Dear Friends in Christ,
Here are a few updates from our parish for the week of November 7, 2021.
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1) SJA Giving Tree Project 2021 |
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"Giving Tree” is a special charitable project designed to match the generosity of our parishioners with the needs of our community during the Christmas holiday. The project serves 100% local individuals who may otherwise not receive a gift at this special time of the year.
After a one-year pause due to the worldwide pandemic, St. Joan of Arc Parish is proud to continue this tradition of gift-giving. Some things will be a bit different this year to accommodate social distancing and remote Mass attendance. But our commitment to the families and individuals helped by our Giving Tree project has not waivered.
HOW IT WORKS:
1) PURCHASE GIFT CARD(S): Buy plastic* gift card(s) valued from $15-30 (per card). You may purchase more than one, but please make sure limits fall within per-card limits $15-$30.
* tangible gift cards please, no electronic vouchers. Please make sure cards have been activated at the retailer that issued the card.
STRES ACCEPTED: Meijer, Walmart, Target, and Amazon
WHERE TO BUY: At the named retailer, at most drug & grocery stores or online.
LET US PURCHASE THE GIFT CARDS FOR YOU: You may also donate this year via our online giving platform by clicking on the button below and indicating the amount you would like to donate. We will take care of the rest.
2) PLACE GIFT CARD(s) IN AN ENVELOPE: Place the gift card(s) in an envelope. The envelope may include a Christmas greeting card, but this is not required. Mark on the envelope (directly or with a pasted note) “GIVING TREE” along with the quantity, store name, and value of the gift card(s).
3) TAKE THE GIFT ENVELOPE(S) TO A DESIGNATED DROP SPOT:
DEADLINE December 5, 2021: Bring your marked envelope(s) to the Parish Center Office during office hours, or place it in the locked collection boxes in the Sr. Carol Center or the Parish Center Lobby.
WHAT HAS CHANGED FOR 2021: Unlike past years where we accepted tangible gifts such as toys and clothing, the Giving Tree will accept only gift cards this year. This decision is to make it safer and easier for our parishioners to participate. It will also make the program more flexible for our charity agencies, who are also challenged with logistics and health protocols at this time.
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2) Coordinator OPENING - Center for Exceptional Needs |
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The mission of the Center for Exceptional Needs at St. Joan of Arc is to enable persons with a variety of challenges to encounter Jesus Christ and develop a friendship with him in a supportive and caring environment. Through faith formation and Christian fellowship, students learn about the Word of God, our Catholic faith. They come together with loving cate to share faith, friendship, love for one another, and to appreciate all of God’s creation. This is a seasonal part-time position. (Oct-May.)
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3) SJA's CSA Update as of November 7, 2021 |
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I am grateful to those who have already contributed to CSA 2021. As of today, we have $181,896 in pledges and gifts toward our $217,002 goal ($171,587 has already been paid thus far toward our total pledged amount). This amount represents gifts from 559 families (we have 3,281 families registered). We have thus achieved 84% of our goal!
Here is a breakdown by gift range:
$2,500+ (6)
$1,000+ (35)
$500+ (46)
$250+ (107)
$100+ (211)
$75+ (16)
$50+ (70)
$25+ (41)
$10+ (24)
$0+ (3)
As stated above, the easiest way to give is electronically by clicking on the button above. If you wish to give by check, feel free to contact the Parish Center and we will mail out an envelope and related material.
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4) This Sunday's Readings - November 7, 2021 |
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5) Jeff Cavins: Encountering the Word - Reflections on the Sunday Readings |
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In this week’s Encountering the Word video, Jeff Cavins reflects on the readings for the Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time.
First Reading: 1 Kings 17:10-16
Responsorial Psalm: 146:7, 8-9, 9-10
Second Reading: Hebrews 9:24-28
Alleluia: Matthew 5:3
Gospel: Mark 12:38-44 or 12:41-44
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6) Grow+Go for the 32nd 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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7) 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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8) This Week's Edition of TALLer Tales |
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Laziness at its Best: With the arrival of the fall season, I go into soup and crockpot mode. I always consider fall and winter as the official seasons for soup and anything crockpot-related.
