Dear Friends in Christ,
Here are a few updates from the parish for the week of May 16, 2021.
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1) The 52nd Annual Raffle: Thanks to all who turned in their raffle tickets already. The response thus far has been OUTSTANDING! We are currently at around $145,000 towards our $200,000 goal. THANK YOU!
Raffle tickets can be dropped off at the Parish Center (through the mail slot in the door), dropped in the offertory box in the Gathering Place at Church or they can be mailed to us with the business reply envelope.
If you need or want more tickets either stop by the Parish Center or click on the button below to order more tickets; we'll then get them ready for you for pickup. At this point, we are no longer mailing tickets out to people.
If you have any questions about the raffle, please do not hesitate to contact the Parish Center at 586-777-3670 or info@sjascs.org.
THANKS for all you are doing to support our 2021 Raffle.
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2) Fair Food Drive-In - Friday through Sunday: |
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Here's the lineup of the local food trucks next weekend:
Friday: May 21, 2021, Noon till 9:
BBQ Daddy
Cosmic Burrito
Grampy's Claim Shack
Tim's Good Food Truck
Grillwich Tot Shop
Saturday, May 22, 2021, Noon til 9:
BBQ Daddy
Batter Up Waffle
Raquel's Cocina
Deutschtroit
Kona-Ice
Sunday, May 23, 2021, Noon till 6:
Full Rack BBQ
Estia
Raquel's Cocina
Deutschtroit
Aruba Freeze
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3) Vaccine Clinic at SJA NEXT WEEKEND
Ascension Michigan is honored to host a Pfizer Covid Vaccine clinic onsite at St. Joan of Arc Parish & School in St. Clair Shores Friday, May 21 through Sunday, May 23.
- Appointments and walk-ins welcome for ages 12 and older.
- Vaccines will be given onsite in the Emmaus Fellowship Hall.
- Appointments are recommended but walk-ins are welcome.
- Persons age 12-17 years of age must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
- Persons age 18 and older should please bring a photo ID and insurance card (if available).
- The vaccine is available free and at no cost to you.
Friday & Saturday, May 21 & 22, 2 pm -7 pm
Sunday, May 23, 7 am -1 pm
(Second Dose on Sunday, June 13, 7 am-1 pm)
For questions call the Parish Center: 586-777-3670
Appointment scheduling will open on Wednesday, May 19. Click on the image or button below to schedule your appointment.
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4) Electronics Recycling Event for Holy Innocents / St. Barnabas Parish |
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5) PRAY: The Story of Fr. Patrick Peyton |
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6) Meet Detroit's New Priests:
This weekend, Archbishop Vigneron ordained two of the three men who will be Detroit's newest priests. Read more about them and their stories in the following Detroit Catholic article.
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7) This Sunday's Readings - Sunday, May 16, 2021 |
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8) Grow+Go for the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord |
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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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9) Sunday Reflection by Jeff Cavins: |
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In this Encountering the Word video for the Ascension of Our Lord, Jeff Cavins explains how, in the final words before the Ascension, Christ commissioned the apostles to spread the gospel. |
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10) Stimulus Check 3 Gift to SJA: With each of the Stimulus Checks, many in the parish have called inquiring if there was a family that could use the help. The answer is YES ... your parish family!
As was mentioned a few weeks ago, the first Saturday of March would have been our annual School Gala, the 15th Annual Gala. But because of COVID, the Gala couldn't take place. That annual fundraising nets approximately $100,00 per year. Then given the decline in Sunday offertory and Christmas collections because of the reduced number of people coming to Church, the income we rely on to carry out our many great works has been on the decline. So, we created, and are widely publicizing, the Stimulus Check 3 Gift to SJA. I hope you can be a part of this little project and fundraiser.
I realize not everyone can afford to give part or all of their stimulus check, but to those who can, I would ask that you consider this easy gift to the parish.
Checks can be written to SJA with a memo: Stimulus Check 3 Gift. You can also donate electronically by clicking on the button below.
Thanks for your ongoing and generous support of SJA!
