In an online article by Caroline Harvey entitled, "Stations of the Cross: A Lenten Tradition of Love," she writes, "There are certain Lenten practices that are so customary or traditional that without them Lent would not be Lent. This is the same for most holidays and celebrations—what is Christmas without a Christmas tree or Nativity scene, or a birthday with a cake, candles and singing? With Lent, Catholics are used to the announcements after Mass about Friday fish fries, reconciliation services, and the praying of the Stations of the Cross.

Traditions can become so commonplace, so normal, that we may not even know why we are doing them. Why do we have a Christmas tree? Why do we use candles to show how old someone is on their birthday? Or, why do we watch the priest or deacon walk around the church as we kneel and stand during the Stations of the Cross? There is nothing wrong with upholding traditions for the sake of tradition; there is something dignified about respecting the actions and words that have been handed down to the current generations from generations past. However, with every tradition, there comes a moment when the person partaking in it recognizes the importance of the actions and the words, more than just for the sake of ancient repetition. This “coming of age”, so to speak, allows the person to enter into the mystery of the tradition and participate in it in a way that transcends time and space."

God can be found in the silence, but for some reason so often we are actually afraid of silence. In this continuation of the Ascension Lenten Companion for the first week of Lent, Fr. Mark Toups encourages us to not be afraid to make time to just sit or kneel in silence with God.

In so many other areas of our life, we are influenced by what we hear. God is different. His ways are not our ways, and he wants to meet us in a way that is independent of outside influence so he can speak directly to our hearts. It’s not that God is silent until we find time for nothing but him, but our hearts are too easily distracted by other things to hear him.

In the silence we are more in tune with God’s voice, and he often chooses to wait for us to meet him in that way.

The Retrouvaille Program is for Married Couples Facing Difficult Challenges in their Relationship

SJA is moderating a Facebook group for our parishioners and friends embarking on the Catechism in a Year podcast with Fr. Mike Schmitz and Ascension Press.

You can find the link to join on the SJA Facebook page or click the button below. We already have 90+ participants!

Anything raised above the goal will return to the parish. As of today, we have $238,304 in pledges and gifts toward our $211,447 goal. This amount represents gifts from 656 families (we have 3,332 families registered). We have thus achieved 112% of our goal!

In this week’s Encountering the Word video, Jeff Cavins reflects on the readings for the First Sunday of Lent.

First Reading: Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7

Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 51:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 17

Second Reading: Romans 5:12-19 or Romans 5:12, 17-19

Verse Before the Gospel: Matthew 4:4B

Gospel: Matthew 4:1-11

Friends, we come now to the holy season of Lent, our preparation for Easter. I’ve often said that Lent is a time to get back to basics. It’s like when you’re starting the football season and have to get back to fundamentals of the game, or when you’re getting back to playing golf after a long winter away and have to remember the fundamentals of the swing. So in the spiritual order there are certain fundamental truths, and the readings for this first Sunday of Lent are especially good at getting us in touch with them.

Fifth Grade Math: My niece McKenzie is a student teacher currently doing a long-term substitute routine at a local elementary school in a fifth-grade classroom. It’s been common for us to see her grading papers or doing things for her class when we’re all hanging out at my mom’s condo on Sunday afternoons before dinner. On this one particular Sunday, she was grading some math-related assignments. While she was busy at work at the table, I meandered over to where she was working and snooped around to see what type of math assignment these fifth-grade students were doing. It was addition and subtraction of fractions. Thankfully, it wasn’t anything too complicated, like geometry or calculus. Now, I didn’t want to snoop around too much because I feared she would ask me to do a problem or two to see how I would do. That was the last thing I wanted to do on a Sunday afternoon: fail at some fifth-grade math problem. By Sunday afternoons, my brain is usually fried, so my brain can’t handle any complex problems. I may eventually get to the right answer, but it would be slow. Plus, I had my eyes on the chocolate cookies she made, and I didn’t want those cookies to become THE “reward” for solving a few math problems. I just wanted the cookies, not the math problems!

