Week of September 29, 2024 | |
1) Upcoming Retrouvaille Marriage Weekend | |
2) St. Vincent de Paul Clothing Drive NEXT WEEKEND | |
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This drive supports the SVDP Thrift Stores that help neighbors and families in need. For more information, call 586-774-3598.
Sat, October 5 from 10 am-6 pm
Sun, October 6 from 9 am-2 pm
You can drop off donations at the truck in the St. Joan of Arc Greater Mack Parking Lot.
- Please place all clothes in garbage bags rather than boxes
- Please do not leave donations before or after the scheduled truck.
Needed: Gently used clothing for men, women, and children and small household items. (No furniture or large items, please.)
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3) GALA Save the Date - Saturday, November 2, 2024 | |
Tickets for this year's Gala at the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club on November 2, 2024, are now on sale for $125 per person. Click on the button below to purchase your tickets today. | |
4) Interested in becoming Catholic? Do you need to complete your sacraments of initiation? Join the next OCIA class! | |
5) Faith Formation Registration | |
6) Exceptional Needs Registration | |
8) Right to Life of Michigan Baby Shower | |
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If you have not yet given to this year's CSA, please do so soon. We still need to raise $4,064 to reach our goal.
You can give online by clicking on the link below, by calling in your pledge/gift, or by picking up a CSA packet in the Parish Center or in the Gathering Space of Church. Your gift is important and enables us, the Church in Detroit, to carry out Christ's ministry of mercy and love throughout southeast Michigan and beyond — works no one individual or parish could possibly do alone!
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10) Celebrating Marriage with the Saints of Umbria with Deacon Dom and Teresa | Get a $250 Discount Through Septembe |
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12) Pregnancy Aid Detroit Gala | |
13) Ascension's Bible and Catechism App | |
It's Here: The Bible & Catechism App!
The word of God and the complete teachings of the Catholic Church. Answers and commentary by Fr. Mike Schmitz, Jeff Cavins, and other experts. Video, audio, and textual commentary. Right on your phone.
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The Ascension App Includes:
The full text of the Great Adventure Catholic Bible with color coding interwoven throughout so you can immediately recognize where you are in the story of salvation history.
The full text of the Catechism of the Catholic Church with The Foundations of Faith color-coding built in.
Every episode of Bible in a Year with Fr. Mike Schmitz for easy access and cross-referencing with your reading plan and Scripture.
Every released episode of the Catechism in a Year podcast with Fr. Mike Schmitz so you can easily stay on top of your daily readings.
Summaries, the exact wording of Fr. Mike’s daily prayers, and extra content for every single episode of Bible in a Year.
Over 1,000 commonly asked questions about the Bible with answers right in the text from experts like Fr. Mike Schmitz, Jeff Cavins, and others.
An interactive reading plan for both podcasts that tracks your progress.
Notes and bookmarks so you can quickly pick up where you left off and write down your reflections and prayers along the way.
…And we're just getting started. More to be announced soon!
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14) Holy Hour on Thursdays | |
15) This Sunday's Readings: September 29, 2024 - the Twenty-sixthSunday in Ordinary Time | |
16) Sunday Reflections by Jeff Cavins | |
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“Walk In Righteousness”
In this week’s Encountering the Word video, Jeff Cavins discusses how to cut out the things we do, the places we go, and the things we watch that cause us to sin, as he reflects on the Gospel reading for the Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time.
The readings are:
First Reading – Numbers 11:25-29
Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 19:8, 10, 12-13, 14
Second Reading – James 5:1-6
Alleluia – cf. John 17:17B, 17A
Gospel – Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48
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17) Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon | |
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Whoever Is Not Against Us Is For Us
Friends, the first reading and Gospel this Sunday have to do with the Church at war with itself. The devil is the scatterer, the divider, and one of his favorite tricks is to take the Church—which is meant to be an instrument of the Gospel in the world—and to turn us against one another.
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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 the button or image below to download a PDF copy of this Sunday's Grow+Go.
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19) Giving to SJA:
I'm truly grateful for 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.
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Traveling with Ms. Daisy (Part 2): This is a continuation of my travelogue about my journey with “Ms. Daisy” (aka my mom) on our Eastern Seaboard Journey on board the Viking Mars.
Last week, I spoke about the beauty of what human beings created to give honor to God in the form of the churches we visited. They were undoubtedly breathtaking. I wanted to start this week by writing about the beauty we saw in the landscape created by God and some of the beautiful skylines we saw at night.