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11) 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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12) This Week's Edition of TALLer Tales |
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Lucy, You’ve got some ‘splainin to do!” Okay, I’ve learned (thank you Google) that Ricky Ricardo NEVER said this often quoted line in the entire series of “I Love Lucy,” but it fit the title of my article, so I’m stickin’ with it. He said things like, “Lucy, splain,” and “Splain that if you can!” Well, I had some ’splainin” to do with something that happened to me recently.
Last week, I mentioned some of the challenges I’ve had in working through my parent’s financial matters since my dad died. I’ve learned it’s not so easy closing accounts and getting things nice and tidy. Plus, I’m busy at times, so things take me a little longer to accomplish. For example, one bank has been waiting for me to close one of my dad’s IRAs before they remove his name from the account. It’s on the list, just not at the top of the pile.
I have to give you the backdrop to what happened. A few days after my dad died, my mom went to Clinton Grove Granite Works in Clinton Township to order headstones/grave markers for both her and my dad. With my grandparents, my mom had pictures of my grandparents etched into the stones. She wanted to do the same for her and my dad. She decided to order her gravestone as well, just minus the final date, of course! It made sense to order them together because the stones would then age together over time. It made perfect sense! My mom found two great pictures she could use for the etching. She loved these particular pictures because they were taken years ago and they both look young! She particularly enjoyed the fact that they both would look forever young when someone looked at the pictures when they came to the grave.
Both headstones were finished at the end of April. My mom and I then used one of our Fridays recently to stop by Clinton Grove Granite to check out the final work before we paid the bill and set things in motion for the stones to be delivered to Resurrection Cemetery. When we got there, the headstones were outside, waiting to be viewed. It was pretty odd not only seeing my dad’s grave marker but also one for my mom. I was supposed to bring a check from my parent’s checkbook to pay off the balance, but I flew out of the Parish Center so quickly that I forgot this little task. Clinton Grove prefers cash or checks to keep costs down. Given that I see our credit card fees, I understand why they would only accept cash or checks. Those fees get outrageous! While I didn’t have one of their checks, I had some from my own account sitting in my wallet; I have them in my wallet for such emergencies. So I used one of those checks to pay off the bill. I figured I would then do a transfer from bank to bank to pay myself back. Easy peasy.
A few days after that Friday excursion, I remembered to initiate the transfer of funds from my parents’ account to my account. Having all of my dad’s passwords, I just went into their account. At first, I had to add myself as a payee. When I did this, it wanted to text or call me with an authorization code to verify my identity. When I saw the number they were trying to use, it was my parent’s landline but with the old 810 area code rather than 586. So, I went into the account and updated their contact information! This was when I got snagged!
While I updated the information successfully, I couldn’t then add myself as a payee without human intervention because I had just updated their contact information; it was a security measure. So I called the bank, worked through the voicemail prompts, and finally talked to a human person. Even though I’m on the account now, I just pretended to be my dad, thinking the process would be more straightforward. So I pretended to be George Bugarin (although I didn’t have to pretend I’m George Bugarin because I AM George Bugarin … albeit George Michael Bugarin). I gave my dad’s social security number and answered all of the agent’s questions. Then there was a pause, and she said she would be right back. I was on hold for a couple of minutes, and I busied myself with some other task on my computer. I didn’t think anything of the pause. The agent finally came back and said there was a problem. While she didn’t use these exact words, the concept was the same, “Well, we have a problem. According to our records, you’re dead.” “LUCY, You’ve got some ‘splainin to do,” was all I could think to myself! Good heavens, nothing is ever simple; all I wanted to do is check this off my task list. The real goal was to get this done before my mom asked if I paid myself back. Usually, the answer to her question if I got this or that done is NO. Being that I need a few miracles every once in a while, I tried to get this one done quickly. I then had to explain everything to the lady. Once she realized I was on the account and could verify my identity, she removed the lock, which only got created when I updated the contact information. She just wanted to confirm that the George Bugarin she was talking to wasn’t dead but very much alive. In the end, it all worked, and the money got transferred. I guess nothing is ever simple in Clark Griswold’s world, even when you think you have the answers to all the ‘splainin’ you have to do.
SJA’s 52 Annual Raffle Update: Thanks a million to everyone who has supported the raffle thus far. The response has been phenomenal. At last count, we were close to $130,000 in raffle sales. THANK YOU!
