Week of November 12, 2023

1) Presence: The Mystery of the Eucharist

2) St. Padre Pio’s relics to visit Detroit churches Nov. 17-19

Just weeks after a relic of St. Jude stopped in Detroit, Catholics have another chance to venerate a saint known for his healing faith

From Detroit Catholic: ROSEVILLE — Another saint known for his miraculous intercession will make a three-day stop in the Archdiocese of Detroit later this month.

Just weeks after a major relic visit of St. Jude Thaddeus, the Archdiocese of Detroit announced the relics of St. Padre Pio, a 20th century Italian Capuchin friar known for his healing prayers, will visit three southeast Michigan churches Nov. 17-19.

The relics of St. Pio of Pietrelcina, as he is officially known, are currently on a national tour sponsored by the Saint Pio Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes the life and teachings of St. Padre Pio and cares for the poor.

Five first- and second-class relics will be available for veneration at St. Barbara Parish in Dearborn from 3-9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 17; at St. Joseph Parish in Erie from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 18; and at St. Pio of Pietrelcina Parish in Roseville from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 19. Mass in honor of St. Pio will be celebrated at 6 p.m. at St. Barbara, at 5:30 p.m. at St. Joseph, and at 6 p.m. at St. Pio.

St. Padre Pio, a Capuchin who spent most of his life in the monastery of San Giovanni Rotondo or Pietrelcina in Italy, was known for his healing touch, with thousands of faithful flocking to visit him from all over the world. He was also known for bearing the gift of the stigmata, or the five wounds of Christ, on his hands, feet and side.

The relics currently touring the United States include the crusts of the saint’s wounds, cotton gauze bearing his blood stains, a lock of his hair, his handkerchief soaked with his sweat hours before he died, and a piece of his mantle.

“We are indeed grateful to Archbishop (Allen H.) Vigneron for inviting the Saint Pio Foundation to bring the relics of Padre Pio for the first time in the Archdiocese of Detroit,” said Luciano Lamonarca, founder and CEO of the Saint Pio Foundation. “The most important fact, in our opinion, is that the majority of those attending the tour of the relics of Padre Pio would never be able to travel to San Giovanni Rotondo or Pietrelcina to visit the places where our saint was born, lived, and died. It has, therefore, become a mission for us to enable these faithful devotees to have a 'spiritual encounter' with Padre Pio.”

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3) SJA's Annual Feather Party - November 20, 2023

4) Ascension's Bible and Catechism App

5) This Sunday's Readings: November 12, 2023, 2023 - The Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

6) Sunday Reflections by Jeff Cavins

"How to Pursue Wisdom" + The Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

In this week’s Encountering the Word video for the Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Jeff Cavins explains the value of wisdom, how we can gain it, and how to practically pursue it in our everyday lives. The readings are:

First Reading: Wisdom 6:12-16

Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 63:2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8

Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Alleluia: Matthew 24:42a, 44

Gospel: Matthew 25:1-13

7) Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon

Classic Sunday Sermon: You Must Rethink Your Spiritual Life



Friends, there’s a great temptation for us to turn the Lord into a distant spiritual entity or a difficult moral taskmaster. We incorrectly believe that we have to crawl our way to the divine by our own heroism, merit, and effort. But this is not the case. In actuality, God, in his wisdom, hastens to make himself known. He reveals himself to us, even before we’ve begun to see. In fact, our seeking is predicated upon the fact that we’ve already been found. To understand this is to understand the Bible as the story of God’s quest for us.

8) Grow+Go

9) Giving to SJA:

I'm truly grateful for all of your support of SJA. 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.

10) This Week's Edition of TALLER Tales

It’s All About Listening: I’m not sure why, but listening seems to be a lost art! Everyone loves to talk; very few people want to listen. We even fall into that trap with our prayer life. We want to do all the talking, but the key ingredient to prayer is listening. I sometimes imagine God leaning over Earth and saying, “Time out, people. Stop talking! I have something to say too!”

Listening is also a key ingredient when following your conscience or when your Guardian Angel is clearly SHOUTING at you to do or not do something. My Guardian Angel was clearly SHOUTING at me recently, and I thought I knew better!