Last Monday was a complicated day. We had our regular four masses for the Solemnity of All Saints. Unfortunately, Father Andrew and Father Rich were not feeling well that day, so we told them to stay home. That meant I would have all four masses. Even though it wasn’t a holy day of obligation, I was so impressed to see how many people were in Church and how many watched the liturgies online.
Apart from the four liturgies, I also had a few meetings, one of which lasted three and a half hours. So by the time I got home after the 7 PM mass, I was ready to grab some dinner, do our family zoom call, return some calls and hopefully not fall asleep in my chair. BUT, I was intent on having some soup for dinner.
I went down to my freezer, scrounged around my offerings, and saw I had some chicken soup that someone once made. PERFECT. I thought about getting soup at a nearby restaurant, but I was too lazy to venture outside. So, while I was returning calls and participating in our family zoom call, I put the frozen chicken soup container in the microwave and set it on defrost for about 15 minutes. I knew I would be on the phone and zoom for a bit, so setting the soup on defrost was the perfect option.
When I finally returned to the kitchen, I stirred my soup and decided it needed a few more minutes on high to heat it up thoroughly. As I stirred the soup, I decided I needed to up the ante a bit; it wasn’t only chicken soup that I craved, but it was now chicken noodle soup that would be the perfect ending to my day. But, the chicken soup in the microwave was without noodles. As I scoured my cupboards, I saw I had some chickpea pasta still sitting around. But I quickly dismissed the pasta option because I was in no mood to wait an additional 10 minutes to cook it. Unfortunately, I had no crackers or anything else to dump into the soup, so I kept looking. What caught my eye was a box of multigrain Cheerios sitting on my counter. “Hmmm, I wonder how that would work,” I thought to myself. Because I was too lazy to wait 10 minutes to cook some pasta, I decided to fill my soup cup with some Cheerios. I thought the Cheerios would be a crunchy little addition and fill the void of not having any pasta.
Once my soup was sizzling hot, I took it out of the microwave and started to ladle some of the awesome smelling soup into my soup cup. As I did so, the Cheerios began to sizzle like crazy like bacon in grease. As I listened and watched in amazement to what now seemed like a science experiment, I then witnessed the Cheerios swell to enormous proportions and rise to the top as if they were now in total command of my soup cup. “This wasn’t going to be good,” I thought to myself. I then slowly put my spoon into the concoction and consumed my first spoonful of what was supposed to help create the perfect ending to a beautiful yet long day. Well, the Cheerios were now all mush and were the more prominent ingredient in the cup! And if it weren’t for the chicken and vegetables, I would’ve had absolutely no idea it was chicken soup!
Oh well! Next time, I won’t be so lazy, and I’ll just cook the pasta! While Cheerios may be a perfect breakfast item and snack, they totally fail in a hot soup! The sizzling sound I initially heard was definitely my early warning sign. What was I thinking?
Remembering the Dead during November: Last Tuesday, the Church celebrated the Feast of All Souls. On that day, we turned our attention to the souls of the dead who await the day they will join the company of the saints in Heaven. It was a day to remember … and a day to reflect on our own mortality, our relationship with Christ, and the hope of the Resurrection!
In his message for All Souls’ Day a few years ago, Pope Francis reminded the world that the Solemnity of All Saints and the Feast of All Souls are intimately linked: “Yesterday we celebrated the Solemnity of All Saints, and today the liturgy invites us to commemorate the faithful departed. These two recurrences are intimately linked to each other, just as joy and tears find a synthesis in Jesus Christ, who is the foundation of our faith and our hope. On the one hand, in fact, the Church, a pilgrim in history, rejoices through the intercession of the Saints and the Blessed who support her in the mission of proclaiming the Gospel; on the other, she, like Jesus, shares the tears of those who suffer separation from loved ones, and like Him and through Him echoes the thanksgiving to the Father who has delivered us from the dominion of sin and death.