As I’ve stated in the past, I do poorly on any type of game like Trivia Pursuit, Catch Phrase, Pictionary, or anything similar. While I generally don’t know many of the answers, I think I’m just way too tired when we play these things on a major holiday or Sunday. After you’ve done several liturgies on any of those days, you want to “chill out” and not overtax the brain. But to be honest, the excuse of the synapses upstairs not working too well on a Sunday afternoon or the afternoon of some significant holiday or holy day like Easter or Christmas is just an excuse. Even if we played these things on a non-Sunday or non-holiday or holy day, I’d bombed out. It’s just the nature of the beast. That’s why even watching Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy gives me heartburn! Seriously, I don’t know how all those people know all that stuff.

Well, I guess I meandered too long at the table. I should have just grabbed my cookies and ran. Suddenly, an eager McKenzie pulled out her iPad and said, “Here, Uncle Mike, try these two problems.” “You have got to be kidding,” I thought to myself. “Doesn’t McKenzie know it’s a Sunday, and my brain is fried? This will look bad if I fail two fifth-grade math problems.” So I took the iPad and choked. “How am I going to do this?” The first problem was 9 2/3 + 4 1/=? The second problem was 3 3/4 - 1 2/5 =? My brain went into hyperdrive. By the grace of God, I remembered to establish a common denominator by multiplying 3x5 for the first problem and 4x5 for the second problem. Then it became 9 10/15 + 4 3/15 = 13 13/15. I then dutifully wrote 13 13/15 on the iPad for the first problem. I then calculated out the second problem as 3 15/20 – 1 8/20 and wrote the answer: 2 7/20. I was sweating bullets because I didn’t want to fail.

I then handed the iPad back to McKenzie, and she had this puzzled look on her face. Right away, I thought I had done something wrong. She looked up at me and said, “Uncle Mike, you got both of those right.” I was relieved and started to smile while imagining that I was patting myself on the back. Then McKenzie questioned me with a huge smile, “You did all that by yourself … in your own brain?” “Yep. No help was needed.” She just smiled. I then grabbed my cookies and ran off before anyone taxed my brain further. After all, it WAS a Sunday afternoon!

Projector Update: A few people have inquired about the broken projector for the left screen in Church. I’m happy to report that it’s still out for repair but should be back soon. Unfortunately, while we thought it would have been something simple (foolish us), the entire laser mechanism got fried. So it will be gone for a few more weeks. Knowing how dependent we are on having the projectors in Church always functioning, we’re coming up with a backup plan for the future.

Gosh, I haven’t written an article since early 1993 when my son Msgr. Mike was first assigned to your parish community in 1991 as a newly ordained priest.

However, I’m not here to write about additional MOP stuff as Msgr. Mike takes care of that department.

I’m writing to thank everyone for all your thoughts and prayers during my recent illness and hospitalization. The power of your prayers helped me fight the superbug I had. I especially want to thank Fr. Rich for taking charge of my spiritual care at Grosse Pointe Beaumont and always having the biggest smile, even though he had to gown up every time he entered my room. Then I’d like to say a special thank you to Ida Abdelnour, Ann Tobin, Kate Vandelinder, Sr. Petra, Carol Gray, all the parish staff, and especially Dina for being my official chef while staying at Msgr. Mike’s house while I recuperate and regain my strength.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t say a big THANK YOU to my son, Msgr. Mike, and daughter Jackie for all their help, caring, and having me stay here so they can check up on me instead of taking turns at my condo during the week caring for me and lugging all their work stuff with them. Oh, and yes, because of the big IT guy, baby monitors are everywhere, plus there are Alexa setups in all the rooms.  I’m glad that the baby monitors don’t reach the Parish Center!

I have a bucket list to fulfill and have to use that RV; I have so much more to do. Oh, I have driven the RV four or five times, but I don’t think the big guy would allow me to take it by myself because I forget how long it is, and as a result, sometimes run over curbs, etc. But, it’s a dream to drive.

If I missed thanking anyone, please forgive me. But prayers are powerful!