Before I get to the heart of this story, Dina, our ever-so-faithful Business Manager, made arrangements for the Parish Center carpeting to be cleaned one Saturday not too long ago. Zeppelin Cleaning Services did their magic, and they even, at my request, took pictures of the water to show me how dirty the carpets were! I’m not sure WHY I wanted to see a picture of the water, but I just chalked it up to me being me! It was disgusting! But it was nice to know the carpets were clean at the end of the day! Unfortunately, Dennis the Menace here tends to do something dumb every time the carpets are cleaned. And, things just don’t happen in my house or the Parish Center, but they happen at other’s homes, too. My most famous example is when I was Cardinal Maida’s secretary. This particular morning in 1995, Cardinal Maida and I just toured what was left of the Saint Vincent de Paul warehouse downtown after a massive fire destroyed it. It was a week before Christmas. Immediately after that visit, the Cardinal had a meeting with Mayor Archer at Manoogian Mansion. When we got to the Mayor’s residence, the family and staff were preparing for the Archer family Christmas gathering. Mrs. Archer met us at the door, took our coats, and we proceeded to a room to meet Mayor Archer. Little did I know, but remnants of the SVDP building ashes were still caked on my size 16 shoes, and I left these humungous black footprints ALL OVER the pristine beige carpeting! Talk about being embarrassed and leaving a lasting impression! And this wasn’t a case where they could say Santa came down the chimney and forgot to wipe his feet because “Santa’s” footprints started at the main door!

Well, we had an incident at the Parish Center just two days after the carpeting was cleaned. It doesn’t take this Dennis the Menace long to mess things up.

It was a Monday. And Mondays are ALWAYS challenging around the Parish Center. Shortly after the morning school bells had rung, I got a call from Chris, our school secretary, that their big Xerox machine had stopped working because the machine’s waste toner cartridge was completely full. Of course, I didn’t have a replacement, but I told Chris to meet me at the Parish Center with the waste toner cartridge, and I would create a temporary fix. I’ve done this fix before and knew I could do it again. The waste toner cartridge is like a “garbage can” to collect any leftover toner the machine doesn’t use in the print process. Usually, you replace the whole cartridge and recycle it. But when you don’t have a replacement and know the machine won’t work until there is either a new cartridge or a fix, you become creative in figuring things out.

My solution was to open the waste toner cartridge and dump the waste toner powder into a garbage bag. I’ve done this before and created a mess. I did it this time, and created a mess. If only I had listened to my Guardian Angel.

I carefully dismantled the cartridge in the Parish Center Xerox Room. I then opened a garbage bag. At this point, my Guardian Angel was SHOUTING at me to do this dirty deed outside. I figured I had this and knew what I was doing. As I started to shake the waste toner cartridge, toner dust started to fill the air. I’m not sure how much stayed in the garbage bag, but it created this huge plume of black dust in the Parish Center Xerox room. At this point, Chris was laughing at and with me. As I reacted to the plume of toner dust (at this point, I was coughing and couldn’t see), I lost my grip on the garbage bag, and toner dust started spewing all over our nicely cleaned carpet. But it was also all over my suit and my face! I felt like I was now breathing and eating waste toner powder!

As I tried to put the now nearly empty waste toner cartridge back together again, Chris couldn’t help but continue laughing. What a mess. “Clean up in Aisle 5.” As I handed the cartridge back to Chris, I said, “I just HOPE this works after all this!” Chris responded, “I’ve always wanted to be in your bulletin article. I have a funny feeling this story will make it one day!” I just nodded and said, “YOU BET!” Now, I had to drum up the courage to tell Dina about the huge mess I had just made in the Xerox Room, which included a considerable amount of toner all over the nicely cleaned carpet. When I make a mess, I certainly go all the way! If only I had listened to my Guardian Angel!

Holy Communion and Celiac Sprue Disease: Several years ago, a few people with Celiac disease approached me asking if the Church had any low/no gluten hosts that could be consecrated for them. Celiac Sprue Disease is a condition whereby the digestive system is considerably compromised by consuming gluten, one of the key ingredients in wheat flour. My experience is that many people with Celiac disease are unaware that low-gluten hosts exist. The host is virtually gluten-free, as it contains only 0.01% gluten.