“Church Tradition has always urged prayer for the deceased, in particular by offering the Eucharistic Celebration for them: it is the best spiritual help that we can give to their souls, particularly to those who are the most forsaken. The foundation of prayer in suffrage lies in the communion of the Mystical Body.
“Remembering the dead, caring for their graves and prayers of suffrage, are the testimony of confident hope, rooted in the certainty that death does not have the last word on human existence, for man is destined to a life without limits, which has its roots and its fulfillment in God…. With this faith in man’s supreme destiny, we now turn to Our Lady, who suffered the tragedy of Christ’s death beneath the Cross and took part in the joy of his Resurrection. May She, the Gate of Heaven, help us understand more and more the value of prayer in suffrage for the souls of the dead. They are close to us! May She support us on our daily pilgrimage on earth and help us to never lose sight of life’s ultimate goal, which is Heaven. And may we go forth with this hope that never disappoints!”
As a people of hope and a people of the Resurrection, visiting the graves of family and friends would be a noble thing to do during November, which is a month dedicated to remembering our dearly departed. You might consider taking the time to pray for deceased family and friends by name at your family meals. You might think about creating an art project with your children where you remember your deceased relatives and friends by name by creating holy cards for each of them and then placing those cards in a special basket that could be highlighted at your family meals or family gatherings during November.
May our family and friends who have already gone before us enjoy eternal rest in the loving hands of Christ the Lord.
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Enjoy the week. Know of my prayers!
In Christ,
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9) Tire Tracks in the d’Arc |
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A Moment of Prayer: Laurence Binyon’s ‘For the Fallen’ is one of the most widely quoted poems of the First World War. It wasn’t written from the trenches, but by the poet back home, reflecting on the sacrifice thousands of men on the Western Front were making every week.
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them”
These 4 lines are the 4th stanza of Binyon’s poem, “For the Fallen,” written in 1914, just a few weeks after the outbreak of WWI. At that stage, Binyon could have had little idea that the war would continue for 4 more years on such an immense scale and leave such a trail of destruction or at such human cost. In all, some 17 0million military deaths. But including the resulting famine and disease, the toll was closer to 40 million souls.
This Thursday, November 11th, we mark Veterans’ Day. This year is 103 years since the end of the Great War, with the signing of the Armistice between the Allies and Germany. A 111 year-old veteran commented, “All those lives lost for a war finished over a table. Now what is the sense in that?” We remember this week all those who sacrificed their lives in that war in the hope of bringing about a better world for the rest of us. And we particularly remember all those from our own families and our parish who have served our nation. Their willingness to serve and to suffer deserves our attention, deserves passing-on in remembrance to generations to follow.
If we are ever offended by how cheaply so many lives were thrown away, let it be a lesson for us today – an opportunity to review our attitudes toward the value of life, at all stages. Let it especially be viewed in the context of the one who sacrificed the most for us, who gave His all, the one who was led by the spirit into a battle with the evil one and defeated him. Let us recall Jesus Christ, who willingly walked into a fight against evil, a war he did not start, and gave his life painfully on a cross for the saving of us all. No military “war to end all wars” can bring about the better world we hope for. Only our preparedness to walk into the line of fire and face the spiritual enemy - the enticement of sin and Satan’s lies – will do this. This is the battlefront of our day. Jesus has already won the war for the human race. Now we must choose for ourselves to join His army and raise His flag over our lives.
I have to admit that Veterans’ day always causes me a little confusion. Growing-up in England, I remember the annual Boy Scouts march through the town. In the UK, November 11th is known as Remembrance Day. It specifically is a day to commemorate all those who lost their lives in military service, rather than all who served. There is no equivalent of Memorial Day. I finally figured this out when I lowered the flag on Veterans’ Day at my last parish, which cause much confusion!