Again, a picture is worth a thousand words, so I include more pictures here than words. There was beauty everywhere, from the beautiful sunsets to the lit-up church against a beautiful sunset to a lit-up city and bridge. Decades ago, pilgrimages to the churches of Montreal and Quebec, especially Sainte Anne de Beaupre, were pretty common. We often think of pilgrimages only in terms of places far away, but we have plenty of pilgrimage sites within our reach; you don’t have to travel too far at all.
Back to my trip. After leaving Montreal and Quebec, we traveled to the beautiful seaside town of Saguenay, a city in Quebec that leads into the St. Lawrence River.
As my mom was booking our excursions, she was excited about seeing the Saguenay Fjords. She talked about it multiple times, but I didn’t pay much attention because I had no clue what a fjord was or where Saguenay was even located. Once on the ship, I finally “googled” fjords one night. Seriously, how many of you know what a fjord is or have even seen a fjord?
According to my friends at the National Geographic Society, “A fjord is a long, deep, narrow body of water that reaches far inland. Fjords are often set in a U-shaped valley with steep walls of rock on either side. Fjords are found mainly in Norway, Chile, New Zealand, Canada, Greenland, and the U.S. state of Alaska…. Fjords were created by glaciers. In the Earth’s last ice age, glaciers covered just about everything. Glaciers move very slowly over time and can greatly alter the landscape once they have moved through an area. This process is called glaciation. Glaciation carves deep valleys. This is why fjords can be thousands of meters deep. Fjords are usually deepest farther inland, where the glacial force was strongest (https://bit.ly/natgeo-fjord).” You should check out the pictures included on the Nat Geo site.
My mom didn’t just want to visit Saguenay and experience the beauty from a distance; she wanted to see the fjords up close. HOW? Well, my mom booked us for a 45-minute seaplane adventure around the fjords of Saguenay. This was another one of her bucket list items.
The seaplane adventure was phenomenal. The plane only held the pilot, me, my mom, and another couple from the ship. We were able to board the plane just a short distance from the pier where we were docked.
My mom was nervous at first because she didn’t know how she would handle the plane ride. But she put her mind to the bucket list item and was bound and determined to make it happen. And so we did!
It was an incredible 45 minutes! Our pilot was ever so kind and helpful. It took us a while to get into the plane because the seats were literally only a few inches off the floor. I wish there were a video of trying to stuff Ms. Daisy’s driver (me) at 6 foot 7 inches into this plane. I almost decked my head because the plane’s wing came swinging down on me as I stepped onto the plane’s floating step!
Our pilot gave us an incredible tour. Listening to his stories of flying in the area for years was also fun. Outside of the tourist season, they often fly fishermen to remote fishing villages. He said it wasn’t too uncommon to get a call to fly in some “liquid refreshments” from the local stores after a week of dropping people off! Now THAT’s an interesting twist to DoorDash, UberEats, and GrubHub!
Enjoy the pictures.
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Enjoy the week. Know of my prayers!
In Christ,
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“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other as well . . .” So says Jesus in Luke’s gospel. To make things even more difficult, St. Paul, in his letter to the Romans says, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.” Wow! Acting like a Christian is a tall order!
Jesus encourages living such a seemingly impossible lifestyle when he says in Matthew’s gospel, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes the sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” As it turns out, we are supposed to act like God if we say we are his adopted children. Not easy.
As difficult as it is to hear a command from Jesus that goes so against our grain – “love your enemy” – it seems just as difficult to put his command into practice. Even if we are able to surrender to the idea of doing good to those who hate us, how exactly are we supposed to do it? After we get into a heated argument with a coworker, are we supposed to say, “So, do you want me to buy you lunch?” Really, how do we do this?
To “do good to those who hate us, and curse us, and mistreat us,” we first have to identify who the haters are. Politically, we have essentially a two-party system, so it doesn’t take much work to figure out who hates who. Religiously, it gets a little more interesting. But, for the most part, any faith group or denomination that believes differently than ‘me’ gets the evil eye.
Economically, we have the “haves” and the “have nots,” although that distinction varies radically around the world. Intellectually, the academics are pitted against the ‘simple folk’. Socially, the elites and the masses are at odds. Obviously, many such distinctions can continue to be made. Beyond that, there are many overlaps between these rival groups.