Please remember that you can continue to turn in your raffle and applicable 100% tickets until 5 PM on Sunday, May 23. For every $100 worth of tickets you return (or $50 for seniors … 65 years old or older), you earn a chance at the “Festival” 100% Drawings at this point. Thus, if you return $200 worth of tickets, you can turn in 2 - 100% tickets (or 4 – 100% tickets if you are a senior)! On Festival/Raffle weekend, we will draw five (5) of the 100% tickets from the entire pool of tickets, and each will win $500. Of course, you stand to win some of the main raffle prizes too!
With the Early Bird Drawing, the event took place in Church last Monday evening. The ONE lucky winner was Peggy Venditti. She, like many people, had multiple 100% tickets in the barrel. Much to my surprise, I pulled her name TWICE. Congratulations Peggy!
And, please remember to keep some room in your meal planning next weekend to stop by the SJA Food Fair. We will have ten food trucks on-site with lots of variety the entire weekend. I can’t wait for the obligatory Elephant Ear! See the flyer posted elsewhere in the bulletin with all the details.
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Enjoy the week. Know of my prayers!
In Christ,
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13) Tire Tracks in the d’Arc |
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Card Woes: So it’s no secret that I’ve had Mothers’ Day card issues this year. But the saga continues. I knew at the start of the month I had to get a Mothers’ Day card in the mail. It arrived Monday, late by a day (or 2 months, depending on how you look at it), but not too bad considering the guesswork involved in international mail in these Covid days. But I knew also that I needed to buy a birthday card for my dad. His birthday is May 13, which at the start of the month affords me some time to sort that out. And I was on the ball! I was at the store and looking at the cards. I have no issue with spending money on my parents, but they should get something for it, and I turned my nose up at an $8 birthday card. I can do much better on Amazon, I thought, and there’s plenty of time. So that was my plan.
Did I do it? No. All this month I’ve had the sense that it was really early in May, perhaps the 2nd or the 4th. Then on Tuesday I was in my office and I looked at the calendar and realized, “It’s the 11th today! I have two days!” Now, my dad has always been from a certain era and has always remained there. “He was never young!” my mom would say, “He wasn't young when I married him.” Fifty years later, this July and he’s definitely not now. I’m sure he still thinks the Pony Express is in operation here in the US. But I thought it was not wise to count on it. So I set about looking online for a UK greetings card ordering website. My dad will be pleased to see his card arrive (one day early!) courtesy of the Funky Pigeon website. Maybe the Pony Express is no longer around, but you can still get your mail delivered by pigeon, apparently.
I mentioned in my homily last week that I was often my mother’s son, or my father’s son, depending on the degree to which either disapproved of what I’d done. I have to admit that I do share my dad’s affinity to bygone days. In our efforts to simplify our world by our technologies, we seem to have created a lot of complications too. And don’t misunderstand, I know that I benefit from, and enjoy, many of these modern conveniences, but a part of me is still fascinated by the relics of days gone that populate little country antique stores all over the place. While Monsignor’s office always has some piece of computer equipment he’s working on, my office has this piece:
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I picked up this L.C. Smith typewriter for $25 maybe 15 years ago. It types, has inked ribbon that I replaced and it types. It’s 118 years old and weighs 40lbs. It actually pre-dates the days of typewriters with bells that told you that you’d reached the end of a line as you typed. This model required that you really pay attention and catch it at exactly the right moment so that you can manually turn the roller to the next line and push the carriage to the left again. Otherwise, you type one big black ink mark in the same spot at the end of the line. Typing is a finger work-out, with those big keys and you have to be accurate or you get your finger jammed between the keys. And of course, there is no delete key.
I like to stop by those odd little antique stores - you never know what you might come across. It’s always an eye-opener as to how the world has changed. But in many it’s not really the world that has changed, but the way we live in it. It’s not the people who have changed - our needs are the same - but the ways we have tried to create solutions and answers to those needs. Some have hit the mark, others have missed. Some have served their purpose but are not obsolete and replaced. But the object left behind serve as reminders of the efforts of those who have gone before us to meet our needs.