While every parish does it differently, we worked out a system whereby people with Celiac disease purchase their own pyx (a small container for holding a host), and we provide the low-gluten hosts. As there are only three approved places in the United States for purchasing these low-gluten hosts, we buy the hosts and keep them stored at the Parish Center. Parishioners who need the low-gluten hosts are given a bag of these hosts, which usually lasts a few months. Parishioners then come to mass with their pyx containing the low-gluten host and give it to one of the God’s Door Keeper Ministers (our welcoming people), or they bring it directly to the sacristy. The person then approaches the principal celebrant for communion as he will have the pyxs with the low-gluten hosts.

If you are gluten intolerant and want more information about these low-gluten hosts, please see either Father Adam or me or stop by the Parish Center; we’d be happy to explain the whole matter and provide you with the low-gluten hosts. It’s pretty simple.

Enjoy the week. Know of my prayers!

In Christ,

11) Along the Way with Father Adam

Rome: Part IV

We’ve talked about all the major basilicas of Rome now, except for one – St. John Lateran. The official name is: Archbasilica Cathedral of the Most Holy Savior and of Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist in the Lateran. Interestingly, the Archbasilica is also the Cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, not St. Peter’s Basilica.

It is the Papal Archbasilica, and it is the oldest public church in the west and ranks first among the four Major Basilicas of Rome. As a cathedral of Rome it ranks above all other churches in the Catholic Church. For that reason, it is titled Archbasilica.

The Archbasilica stands over the remains of a fort of the Roman imperial cavalry bodyguard. After the victory of the Emperor Constantine over Maxentius in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312, Constantine demolished the fort. He then built the early Christian Basilica over the fort and dedicated it to the Savior in thanksgiving to Him for his victory over Maxentius.

The rest of the site was occupied during the early Roman Empire by the Domus (House or Palace) of the Laterani family. The Domus Laterani came into the hands of the Emperor when Constantine married his second wife, Fausta, sister of Maxentius. The palace and land were given by Constantine to Pope St. Miltiades, who held a Council there in 313. Only later, however, during the papacy of Gregory I (590-604), was the church dedicated also to St. John the Baptist and to St. John the Apostle and writer of the Fourth Gospel.

Throughout the centuries, St John Lateran has survived several fires and an earthquake in 897. Nevertheless, it still maintains its first form even though it has been reconstructed on several occasions. Nearby the Archbasilica is the Scala Sancta or Holy Stairs. In 1586, when Pope Sixtus V decided to build the present Lateran Palace, he asked the architect to use the grand staircase of the old palace, consisting of 28 marble steps. 

According to legend, St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, brought these steps in the fourth century by ship to Rome from the praetorium of Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem. Thus, Jesus would have used these steps on His way to trial before His Crucifixion. For centuries, many pilgrims have honored the Passion of Christ by ascending the Scala Sancta on their knees. Since the early 1700s, the Holy Stairs have been encased in wood for protection. The stairs remained covered until 2019 when the protective wood was removed for restoration of the stairs. Following restoration, pilgrims were allowed to ascend the exposed holy stairs on their knees for the first time in almost 300 years. The stairs remained open to the public from April 2019 to July 2019 and then covered again in wood. I was very blessed in June 2019 to be able to pray kneeling up the stairs. 

Prayer for Pope Francis

This should remind us of the necessity of praying for our Holy Father. Below is a prayer provided by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

O God, shepherd and ruler of all the faithful, look favorably on your servant Francis, whom you have set at the head of your Church as her shepherd;

Grant, we pray, that by word and example he may be of service to those over whom he presides so that, together with the flock entrusted to his care, he may come to everlasting life.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Blessings!

Fr. Adam

anowak@sjascs.org

12) Ascension Presents: Father Mike Schmitz

Facing the Consequences of Your Actions

Free will is an incredible gift from God that we often underestimate. We truly get to make a choice in every decision that we come across—even the smallest decisions. But guess what we DON’T get to choose?

The consequences.

Today, Fr. Mike reminds us that every action has a consequence built into it. So, if you want a certain result, make a choice. If you choose sin, you get sin. If you choose God, you get God. The choice… is yours.

