Everyone is invited to our Parish Picnic next Sunday, August 27th. We are grateful to our Men’s Club for providing the meat and corn on the cob. We would appreciate if you could bring a dish to share. There will be at least 100 people at the picnic, so please bring enough to feed approximately 15-20 people.
Those who bring a dish will automatically be entered into a raffle to win a nice prize!
We changed things up a bit for those donating dishes.
· Last names A-G—Desserts or Fruits
· Last names H-O—Appetizers or Dips
· Last names P-Z—Salads—Greens, Pasta, Coleslaw, etc.
If you could drop off your dish at the food table prior to the noon Mass that will help our organizers get the food ready in a timely fashion. We will have a 50/50 raffle and games for the kids. We hope to see everyone! Any questions, feel free to see one of our Parish Council members.
Beatification Mass of Father Solanus Casey
Are you interested in going to the Beatification Mass of Fr. Solanus Casey at Ford Field on November 18th? If so, we are sharing 100 tickets with Our Lady of Loretto Parish. We have chartered 2 buses to help with your transportation. The cost is $15 per person. This is a first come first served basis. You must call the parish office at 313-532-4394 to secure your reservation and your money must be paid by September 11th. If you have any questions, please call Bonnie at the Parish Office.
Parishioner, Albert Betzler, is a student at Sacred Heart major Seminary. His Professor Tamra Fromm, suggested he submit his reflections to our Sunday Bulletin. Below you will find the fifth in the series.
Sense of Sin
My friend, Diana, is my theological arch-nemesis. I say that fondly as we have charitably debated each other for years. She calls me “Paladin” because I “drink the Catholic Kool-Aid”. I call her “Ranger,” after a morally ambiguous anime character that doesn’t believe in the existence of sin. Like Ranger, Diana believes that everyone should follow their own moral code. As she once told me (rather theatrically), “I’ve thrown off the yoke of the Catholic Church. No one tells me what to do anymore. I’m free!”
But that’s just it. She’s not free. Sin is an illusion of freedom, a great lie of slavery perpetuated by the greatest liar of all. Unfortunately, many people believe as Diana does. How, as Christians, do we convince them sin is real? I start by appealing to their reason, by making a connection between the physical and the spiritual, the tangible and the intangible. I begin with creation. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). Clearly God made a good and ordered world. This is evident in the physical laws that govern the universe. After all, everyone believes the earth revolves around the sun or in Newton’s Laws of Motion. They are physical, undeniable, and they affect us.
But man is not just a material being. He is also a spiritual one. Of all God’s creations, man is the only one who is a composite of body and soul made in in the image and likeness of God. We belong to both realms. I think it’s reasonable to say that if God gave us physical laws that affect our bodies, He would also give us moral laws to govern our souls.
For example, if I ignore the Laws of Gravity my body is going to regret it. If I commit adultery, I blacken my soul by breaking my friendship with God and by damaging my relationship with my wife, regardless of whether she’s aware of the affair or not. When committing a wrong, most people feel the sting of conscience. Why? Jeremiah 31:33 comes to mind: “I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts.” I think deep down people intrinsically know what they are doing is wrong but willfully choose to ignore it under the misconception that they are free to do as they please regardless of moral consequence. The more they engage in this behavior, the less their conscience stings them. Eventually it ceases to protest. Their vice has now become a habit and their perceived freedom is, in reality, slavery. Pornography is that way; even if you come to intellectually realize it is wrong, the sin is so powerful and has the will so enslaved, it takes God’s grace to break free.
In the same way my intellect uses fear to warn me away from the edge of a cliff because I might fall, I think our conscience serves as an early warning system, a whisper from God that we are about to violate one of His moral laws.
In other words, we are about to commit a sin. Otherwise, why would we feel that way?
My advice? Heed your conscience!
Tuesday, August 15th is the Feast of the Assumption.
As Lent comes to a conclusion and we stand on the threshold of the Sacred Triduum, we prepare to celebrate the deepest mysteries of our faith, the mysteries that make us a community of Catholic Christians: the priesthood and the Eucharist.