Message from the Archdiocese Regarding Coronavirus

Kathy From the Archbishop

As a Church, one of our sacred duties is to look after the health and safety of the community in our parishes and schools. Part of that duty is to help prevent and respond to infectious diseases that may be in the community.

In light of growing concerns about the coronavirus and its effects on those who have contracted the disease, we ask each of our parishes and schools to implement the following precautionary measures to help prevent the transmission of any virus.

FOR PARISHES:
  • Urge the faithful to stay home from Mass if they are experiencing any signs of illness. Ensure your community that in this cold/flu season, and especially in light of concerns about coronavirus, an individual does not commit any sin by avoiding Mass to protect others from the potential spread of illness.
  • For those who do attend Mass, we recommend congregations suspend the practice of shaking hands during the Sign of Peace or elsewhere, and of holding hands during the Our Father.
  • We recommend emptying (and cleaning) all holy water fonts.
  • We recommend our parishes suspend offering parishioners the Cup of the Most Precious Blood during Holy Eucharist, out of an abundance of caution. If this is a regular practice at your parish, it may help to remind the faithful that the Consecrated Host is the full Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ, meaning an individual does not need to receive from the Cup in order to achieve full Communion with Christ.
  • The Office of Christian Worship has provided prayer resources including a prayer for the sick, a prayer for an end to the coronavirus and information on Acts of Spiritual Communion for those unable to attend Mass
FOR SCHOOLS:
  • Update emergency plans and ensure all contact lists are up to date. If you do not already have a Pandemic Plan, we encourage you to develop one. To initiate or build upon an all-hazards plan, visit the Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools website.
  • Monitor daily attendance for flu-like illnesses and absences. Report to your local Health Department whenever you experience 10 percent or greater school absenteeism, including staff.
  • All sick employees and students should stay home. Plan ahead for extended school closures, staffing shortages, and the possibility of offering online school options.
  • Wipe down desks and surfaces daily.
  • Implement good hand hygiene practices. Instill handwashing importance. Place hand sanitizers in all classrooms and offices. Encourage children to bring in hand sanitizers.
  • Share information on your websites, social media, and newsletters. Suggestions include facts sheets and posters available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
  • Monitor your social media channels and let the Archdiocese of Detroit know of unusual or questionable dialogue, as controlling rumors and false information will help a great deal with an effective response

Click here for more suggestions and information about the coronavirus from the CDC.

Please know that Archdiocese of Detroit has been, and will continue to, monitor news concerning the coronavirus. We are preparing for any potential impact on our parishes, schools and other ministries, and will follow any recommendations from local, state and federal officials.

Transfiguration Sunday

Kathy Weekly message

We are in the second Sunday of Lent and a spontaneous question that can arise in our mind today is why the scene of transfiguration, a scene which portrays the glory of Jesus is inserted during the time of Lent. We know very well that Lent mainly focuses on the passion and death of Jesus. The transfiguration scene is presented today to remove the fear and the despair of every believer. This presentation of the glory of Jesus urges us to live the remaining time of Lent with courage and conviction.

 The transfiguration is a special and privileged moment both for Jesus and his disciples. For Jesus, it was a moment of manifestation of his glory, divine confirmation of his status as the son of God and an affirmation of his mission. With all these extraordinary events confirming Jesus’s true identity, the one response demanded from us is to listen to him.

  The transfiguration beautifully portrays the effects of God-experience. God-experience reveals one’s true identity; Jesus heard the voice from the cloud confirming his sonship. Dear friends, God-experience is an experience of God’s love; Jesus experiences the love of Father in the voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” God-experience transforms; Jesus’ face shone like the sun and his clothes became bright as light. For the disciples, the divine experience was so awe-inspiring that they became ecstatic.

The divine experience was also so overwhelming that the disciples became terrified. Though the disciples preferred to remain on the top of the mountain, Jesus leads them down. Thus, Jesus offers us a lesson that contemplation and action should go hand and in hand. The experience of the Lord should lead us to corresponding action, and our actions should receive their vitality and energy from our God-experience in prayer.

 

The question for us: How am I experiencing the Lord in this Lent season?

 Fr. Kishore Babu Battu

Out of Darkness into Light

Kathy Weekly message

God Is Light

On July 13, 1977, a lightning strike at a power station triggered a series of equipment failures that would eventually put most of New York City in darkness. Anger and frustration over what were already difficult times for the city exploded into hours of looting. During the night and into the next day, rioters gutted over 1,600 stores and started over 1,000 fires. By the time the violence ended, 550 police officers had been injured, and 4,500 offenders arrested. The demons of darkness that humankind has feared from ancient times had seemingly roared into life.

 In the imagination, darkness looms as the realm of chaos and death, while wherever light rules, there is peace and prosperity.

In Scripture, God is the bright light that leads to and is the goal of creation. This is the theme of Sunday’s Lectionary texts. Psalm 27 begins, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear?” Isaiah describes “the people who walked in darkness,” those living in the region of Galilee, oppressed by Assyria after defeat in a 735-732 BC war. Now, he says, their situation has changed, since they “have seen a great light,” probably the birth or coronation of a new king in Judah, whom he hoped would liberate the northern lands.

 Hundreds of years later, Matthew sees the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy when Jesus begins his public ministry in towns in Galilee. Jesus is the true light who calls all people to turn to God in this special time during which Jesus brings God’s saving power into world.

It is in the Gospel of John that Jesus refers to himself as “the light of the world.” He is in Jerusalem for the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, a celebration that included the lighting of four great Menorahs (lamp stands) in the Temple area. They were said to illuminate all Jerusalem. While his hearers wonder at this light, Jesus says,’ “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (John 8;12). This becomes part of a long dispute with the religious leaders over who Jesus is. The debate ends badly with his opponents taking up stones to throw at him, but Jesus eludes them.

There are other incidents with the same theme surrounding Jesus’ claim to be the light of the world. He forgives the woman taken in adultery – “Go and from now on do not sin any more” – shining into the world the light of God’s forgiveness (John 8:2-11). He gives sight to a man born blind “so that those who do not see might see” (John 9). But this also leaves the possibility that those who do not believe can choose to remain in the darkness.

The thing about darkness, whether literal or figurative, is that we don’t always know when we’re in it. While we sometimes see the darkness in our own lives, our failures and our problems, at other times we need someone else to point it out to us. Seeing the darkness in the world is easier: wars, persecution, disease, prejudice, oppression of “the other,” divisiveness. Yet in all of this, God is Light, shining through Jesus and his Church (even though its light may sometimes be dimmed by its sinfulness), guiding us on the way to a recreated universe. Even now, we look to the New Jerusalem, the city that “had no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gave it light and its lamp was the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light . . .” (Rev 21:23-24)

Bishop Emil Wcela