Seder Meal – April 3

Join us for a representation of the Jewish Seder Meal


sādər/ – Jewish Passover

WHEN: Monday, April 3rd at 5:30pm

WHERE: SS. John and Paul Faith Formation Wing

Have you ever wondered what the Passover Meal would have looked like in the time of Jesus?

Join us as Rabbi Asher Lopatin walks us through a seder meal as it would have been celebrated 2000 years ago.

Spaces are limited. Please Register by Monday, March 27th by visiting the office or by clicking on this link.

*$15 participation fee includes all  material, speaker fees and a light meal for each participant. 

Rabbi Asher Lopatin is the Executive Director of the JCRC/AJC of Detroit and the founding rabbi of Kehillat Etz Chayim of Detroit.  He is also the founding director of the Detroit Center for Civil Discourse. A Rhodes Scholar and a Truman Fellow with an M. Phil in Medieval Arabic Thought from Oxford University, Rabbi Lopatin has also done doctoral work at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, in Islamic Fundamentalist attitudes towards Jews and Israel. He has written chapters for over 20 books and numerous articles.  Prior to moving with his wife, Rachel, and their four children to Detroit, he served as president of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School, and, before that, served as the rabbi of Anshe Sholom B’nai Israel Congregation in Chicago. Rabbi Lopatin received ordination from Rav Ahron Soloveichik and Yeshivas Brisk in Chicago, and from Yeshiva University. Rabbi Lopatin is a permanent member of The Council on Foreign Relations and on the board of New Detroit

Lenten Service Project

During Lent, we are asked to fast, pray, and give alms.  This year, our Lenten project will assist the Capuchin Soup Kitchen serve the needy in Detroit.  First, we will collect items for personal hygiene kits and non-perishable food items for their pantry.  Then, we will come together and sort the items collected and assemble the kits. 

 

The following items will be collected March 6 – 26

  • travel size shampoo, conditioner
  • travel size body wash or bar soap
  • Travel size deodorant
  • Travel size toothpaste
  • Individually packaged toothbrushes
  • Chapstick
  • Canned tuna/meat
  • Canned vegetables
  • Canned soup
  • Cereal

 

Assemble hygiene kits March 26 at 12:30pm

Sign up on the bulletin board or contact Caroline at cseidel@ssjohnandpaul.org

 

So, give alms this lent by donating to the Capuchin Soup Kitchen.  Collection bins are located in the Gathering Area to accept your donation. 

 

Please no expired food or partially used containers

Lent/Easter at SS John and Paul

Stations of the Cross  Every Friday of Lent: 7:00 pm

Night Prayer  Every Sunday of Lent: 7:00 pm

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament (concluding with Benediction)
February 19 & March 19: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm


Tenebrae Service A Service of Light incorporating: Prayer, Scripture, and Music.
April 2: 6:30 pm

Seder Meal
April 3: 5:30 pm

All Day Adoration And Penance Service

April 4: 7:00 pm

Holy Thursday
April 6

The Mass of the Lord’s Supper: 7:00 pm
Concluding with Night Prayer: 9:30 pm


Good Friday
April 7

Stations of the Cross, Led By The SSJP Teens:  12:00 pm

Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion: 1:00 pm


The Great Vigil of Easter: Saturday, April 8
8:30 pm

Easter Sunday: Sunday, April 9
9:30 am
11:30 am

Reflection on Feast of Christ the King

This weekend we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King, and I once again I stop and ask myself about the meaning of this important feast, which I personally love very much. As I stop and reflect, I have gathered a few thoughts which I would like to share with you.

 

Meaning of the Feast. The USCCB website on the Feast of Christ the King gives us the historical and spiritual perspective on the institution of this Feast Day which we celebrate each year on the last Sunday of the liturgical calendar.

 

This feast was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925, the website explains, as a response to growing atheism as well as militant secularist regimes that threatened society during the early twentieth century in Mexico, Russia and parts of Europe.  He wrote an Encyclical in which he recognized that attempting to “thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law” out of public life would result in continuing discord among people and nations. This solemn Feast Day reminds us that governments are passing and ephemeral, but Christ, who is King of the Universe, will reign as King forever.

