So the parish and the shorter drive were selling features for her.
For the Leadership Team, and those who participated on the search committee, Catherine’s resume spoke volumes. The email that accompanied Catherine’s CV summed things up well: “I began my musical training at age 4, entered my first competition at age 6, began college music studies at Syracuse University at age 7, continued onto Florida State University (BA music) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After grad school, I taught music in the school systems for 7 years before leaving teaching to pursue Broadway.” Throughout her career, she has worked in various music ministry roles at St. Kieran, Shelby Township; St. Anastasia, Troy; St. Sebastian, Dearborn; Cathedral of St. Ignatius Loyola, Palm Beach Gardens, FL; St. Luke Catholic Church, Lake Worth, FL; and Incarnation Catholic Church, Sarasota, FL.
Since we embarked on the Amazing Parish movement, one of our parish’s guiding principles is that EVERYTHING we do needs to be transformative. We want our Sunday experience to be transformative so that when you leave Mass you feel as if you’ve had a profound and transformative encounter with Christ that will nourish you for the work Christ is calling you to embark upon for the sake of the Kingdom of God. One of Catherine’s references wrote to me and said that if we were truly looking to have transformative music at our masses, Catherine is THE person for us.
So, we welcome Catherine to St. Joan of Arc Parish as our new Director of Music Ministries. Obviously, because of COVID, it will be some time before our choir and other music ministries can begin again. Still, we will continue to build upon what we have so that our liturgies will be transformative … from the music, to the homilies, to the greetings from the God’s Door Keeper ministers, to the proclamation of the Word, to the environment. We are truly blessed to have Catherine, with all of her gifts and skills, help us in our endeavors to make our liturgies transformative and help us bring people to a deeper relationship with Christ the Lord.
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Enjoy the week. Know of my prayers.
In Christ,
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11) Tire Tracks in the d’Arc |
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Forcing the “Follow-on”: Sometimes people ask if there is anything I miss about England. There’s not a deep yearning for too much after 25 years living here, but a few moments of reminiscing can stir one or two. One of those things is a game of cricket in the summer, a quintessentially English pastime if ever there was one. I grew-up playing the game, as every English 10 year-old boy did. Summer evenings, if it wasn’t raining (!), was cricket time. A tennis ball, a cardboard box wicket (backstop), and you were out if you hit the ball over the fence into the neighbor’s yard.
In the non-kid-adapted-back -yard-play-until-the-street-lights-come-on-summer-vacation professional version of the game, there is a rule known as the “follow-on.” An international game, known as “Test Match cricket” is scheduled to last 5 days. Each team has two innings of batting, which combine for their run score. If time runs out for both teams to complete their allotted two innings and one team still has players at bat at the end of the 5th day, the game is always ruled a tie, even if one team is clearly ahead on runs. If the team batting first scored well in their first innings and the team batting second scored poorly, failing to come close to their opponent’s run total, the first team can force the “follow-on.” This puts the second team immediately back into bat for a second time, rather than switching back to the first team’s 2nd innings. Still with me?!
The advantage to the first team is that, already holding a run lead, they now have the chance to get the other team “all-out” again before they reach their own first innings score. This scenario means the team holding the lead after the first innings need not bat again, saving time and increasing their chance of winning rather than tying the game.
Well, the goal of the second team, if they know things are not going their way in the first innings, should at least score sufficient runs to avoid the follow-on. If they at least score enough to avoid triggering the follow-on, it will require the leading team need to bat again, and the trailing team will have the chance to extend the game long enough to force an incomplete game and therefore have the game ruled a tie by the end of the 5th day.
Easy right? So what’s the point here? I always loved the concept of the follow-on rule. It forces those who seems to be ahead not to count their chickens before they hatch. It forces a team to balance continuing to build a lead, and risking putting the opponents in so as not to waste time. And it gives a second chance to the underdog, making the leading team push to the end to get the job done.
I offer the follow-on rule as an analogy for our times. The follow-on is about making something out a tough situation. It’s really about perseverance when things don’t seem to be going your way. There are days when the other team seems to have forced the follow-on — those who do not share our Catholic beliefs, a society that doesn't recognize objective moral values. Okay, so we dig-in deep and go back to bat. The other team may appear to have the advantage over us, but we set our eyes on the end of the game and pledge to stay in long enough that we will not lose.
If we are to put our best foot forward and strive each day to do our duty as Christian disciples and a people of faith, even when forced into the follow-on, it will mean praying for each other, fervently, unceasingly, expectantly, especially if anyone seems to be struggling – to pray for their endurance and fortitude. It means praying for our parish, our country, our community, our families and yes, our priests. Then we will be a parish built on trust in the Holy Spirit, who will grow great fruit in us.