So, divided as we are into so many opposing groups, are we all supposed to just get together for a picnic to work things out? Probably only if everyone wears body armor and has a fast getaway car. The truth is that we are at a point in our world where it is nearly impossible to get close enough to our enemies to do any good to them, even if we want to. So, we have to go back to the reason why we should even try to be good to them in the first place: to be like our heavenly Father, who is good everyone.
By being good to all people, God basically dumps all of the responsibility for our success or failure in life in our own laps. When everyone is treated equally well by God, we cannot continually blame him for handing us a bag of rocks when we ask for food to feed the family. Many people who live extremely tragic lives do blame God, though. They shake their fists at the Creator for having created them . . . or at least for not bailing them out of their unbearable troubles. This is understandable. But God is not the one who creates the chaos. WE DO. The human race is responsible for messing up the human race, not God who created it. Surely, Jesus has come and redeemed the human race, but the fullness of redemption won’t be ours until we get to heaven.
In the meantime, we can help humanity get to heaven by not making things worse: by not returning hate for hate, cursing for curses, mistreatment for mistreatment, war with more war. We can do a lot to be God-like by simply refraining from acting like idiots. From the proactive angle, we have to be more creative. The scriptural image of feeding our enemy – sending a burger and a cold one over to our enemy’s house – doesn’t really work. But, if we can figure out what our enemy is actually hungry for, we might be able to make some progress.
The simplest, positive thing we can do for our enemies is the age-old gift of praying for them. When we believe that prayer truly works, it is a mighty gift to give. The recipient doesn’t even have to know about it. Beyond that, we can think about what deep hungers our enemy might have. If that enemy is an estranged family member of ours, is there a way to let them know we don’t totally reject them? Can we let them know the door is not forever shut? Is there a way to let our enemies know that we want good for them, not to destroy them, even if our differences are irreconcilable? Can we control ourselves long enough to listen for any valuable ideas our enemies might have? Can we at least not want them dead?
If we cooperate with God by trying our best to love everyone, we place the responsibility for their salvation squarely on them. We eliminate an excuse for others to continue lives of hatred and sin. When we react in kind to enemies who hate us, we simply propagate the hate. We grow the hate. We prolong it; and we endanger ourselves. Alternatively, by responding to aggression with love, we disable the excuses of others to prolong the war. Like St. Paul says, this can be infuriating. It’s like hot coals heaped upon ones head when they are forced by someone else’s kindness to realize they are indeed hateful idiots.
Doing good to hateful enemies is probably the hardest thing for any human being to do. Hate attacks us on all levels. Responding to hate with love is supernatural . . . divine. We are able to respond to hate with love only because Christ has shown us how to do it and has given us the Holy Spirit to move us. Jesus loved the haters who reviled him as he suffocated to death on the cross. “Forgive them, Father. They know not what they are doing.” Consider such love. Shall we try our best to be his sisters and brothers?
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22) Ascension Presents: Father Mike Schmitz | |
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What Catholics Do (and Don’t) Believe About the Body
Did you know Christians have a radical view of the body? While society often swings between two extremes—either dismissing the body as insignificant or idolizing it—Christianity offers a balanced and profound understanding of the unity between body and soul.
Fr. Mike, drawing on St. John Paul II’s teachings on the ‘cult of the body,’ explains that while we are called to care for and love our bodies, they are not our ultimate purpose. He says we can get caught up in focusing on health, beauty, and physical perfection. Our bodies are good, destined for redemption, but they should not be the center of our lives. Understanding this teaching can help us honor our bodies as God intended.
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23) Words on the Word: September 29, 2024 - It's Only Money | |
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It’s getting to the point where the numbers seemingly aren’t even based in reality. It’s nothing to hear about multi-million-dollar contracts for professional athletes, for example.
Then there are the numbers attached to the wealth of business entrepreneurs and, especially, tech entrepreneurs. One website published a story a few weeks ago that predicted one entrepreneur known for his electric vehicle, space exploration and social media enterprises will likely become the world’s first trillionaire by 2027.
The story explained that this industrial titan’s wealth has been growing at an average annual rate of 110 percent. The story also named other global billionaires who, quite likely, will follow behind in 2028 in reaching the so-called trillionaire’s club. To be sure, there is nothing wrong with high-level, elite, hard work, and its attendant wealth accumulation. Whether one admires these folks or not, they obviously have contributed much to the world, and have enabled others to grow their lives, as well.
