Plus, these Food Trucks (subject to change):

Thanks for your continued support of our 54th Annual Raffle. So far, we have about $84,000 in ticket sales. THANK YOU!

I hope and pray you will consider buying or selling $100 worth of tickets! Your generosity will go a long way to help our amazing Parish to continue doing everything it does. PLUS, you might be lucky enough to win one of the raffle prizes!

Last year, we netted $119,000 from the raffle and proceeds from the food trucks. I am grateful for your extraordinary generosity in what you did to make last year’s event a fantastic success!

You can continue to turn in your raffle and applicable 100% tickets until the drawing on June 11, 2023. At that time, we will draw five (5) of the 100% tickets from the entire pool of tickets, and each will win $500.

Raffle tickets can be dropped off at the Parish Center (through the mail slot in the door), in the Sunday collection boxes, or mailed to the Parish Center (although please be aware that if you MAIL your tickets you run the risk of your tickets not arriving in time for the drawing). And please read through the enclosed checklist to help make sure your tickets can be processed quickly and accurately.

Tickets will also be on sale in the Gathering Place after all the masses over the next two weekends.

Please contact the Parish Center (586.777.3670) or visit tickets.stjoan.church if you need additional tickets.

SJA is moderating a Facebook group for our parishioners and friends embarking on the Catechism in a Year podcast with Fr. Mike Schmitz and Ascension Press.

You can find the link to join on the SJA Facebook page or click the button below. We already have 90+ participants!

In this week’s Encountering the Word video, Jeff Cavins reflects on the readings for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity:

First Reading: Exodus 34:4B-6, 8-9

Responsorial Psalm: Daniel 3:52, 53, 54, 55, 56

Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 13:11-13

Alleluia: Revelation 1:8

Gospel: John 3:16-18

Friends, today we come to Trinity Sunday, which has been called “the preacher’s nightmare.” But as you probably know from previous sermons of mine, I don’t agree with that at all. I think every Sunday is Trinity Sunday. The Trinity names what is most fundamental and basic in our whole theology and spirituality, and we should rejoice in talking about it! Today, let’s look at the Trinity through three lenses: the words of Scripture, an analogy from St. Augustine, and the viscerally real “so what” of salvation.

Some Caregiver: This is straight from the “I wasn’t thinking department!” And, boy, did I get called out for it the other day at lunch.

As many know, my mom has been staying at my house while I’ve been recovering from my knee surgery. But it’s been the blind leading the blind. She was in the hospital the day I had surgery, so my poor sister Jackie had to deal with both of us for the most part. As I mentioned, my sisters, niece, and nephews came to the rescue, and everyone took turns helping with the various caregiving shifts. Having us both in one place was going to be easier on everyone. Plus, I had the advantage of having lots of help around SJA.

To set the stage, we modified things on the second floor of my house so that what was once an office was turned into a little sitting room. The thinking was that after surgery, I would spend most of my time upstairs, and thus with a sitting room upstairs, I wouldn’t have to maneuver too far. So I grabbed a TV from my mom’s condo, put in some chairs, and found a fridge, and viola, a perfect sitting room.

The upstairs sitting room will still be useful long after my recovery ends. As I have written, I often fall asleep in my big recliner downstairs. But, I find that the most challenging, grueling, tedious, and laborious walk happens at 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning when I finally wake up, have to turn off the lights and make the “5,000 step” journey upstairs and into my bedroom. By the time I get ready for bed, I’m wide awake again, and falling asleep takes me a while. As a side note, I’m one of those people who, EVEN if I landed in my chair until 5:30 AM, still has to walk upstairs, change, and crawl into bed, even if for 15 minutes, to make me feel like I’ve had a good night’s sleep.

The refrigerator we placed upstairs is a bit taller than one of those cube dormitory-type refrigerators. At first, I didn’t see a need for a fridge upstairs, but it’s proved to be most beneficial for freezing the bottles I use in my ice machine. Okay, who am I kidding … plus, I now have a place upstairs to keep my refrigerated chocolate treats! Before, I used to crawl downstairs to grab something if I got hungry during the night. Now, it’s all bonus, as the refrigerator is right around the corner!

Because we were having issues with the water bottles for the ice machine not freezing fast enough, we decided to dial down the thermostat a bit before we called it a night this particular day. My mom then went to her room, prayed, and crawled into bed. I eventually meandered over to my room after closing down my computer, saying my prayers, and crawled into bed. Now, as you can imagine, with the size of my little colonial, the rooms are all right next to each other. I was still somewhat immobile, so getting out of bed alone was doable but challenging. However, the “Family Council” had decided that mom and son could be left alone at night. So we were on our own! It was the blind leading the blind.