God Bless all of you!

Christine Bugarin

Bouncing off the Walnut: I’m always open to a woodworking project. It may have been a mild winter, but still too cold most of the time to be outside for hours working on the latest whatever. I could work in the garage for a little shelter, but closing the door isn’t really an option since the sawdust in the air gets pretty thick fast. Last year it was all pallets. I didn’t have any tools to really cut curves! So I was a little limited in what I could build.

But when someone on staff proposed a little project a few weeks ago and the weather was fairly good, and having been gifted a jigsaw at Christmas, I jumped at the chance to try something a little different. Maybe something nice and polished rather than rustic and outdoors.

The project was to make a wooden stand for an old WWII clock that came from a ship. The clock had probably been fixed into a wall or console and needed something to hold it upright on a shelf.

I suggested a nice Walnut wood with a dark stain to go with the black clock. I had just bought a new spindle sander, which is a really cool tool with an oscillating sanding tube set into the center of a cast iron table. So I ordered a couple of nice pieces of Walnut, which is not readily available at Home Depot, and once it arrived, set about drawing a design on the wood. The stand base would retain a live-edge, but the rest I would sand smooth.

In a couple of days I had the wood ready to stain, picked out the color and stained a couple of coats. Then I stacked-up the 4 pieces of the stand and set the clock into it. I thought it looked pretty good.

I sent this picture to the owner of the clock (who is finding-out about the chaos that followed 20 minutes later only by reading this). All I had to do now was to disassemble and fix the 4 parts together and screw the clock in place.

The clock already had screw holes around the rim so I had calculated that into the design to use the existing holes and ordered the specific screws I needed, in the correct color to blend in. I even bought a counter-sinking drill-bit set to set the heads of the screws flush into the wood.

I’d thought of everything. Even anticipating needing some accurate drilling into hardwood without any slippage of the pieces, I bought some superglue to initially hold the pieces as I drilled and screwed them together.

As with Monsignor’s Clark Griswold plumbing jobs, however, there is always a moment…. There is always a “Why did I do that?” or “Why did that happen?”

It had all gone so well with the one exception that the saw had cut through the a knot in the wood on the corner of the base and ripped a small chunk of wood out. I thought I’d maybe leave it “rustic” but in the end bought some wood filler and paint to patch-up the corner. No big deal. I thought that was my “Why did that happen?” moment. But nope… more to come.

My first “oh…” was when I superglued two of the base pieces in the wrong order. That meant I would never be able to find the screw hole into the clock through the back of the stand. I meant to pre-drill it before gluing. Oh well, adapt and adjust.

So I went down into my basement to drill some pilot holes in the wood. It’s easier to drill through hardwood if you pre-drill a narrower hole first. That part was easy. Then I replaced the drill-bit with a wider bit. I started to drill the screw hole through the bottom of the base to attach the two glued pieces together permanently. I got the drill a little way in and then the whole project took a turn toward the dark-side!

The drill-bit stopped turning in the wood and instead, the wood spun around the bit! It hit my thumb. Ouch! Of course I had not been using the new clamps that I bought to secure the pieces as I worked on them.

The torque was such that when the wood hit my hand and stopped and the drill-bit couldn’t turn, the bit snapped, freeing the wood from any restraint and it shot through the air, across the basement, bouncing off the wall and crashing onto the floor under the table, breaking the two glued pieces apart. This beautiful and sanded Walnut that I’d been so careful with throughout, was now in pieces in the cobwebs under the table!

Meanwhile I’m holding my thumb and shaking my head. I went to retrieve the two pieces and realized that if the downside to Walnut is that it’s tough to drill through because it’s hard, the upside is that it’s hard, so it bounces off wall well and remains relatively unscathed. The same could not be said for the drill bit, which was stuck entirely inside the hole. I went to the garage and got a metal punch and a hammer and a roofing nail, and then proceeded to try to knock the drill-bit out.