The main thing people of goodwill might pray for though – whether it’s on behalf of the world’s trillionaires or with respect to their own more modest fortunes – is that they keep wealth and money in perspective. It’s only money, after all, and our sights must be set higher and longer-term.
“Come now, you rich, weep and wail over your impending miseries,” St. James warns in today’s second reading. “Your wealth and rotted away, your clothes have become moth-eaten, your gold and silver have corroded, and that corrosion will be a testimony against you; it will devour your flesh like a fire. You have stored up treasure for the last days … You have lived on earth in luxury and pleasure; you have fattened your hearts for the day of slaughter.”
Sobering words, to be sure.
Money comes, sometimes in vast quantities. Money goes. Our life with God is eternal.
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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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25) 52 Stories: Good News from Spirit Juice Studios | |
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Prepare to be Inspired
Spirit Juice Studios is blessed to work with countless Catholic organizations, dioceses, parishes, and schools. We get to help them tell their powerful stories about all the good stuff that is happening within the Church. Sign up for 52 Stories so we can share them with you! You’ll meet the unsung heroes of the Catholic Church, discover the stories of holy women and men around the world, and witness miraculous moments of God’s grace in everyday life.
In a world full of bad news, these stories will give you 52 reasons to believe that God is working through the Catholic faith to transform lives through His love and mercy. Sign up today!
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Gina's Story
In this mini-documentary produced for Aid for Women, Gina tells her story of hope in overcoming drug and alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, and prison—and how choosing life turned her life around and gave her purpose.
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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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27) Mass Intentions for the Week: | |
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Monday, September 30, 2024, Saint Jerome, Priest & Doctor of the Church (White)
7:00 am: Giuseppina Ciccone
Tuesday, October 1, 2024, Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, Virgin & Doctor of the Church (White)
7:00 am: Joseph Gielniak
Wednesday, October 2, 2024, Holy Guardian Angels (White)
7:00 am: Agnes & Jack Hubbard
6:00 pm: Katherine Sustrick
Thursday, October 3, 2024, Weekday (Green)
7:00 am: William Dobrzechowski
Friday, October 4, 2024, Saint Francis of Assisi (White)
7:00 am: Dennis Fleming
Saturday, October 5, 2024, Vigil for the Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (Green)
4:00 pm: Bonnie Batche, George J. Bugarin, Gloria Strzelecki, Juliette Zaraneck, Roseann Coules, Madeline Intravaia, Pat Boehm, Carol Cummins, Nancy Barkley, Bernard Ewald, Special Intentions for the J. Champine Family, the Thomas Family, Alison Reslow, David & Donna Lawrence, Annmarie Valdez, Esther David, Charlotte Powell, Pat Maher and Prayerful Appreciation for the work of the Priests and Staff of St. Joan of Arc
6:00 pm: Special Intention for Steve and Peggy Hysick on their 35th Wedding Anniversary
Sunday, October 6, 2024, Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (Green)
8:00 am: The Intentions of SJA Parishioners
10:00 am: Irene Butala (Mother of Michelle Carlson)
12:00 pm: George J. Bugarin, John Power, Dennis Venuto, Edward Rowady, Hugo Calisi, and a Special Intention for Christine Bugarin and Alison Reslow
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28) This Week on St. Joan of Arc LIVE: | |
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This week's LIVE Stream
Schedule at St. Joan of Arc:
Monday (September 30)
7:00 AM - Mass
Tuesday (October 1):
7:00 AM - Mass
Wednesday (October 2):
7:00 AM - Mass
6:00 PM - Mass
Thursday (October 3):
7:00 AM- Mass
5:30 PM - Baptism of Giovanni A. Ruggirello
7:00 PM - Holy Hour
Friday (October 4):
7:00 AM - Mass
10:00 AM - Funeral for Lawrence Hakim (See Obituary HERE)
Saturday (October 5):
12:30 PM - Baptism of Leo Bastone and Galvin Bastone
1:30 PM - Baptism of Brandon G. DiMaso
4:00 PM - Mass
6:00 PM - Mass
Sunday (October 6):
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.
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29) SJA's Latest Parish Bulletin | |
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Click on the image below
to download a copy of the bulletin
for September 29, 2024
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30) Weekly Bulletin Mailing List | |
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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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