Every closest Sunday to November 11th, my Boy Scout Troop would take part in the march to Ings Grove Park and to the war memorial. And there we would stand for two minutes silence. It always seemed to me at that age to be about 30 minutes silence. It was always cold, always pouring with rain (it’s November in northern England, of course it was raining!). The poppy wreathes were laid at the foot of the aged stone obelisk memorial and we were all wearing our paper poppies. If November 11th itself was a school day, the whole school would stop for two minutes silence at 11am.
That two minutes of silence is something written in my memory. And that’s not a bad thing at all, but as an adult I have come to wonder if there isn’t something hollow about it. Wouldn’t two minutes of prayer for the dead be better? I have to wonder if the silence is almost an admission that the world doesn't have an answer to the waste of life that we remember on these occasions. Without faith, there is only silence. And that’s why there is no response that offers any hope when we mark moments of silence at sports events and other secular gatherings. But the Christian has a response. The Christian prays for the dead. We pray for the souls of those who have passed form this life. We pray in thanksgiving for the sacrifice they offered, and for God’s mercy upon them. It’s God’s mercy that we implore and His mercy is our cause for hope.
November is particularly a month the Church asks us to pray for the souls of the dead. Perhaps that would be a good work of mercy for us all this month.
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You are in my prayers this week.
Fr. Andrew
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10) Words on the Word: November 7, 2021 - Space for More
Wealth is seemingly a relative thing. Most of us, of course, even if we feel stable financially, also feel like if we just had “X amount” more, then we’d really be in good shape.
The reality of the situation is that, regardless of where we are on the income spectrum, and regardless of what additional level we could attain, there potentially always would be a yearning for more.
The same, alas, may even be true for the richest people in the world. One media source reported a few weeks ago on a well-known business tycoon who is on pace to become the world’s first trillionaire.
That’s trillionaire. With a capital “T.”
Emphasis on capital.
The story went on to describe the source of the stratospheric wealth accumulation is primarily dependent on his potential in the realm of space exploration. That, of course, is on top of his other achievements in electric vehicles, underground transportation, and many other ventures.
When one reaches trillionaire status, presumably there will be food on the table and the water won’t be shut off. But how much is enough? Again, it’s all relative.
And that’s why it’s so helpful to be reminded of the true source of our wealth, in heaven, and of the importance for us of keeping material wealth in perspective. To help in the lesson, Jesus points out the generosity of the widow in today’s gospel passage from St. Mark.
“Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury,” we hear. “For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.”
It’s a perfect reminder that our (perfectly understandable) quest for “more” should always begin and end in consultation with God.
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11) Ascension Presents with Father Mike Schmitz: |
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Why is it so Hard to Forgive Yourself?
As Catholics, we believe in the forgiveness of our sins through the graces of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. But often, even though we are absolved but we can struggle to forgive ourselves for our past faults and failings.
Today, Fr. Mike shares the main reason why we struggle to let go of the past and surrender to God who is our loving Father.
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12) 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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14) This Week on St. Joan of Arc LIVE: |
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This week's LIVE Stream
Schedule at St. Joan of Arc:
Monday (November 8):
7:00 AM - Mass
Tuesday (November 9):
7:00 AM - Mass
Wednesday (November 10):
7:00 AM - Mass
Thursday (November 11):
7:00 AM - Mass
7:00 PM - Holy Hour (Praise and Worship Music)
Friday (November 12):
7:00 AM - Mass
Saturday (November 13):
12:30 PM - Baptism of Benjamin Price
1:30 PM - Baptism of Archie Lukes
2:30 PM - Baptism of Tatum Fedenis
4:00 PM - Mass
6:00 PM - Mass
Sunday (November 14):
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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15) SJA's Bulletin for November 7, 2021 |
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Click on the image below
to download a copy of our
Bulletin for November 7, 2021
The 32nd 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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