Right to Life Sunday: This Sunday we mark Right to Life Sunday and we’re called to bring to mind and pray for the protection of life in all stages. This teaching of the Church is rooted in the God-given dignity possessed by every soul, born and unborn. In the words of Horton the Elephant, from the Dr. Seuss stories, “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”
In my first year in seminary I would often stop at the CVS store on Woodward Ave, immediately across from the Blessed Sacrament Cathedral. The seminary, we would always say, was 20 minutes from everywhere. Thankfully, here was one exception—the CVS store was 5 minutes away. One day I learned a big lesson at that CVS store. As I got out of my car, I noticed a man, who I assumed to be homeless, sitting on the garbage can. He was eating a KFC, which I also assumed had come from the garbage can. When he saw me walking toward the store, he called out to me, “Hey, buy me a pop! Buy me a pop, would ya’? I walked over to him and said, “Sure, I’ll buy you a pop. What kind of pop do you want?” I’m not sure what his answer was—he appeared to have just a couple of teeth and was hard to understand. But I went into the store to pick-up a few items and went over to the refrigerators to get his pop. As I did so, two things occurred to me. First, he’s a man sitting on a garbage can eating someone’s left-over chicken… I doubt he’s too concerned about what flavor of pop he’s getting. But what had me shaking my head all the more was that I realized I hadn’t asked him his name. He may be a man sitting on a garbage can, but I could at least show him the respect of asking him his name and recognize the dignity of this man. “Rookie Seminarian mistake,” I thought.
So I bought the pop and went outside to give it to him and to ask him his name. I struck up a conversation with him and he asked where I lived. I told him and he said he knew it. Some people in the area would refer to the seminary building as “The Castle.” Then I said, “Sir, what is your name?” The man’s face lit up and there was an explosion of arm-waving energy that came from him. With a highly animated tone and volume, the man replied, “MR. FELIX CURTIS!!” (I’m not 100% sure that’s what he said, but that’s always how I remembered him after that day. Whatever his name was, he was mighty proud to tell me.) So here is the lesson I learned that day. I went outside that store to show respect to the dignity of a man sitting on a garbage can. And he called himself “Mr.” People don’t usually preface their name like that when they introduce themselves. But he was proud of his name, his identity. Mr. Felix Curtis showed me that his dignity was not dependent on me offering it to him. He knew his own dignity, garbage can or not, left-over chicken or not. He was Mr. Felix Curtis, and I’d better not forget it. No matter how we choose to treat each other, our dignity is not in question. It comes from God and not from us. It’s for us to see the image God sees, the image God created. Any less speaks poorly of us, not the other person.
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You are in my prayers this week!
Fr. Andrew
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12) Words on the Word: January 17, 2021 – Listening for God
Some little boys, when they’re only 7 years old, like to pretend they’re baseball players. Some, perhaps, pretend they’re firefighters, superheroes or carpenters.
And some, alas, pretend they are bishops.
A short video went viral a few weeks ago of a 7-year-old boy “playing bishop.” He had on a sort of stole and was standing in front of what looked like a makeshift ambo, with an “altar” behind him, and lots of candles, religious pictures and a crucifix.
It was clear he fancied himself a bishop and not a priest because there was a crosier in the shot, as well.
In the video, the young man was delivering his homily, which, according to the priest who tweeted the image, was a portion of a homily delivered by a well-known bishop whose weekly homilies are distributed via a number of electronic and social media channels.
The boy was “preaching” about fighting with courage, justice, and non-violence.
What an awesome image, and what hope it evokes for the future, a future in which more youngsters will hear a call to a religious vocation and serve the church as priests, brothers, sisters and deacons.
Clearly, this youngster is hearing, or feeling, some quiet message from God about that possibility. Whether that’s ultimately the direction his life will take is, of course, a matter he will, in due time, work out directly with God.
For now, people of goodwill might simply pray that all of us listen with an open heart for God’s voice, in whatever way, in our lives, as Samuel does in today’s first reading from 1 Samuel.
“When Samuel went to sleep in his place, the Lord came and revealed his presence, calling out as before, ‘Samuel, Samuel,’” we hear in the reading. “Samuel answered, ‘Speak, for your servant is listening.’”
© 2021, Words on the Word
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This week's LIVE Stream
Schedule at St. Joan of Arc:
Monday (January 18):
7 AM - Mass
Tuesday (January 19):
7 AM - Mass
8:30 AM - School Mass (Grades 5-8)
Wednesday (January 20):
7 AM - Mass
8:30 AM - School Mass (Grades 1-4)
Thursday (January 21):
7 AM - Mass
Friday (January 22):
7 AM - Mass
Saturday (January 23):
4 PM - Mass
6 PM - Mass
Sunday (January 24):
8 AM - Mass
Baptism of Piper Neate
12 Noon - 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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Click on the image below
to download a copy of our
Bulletin for Sunday, January 17, 2021
The Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
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Weekly bulletin: 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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