For the first three weeks, I could barely sleep at night. The only comfortable position was on my back, and I’m not one for sleeping on my back. To add to the discomfort, I was still propping my feet up on this obnoxious wedge to help with the swelling. So there I was, wanting to sleep, but I found myself staring at the ceiling most nights, thinking I should program my Alexa to play some of my holy music, but I didn’t want it to disrupt my mom’s sleep.

The night we adjusted the thermostat on the little fridge, I heard this loud bang and a bit of commotion. It startled me. At first, I thought my mom had fallen, or something had fallen in her room. So I yelled out, “MOM, are you okay?” She didn’t respond, so I yelled out again. Again she didn’t respond, but I heard her breathing and no other movement, so I figured she was okay. I stayed staring at the ceiling and eventually got a few minutes of sleep.

My mom woke up the following day, walked into our little sitting room to get ready to watch the 7 AM Mass, and noticed that the refrigerator door was open. We both were surprised. When she peeked inside, she realized a pop can had exploded, and there was pop everywhere. The can’s lid was sheered off as if someone sawed it off. My mom cleaned everything up just in time for us to settle down to watch the 7 AM Mass.

So at lunch that day, I shared the whole story. Everyone listened intently. But then I got grilled as if I was on trial before a supreme court. Then the verdict: “You mean, you heard this noise, yelled out for your mom, and when she didn’t answer, you rolled back over and NEVER bothered to check up on her? Chris, you either need to find a new caregiver, go to someone else’s house, OR go back to having someone spend the night. He’s fired!”

Disciple Maker Index Survey: As I mentioned last weekend and wrote in my Sunday email, our parish has been asked to participate in a parish-wide survey about discipleship conducted by the Catholic Leadership Institute. This non-profit Catholic apostolate does leadership training and development around the world. All parishes in our Family of Parishes have been asked to participate in the survey.

Thus, I need your help! We want as many parishioners as possible to complete the 10-15 minute survey. As I write this article, we have 329 people who have completed the survey. Thank You! I’m trying to go for 1,000!

The survey, which will only be available until June 4, asks you to reflect on your own spiritual growth and enables you to provide feedback on what our parish is doing to help you grow.

The survey can be done online and will only take 10-15 minutes. Paper copies of the survey are also available and can be found in the Gathering Place bookcase or at the Parish Center. The questions are pretty straightforward. All responses will be confidential, and the parish will only receive information about the community as a whole. The survey results will be invaluable to me, our leadership team, and our many volunteers as we seek ways to best support everyone in their discipleship journey. I will share the survey results at the project’s completion.

If you haven’t completed the survey, please go to survey.stjoan.church.

Conversion Takes Prayer: “Brothers and sisters, rejoice. Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.” 

These are St. Paul’s beautiful words of encouragement to the community in Corinth in our second reading today. It’s a simple exhortation: do this, and this will be the result. How our nation needs to listen to these words right now. We pray for calm and peace and a return to civility in our country and that the presence of our Lord may be felt in all our communities. I keep wondering if maybe the reason so many people in our world are not living the life St. Paul is encouraging is perhaps because not enough of them are being prayed for. And that’s where we come in. Don’t look down on the behavior of the person who is making you angry if you are not praying for their conversion. 

Most Holy Trinity: The last few major feasts we have celebrated have been an opportunity to reflect on the movements of what God has done for us, through His Son, Jesus Christ. 

We have journeyed through the triumph of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, the celebration of the Eucharist and the priesthood at the Last Supper, the horror of the crucifixion and His horrific death on the cross for us, the glory of the Resurrection, His reuniting of God and mankind when He raised our humanity to His Father through His Ascension. And last Sunday the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, sent to be our Advocate in the Church until Christ returns to finally claim the earth as His Kingdom.

But today, Holy Trinity Sunday, is different. Today we celebrate not what God has done, but who God is – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God. As Catholics we are almost too familiar with this concept, as elusive as a comprehensive understanding of the Trinity is to obtain. 

It’s the first prayer we learn—even before the Our Father, we learn to sign ourselves “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

Every Sunday we profess our belief in the Holy Trinity as we recite together the Nicene Creed. The structure of this proclamation of our faith is Trinitarian: we express belief in the Father first, then in Jesus Christ, His Son, and then in the Holy Spirit, before finally professing our commitment to the Church, where all three are found in the Word and in the Sacraments. 