13) Words on the Word: November 12, 2023 - Neither the Day nor the Hour  

We are keenly aware, of course, that death is inevitable. That’s not a grim fact, or a sad one. It’s just a fact.

It’s one reason, among others, that we fervently pray the Hail Mary, in which we beseech our Blessed Mother to be with us “now and at the hour of our death.”

It’s also why Jesus reminds us, as we hear in today’s gospel passage from St. Matthew, “therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

Still, we cannot help but marvel sometimes at the seeming randomness of death.

Recent headlines, for example, included a couple particularly noteworthy stories.

In St. Clair Shores, a 7-year-old girl was struck and killed by a car in the middle of the afternoon. At the time of this writing, the details of the incident were still being investigated. Seven years old, we note; how tragic.

By contrast, another recent story told of a 116-year-old Spanish woman, believed perhaps to be the oldest person in the world, who not only has survived Covid, a major earthquake, a civil war, and a fire, but is completely lucid and suffers from no cardiovascular problems of any kind.

A woman happily working her way toward 120, we note; how wonderful.

The good news is that, in both cases, God has a plan, both for the people involved and for their loved ones.

And also, a message for us.

“We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, about those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope,” St. Paul writes to the Thessalonians, and to us, in today’s second reading.

“For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so too will God, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep.”

© 2023, Words on the Word

14) This WEEK on FORMED:

15) Hallow App:

16) Mass Intentions for the Week:

Monday, November 13, 2023, Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, Virgin (White) 

7:00 a.m., Debbie Albrecht

Tuesday, November 14, 2023, Weekday (Green)

7:00 a.m., The deceased members of the Calisi Family who died in the month of November

Wednesday, November 15, 2023, Weekday, Saint Albert the Great, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Green/White)

7:00 a.m., James Parker

6:00 p.m., Phillip Perron

Thursday, November 16, 2023, Weekday, Saint Margaret of Scotland, Sant Gertrude, Virgin (Green/White/White)

7:00 a.m., Fr. John C. Jordan and Robert Bidigare

Friday, November 17, 2023, Saint Elizabeth of Hungry, Religious (White)

7:00 a.m., Debbie Albrecht

Saturday, November 18, 2023, Vigil of the Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time (Green)

4:00 p.m., Bonnie Batche, Edward, Helen & Henry Blind, Grace & Sam Valenti, Joan Weber, Dr. Lori Karol, Laura Barkley, Sally Cabot, Debbie Albrecht, Angie Calus and special intentions for the Thomas Family, the J. Champine Family, for Alison Reslow, Pam Haisenleder, Lorraine Jonas, and Ray DeFrates

6:00 p.m., John Gaines

Sunday, November 19, 2023, Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time (Green)

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

10:00 a.m., Joseph Paluzzi Jr.

12:00 p.m., George J. Bugarin, Jose’ Medina, Rosario Medina, Luther McClanahan, Jeffrey Hardy, Joan Hardy, Feliciana Punzalan, Dini Hamm, Daisy Marie Buenavista, Lawrence VanOverbeke, Dennis Doheny and special intentions for Pam Haisenleder, Alison Reslow, Lorraine Jonas and Ray Defrates

17) This Week on St. Joan of Arc LIVE:

This week's LIVE Stream

Schedule at St. Joan of Arc:

Monday (November 13)

7:00 AM - Mass

Tuesday (November 14):

7:00 AM - Mass

7:00 PM - Presence Series

Wednesday (November 15):

7:00 AM - Mass

6:00 PM - Mass

Thursday (November 16):

7:00 AM- Mass

7:00 PM - Holy Hour

Friday (November 17):

7:00 AM - Mass

Saturday (November 18):

12:30 PM - Baptism of Evelyn Rose Davis

1:30 PM - Baptism of Annelise Anderson Apone

2:30 PM - Baptism of Eliana Rose Campernel

4:00 PM - Mass

6:00 PM - Mass

Sunday (November 19):

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 cannot 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.

18) SJA's Latest Parish Bulletin

Click on the image below

to download a copy of the bulletin

for November 12, 2023

19) Weekly Bulletin Mailing List

20) Detroit Catholic