I hammered the nail in first, and, of course, it was not long enough, so I hammered it in far enough that now the nail was stuck in the hole too. I managed to pry it out and tried the metal punch instead, but the metal punch is spring-loaded, so that didn’t work…. until I broke it with the hammer… That pushed the drill-bit out just a little way, so I went back to the garage and got some pliers to grab the end of the bit and I pulled and twisted it out. But now the punch was stuck in the hole. I couldn't get it out, so I ended-up pulling it with the pliers while standing on the wood with my shoes.

If I’d had any more Walnut I might have given-up and started over! But no, I forged on, re-gluing the pieces and then finding another drill-bit. A friend reminded me to coat the screws in Palmolive, which worked a treat. After a couple of hours, I was back where I started, with the whole project looking just as it had when I took the photo, before the pieces screwed together. I found an alternative way to screw the clock to the stand and was done. Finished! No-one will ever have to know the calamity of the final mile.

What’s the lesson in all this? Humility? Perseverance? Use the clamps you deliberately bought for exactly this purpose?! Penance in anticipation of Lent? All of the above? Maybe. Probably. I don’t know.

Have a good and fruitful Lenten season.

adawson@sjascs.org 

When you make a Lenten commitment, you’re probably not thinking of all of the special circumstances and unforeseen events that are going to make that commitment… inconvenient.

A daily rosary might not be difficult… until that family vacation. Cold showers aren’t so bad… until that cold snap. Charitable giving feels great… until finances are tight.

Today, Fr. Mike invites us to let Lent interrupt us. Lent is inconvenient because Love is inconvenient. If we give more this Lent, we’ll get more than we ever have before.

(Production note: Father’s audio had some technical difficulties this week, so bear with us. Maybe even offer it up! 😜)

In an academic setting, it’s the best way to ensure that students fully understand the subject matter they’ve been studying. In a medical setting, it can help determine the cause of a problem a patient has presented, and to set out a course of treatment. By contrast though, “being put to the test” has a more negative connotation. It may technically mean the same thing, but oftentimes it suggests an assumption that the person or thing being subjected to the test may stumble in some way.

Consider the headlines a few weeks ago, when, on one day, at least six schools in Michigan received prank phone calls about shootings. The calls, according to a story in the Detroit Free Press, were received in Saginaw, Ann Arbor, Muskegon, Okemos, Jackson and Portage and, according to the Michigan State Police, were “the actions of a coordinated campaign.”

It's difficult to know what the person or group behind the campaign were hoping to achieve, but it clearly could not have been a good intention. And so the authorities and educators had to waste time and emotional energy dealing with the situation. As we all do, from time to time.

The good news is that we know Jesus has been there, done that. And he sets the example for dealing with things effectively; trusting in God:

“Then the devil took him to the holy city, and made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down,’” we hear in today’s gospel passage from St. Matthew. “’For it is written: He will command his angels concerning you and with their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’

“Jesus answered him, ‘Again it is written, You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.’”

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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7:00 a.m., Giuseppina Ciccone 

7:00 a.m., Hugo Calisi

7:00 a.m., James Barker

6:00 pm, Pedro Silva

7:00 a.m., Sue Krolikowski

7:00 a.m., Sister Silveria Conte

4:00 p.m., Bonnie Batche, Ralph Marzolino, Marl DeKoekkoek, Hans & Elisabeth Stahl, George Pamerleau, Benedict Garlicki, Gerald Ellar, Special Intentions for the J. Champine family and for the Thomas Family and Prayerful appreciation for the Priests and Staff of St. Joan of Arc

6:00 p.m., Rob Finn, Robbie Battani and Evan Battani

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

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

12:00 p.m., Salvatore & Josephine Ciaravino, Rose DiNoto, Robert Palonis, Mark Dunn, Sam Ciaramitaro, Katherine A. Bush

10:00 AM - Funeral for Marianne Masserang (Read Obituary HERE)

6:00 PM - Mass

Thursday (March 2):

Friday (March 3):

10:00 AM - Mass for Special Needs Faith Formation

12:30 PM - Baptism of Georgia M. Gross

1:30 PM - Baptism of Maria Louise Fabian