We profess these words together as a community that reflects the community who is God Himself, a community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And then those who are in communion with the Body of Christ, the Church, receive the Eucharist, “partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, [that] we may be gathered into one by the Holy Spirit.” (Eucharistic Prayer II)

We enter the Church at our baptism, most of us as infants, baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And these are some of the final words prayed over us by the priest or deacon as we are finally laid to rest and pass from this life to the next. 

A number of years ago , before entering seminary, I was leaving my driveway at home one afternoon and the little boy across the street was waiting on the sidewalk. Suddenly he started to run down the sidewalk with his arms out-stretched. As I looked I saw his dad had appeared from behind his truck on his driveway. The father saw his son running along the sidewalk toward him about 30 ft away and he crouched down and held his arms out. As the boy ran full-force into his father’s arms, the two embraced. 

As small an incident as that was to witness, it had a profound effect on me as I was discerning my vocation. It spoke volumes to me of the love a Father has for the Son. And I came to see the same love that was true of a human father and son is also the love a priest needs to have for his people, because it is an image of the love between the Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus, whom we must imitate. And in the middle is the Holy Spirit. Between the Father and the Son is their mutual love, expressed, literally breathed-out, as the Holy Spirit. God is, as Moses says in the first reading, “The Lord, the Lord.” – “Yahweh, Yahweh” – “I AM, I AM.” He who just simply is. God, is God who is always there and always was there. He never had a beginning. 

Every child asks, “Who made God?” And every wise parent says, “Nobody made God. God simply is. And always was. God has no beginning.” God will never end. If He did not come into being, He cannot go out of being. 

And He created us because He loved us. Before He formed us in our mother’s womb, He knew us (Jeremiah 1:5) and so He was able to love us before we came to be. 

That love, manifested in His Son Jesus Christ, is now animated by the Holy Spirit, by whom Jesus was conceived in the womb of His Mother, Mary; the Holy Spirit who is always with us. Jesus is God in man. The Holy Spirit, in us, is God in man. 

In our struggles and in our victories, in our sorrows and in our joys, He is with us. The God of love and peace is with us.

adawson@sjascs.org 

How much prayer is too much prayer?

Our relationship with God is the most important relationship we will ever have. But what about when our devotions clash with our responsibilities to our loved ones? Or attendance to other obligations?

Today, Fr. Mike tells us what it means to “pray without ceasing”… and what it doesn’t mean.

Just when it seems like things can’t get any more bizarre in the news, well … things get more bizarre.

On a random day a few weeks ago, The Detroit News ran a couple local stories that, in their own way, stood out from the rest of the pack.

In the first story, a man from Detroit had been accused of shooting four people – including two other adults and two 14-year-olds. The cause of the dispute, according to the story: “a food order delivered to the wrong address.”

The story went on to say the charges were dismissed because the victims did not show up to a hearing to testify, but the prosecutor’s office was nevertheless weighing whether to re-issue the charges.

Meanwhile, over in Macomb Township, the News reported, a woman was arraigned on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon and possession of a firearm, and a follow-up court appearance was to have taken place just last week. The cause of that dispute, according to the story: “an argument over a dog.”

There are, to be sure, countless disputes every day, in every family, neighborhood, region, country and, of course, on the international stage. 

Perhaps when things heat up, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the spirit of charity that we, as Christians, are called to live.

“Brothers and sisters, rejoice,” St. Paul writes in his second letter to the Corinthians, which we hear in today’s second reading. “Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the holy ones greet you.

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”

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.

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.

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.

7:00 a.m., A Special Intention for the Tina Calisi Family

7:00 a.m., Dennis Fleming 

7:00 a.m., Ralph Wales

6:00 p.m., A Special Intention for Pam Haisenleder

7:00 a.m., Thomas Lucchese

7:00 a.m., Dee Allor

4:00 p.m., Anne Sloan, Antoinette Barone, Bonnie Batche, Michael DePetro, Helen Blind and Special Intentions for the J. Champine Family, the Thomas Family, and for Alison Reslow 

6:00 p.m., Hrnko & Mary Bryk, George & Mary Lietz and Harry & Marlene Bryk 

8:00 a.m., For the Intentions for St. Joan of Arc Parishioners

10:00 a.m., Marie Shaheen 

12:00 p.m., Deceased members of the Rogier & Dettloff Families and a Special Intention for Alison Reslow

Thursday (June 8):

Friday (June 9):