This Sunday and next (Pentecost) we hear the last of our Sunday readings from the book of the Acts of the Apostles. The stories in Acts may seem like the early tales of the bygone days of our faith. But the efforts of the Apostles to witness to the incredible things they had experienced during their time with Jesus was how they were offering solutions to common human needs - a need for love, for hope, for joy, for a sense of awe at the faithfulness of God. We could learn much from browsing their store for a while. Their solutions were basic and bold but they changed the world.
Ascension Sunday: Today, the Church of the Archdiocese of Detroit celebrates the Ascension of our Lord, marking the ascent of Jesus to His Father in Heaven. The traditional day to celebrate this feast used to be last Thursday, but it has been moved in many dioceses to this Sunday. In so doing, it can become lost and feel like “just another Sunday mass,” whatever that means (no Sunday is “just another” Sunday mass - it’s always a celebration of Christ’s Easter victory, all year round). Pope Francis reminds us that in Jesus we have an advocate with our Heavenly Father: “He always defends us! Don’t forget this!”
The Ascension of Jesus into heaven acquaints us with this deeply consoling reality on our journey: In Christ, true God and true man, our humanity was taken to God. The Pope eloquently describes how important it is for us to understand why Christ had to ascend back to heaven to be with his Father. According to Pope Francis: “Christ opened the path to us. He is like a roped guide climbing a mountain who, on reaching the summit, pulls us up to him and leads us to God.”
His are sure hands into which we can place all our anxieties and simply trust.
Secondly, Pope Francis observes that Luke writes in his Gospel that “having seen Jesus ascending into heaven, the Apostles returned to Jerusalem ‘with great joy.’” There seems to be a mismatch between the event of the Ascension and the disciples’ reaction. They lose their spiritual guide and leader, but they respond with joy! Their hearts have finally caught-up with what Jesus has been telling them to expect. Their intellect had prevented them at times from understanding, but now their hearts are enlightened by faith and are operating out of that faith, manifesting itself in joy.
Let’s always see today, not as the moment that Jesus became a little more remote or even absent from us, but rather as the day that He became alive in a new way, beyond His physical Resurrection.
The Ascension does not point to Jesus’ absence, but tells us that He is alive and here in our midst in a new way. May we join the disciples in sharing their joy as we await a new out-pouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, God dwelling within us, in just a week from now.
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You are in my prayers this week!
Fr. Andrew
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14) Words on the Word: May 16, 2021 - Building the Future
All hands on deck.
When a big, innovative job needs to get done, it helps to have people with different areas of expertise on the team.
One of the local automakers made headlines a few weeks ago in reports about a dedicated technology park that will specialize in research and development work around batteries, battery cell technology and batter manufacturing.
“The automaker is building on nearly two decades of battery expertise by centralizing a cross-functional team of 150 experts in battery technology, development, research, manufacturing, planning, purchasing, quality and finance to … more quickly develop and manufacture battery cells and batteries,” according to one story on the initiative in Industry Week.
The center, to be located here in Michigan, is promising not only for those who are initially to be involved in the effort, but for the impact its work will have on future generations of car owners and consumers.
In many ways, it’s not unlike the work that God is asking all of us to get involved with, each using his or her own talents to contribute to the larger effort of bringing people to him.
An outcome that works to the good of everyone involved.
“And he gave some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry,” we hear from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, in one of the choices for today’s second reading, “for building up the body of Christ, until we attain to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to mature to manhood, to the extent of the full stature of Christ.”
That’s the biggest and most important job of all, to be sure.
And a great one to get charged up about.
© 2021, Words on the Word
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This week's LIVE Stream
Schedule at St. Joan of Arc:
Monday (May 17):
7:00 AM - Mass
Tuesday (May 18):
7:00 AM - Mass
8:30 AM - School Mass (Grades 5-8)
Wednesday (May 19):
7:00 AM - Mass
8:30 AM - School Mass (Grades 1-4)
Thursday (May 20):
7:00 AM - Mass
7:00 PM - Holy Hour (Praise and Worship Music)
Friday (May 21):
7:00 AM - Mass
10:00 AM - Memorial Mass for Geralyn Malicsi
Saturday (May 22):
12:00 PM- Baptism of Zander Starr
1:00 PM - Baptism of Mary Werner
4:00 PM - Mass
6:00 PM - Mass
Sunday (May 23):
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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Click on the image below
to download a copy of our
Bulletin for May 16, 2021
The Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord
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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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