 

The Church invites us to acknowledge Christ’s kingship with our whole lives. Pius XI tells us that Christ must reign in our minds as we acknowledge the true doctrines of Christ and his Church. He must reign in our wills and in our hearts as we embrace God’s precepts and strive to love him above all else. He must also reign in our bodies which serve as “instruments for the interior sanctification of our souls”.  What we do in our lives matters to Christ. What we do can either bring about his reign in our hearts, or we can dethrone him in our own home, work and personal schedule.

 

As is well stated on the USCCB website, sometimes “when our faith is repeatedly marginalized in public life, we can fall into the habit of compartmentalizing our lives.  We love Jesus in our private lives, but we shrink from acknowledging the kingship of Christ in social life.  When we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King, we declare to the world and remind ourselves that Jesus is the Lord of the Church and of the entire universe.”  This may seem hard to believe, when we contemplate certain legislative acts. Nonetheless, as Christians, we hold on to the belief that Christ is Lord of Life and History! He has already conquered.

 

Praying the Feast. “How might I enter more deeply into this Feast?” you might ask yourself. The greatest prayer, par excellence, is of course the Mass. The greatest way that we can celebrate Christ’s Kingship is to come together as a community in the Sacrifice of the Eucharist.

 

But how can we more deeply contemplate the meaning of this feast in our personal prayer? I would like to offer you a few possible ways of entering the heart of this feast and entering into the heart of Jesus our King.

 

Icon of PantocratorPraying with images

 

The USCCB website explains how Christ’s kingship is rooted in the Church’s teaching on the Incarnation. While being truly God, Jesus is also fully human. One of the three persons of the Trinity has come down and taken human form and has inexorably united himself to our humanity to reign forever as our King.  By reason of the hypostatic union, Pope Pius XI explains, “Christ has power over all creatures”.

 

The Icon of the Pantocrator of Sinai, one of the oldest Byzantine icons, encapsulates this reality of the hypostatic union (union of the human and the divine natures in the person of Christ).  Pantocrator literally means, “ruler of all”.  Christ is ruler of all creation by virtue of his union with created matter while not losing his divinity.  Take a look at this icon. Icons, as we learn in our Catholic heritage, are “written”, not painted. They are meant to be “read”, not just looked at.  We need to educate our mind, our eyes, and our hearts to appreciate the messages they contain.

What message do we “read” here in this image?  Many scholars and theologians believe that this icon was “written” to represent the dual nature of Christ.  If you draw a line down the middle of the image, you will see significant differences in the left side of the panel compared to the right.  If we put a mirror in the middle of the panel and visualize just the left side of the panel as a symmetrical unity, we get what we see in the image on the left below. If we visualize the other half of the face as a symmetrical mirror image of itself, we get what we see on the right below.

 

 

Here we have, Jesus, Pantocrator (ruler of all), represented in two natures, but one person.  His raised hand that blesses, represents his divine nature. His hand clutching the gospels, represents his human nature.  Some also interpret these separate yet unified images of Christ to represent his justice (the book of Gospels that judges us) united with his mercy (his hand that blesses).  Jesus, King of the Universe, is both human and divine; he is both just and merciful.

 

 

Jesus judges our lives. It is not “un-Christian” to be reminded of this. He sees our lives; he judges our actions… He recognizes whether our daily actions put him at the center of our lives or whether they “dethrone” him.  And yet, what a merciful judge he is when we return to him and seek forgiveness. When kids, soccer, hockey, work, friends, social life, or our own personal defects and sins push Jesus aside and place something or someone else on the throne of our hearts… All we need to do is turn back to him and seek his blessing and beg him to take up his place once again in our hearts – and make the needed concrete changes so that he can do so (how can we expect him to reign in society, if he doesn’t first reign in our lives?). His hand is raised and ready to bless us. All he needs is our invitation. The Icon of the Pantocrator so eloquently expresses this reality.

 

Other ways to “pray” the Feast.

 

With song

 

For those who like to pray with song – a nod to St. Augustine who said, He who sings prays twice– here are two versions of the Latin chant often sung at the beginning of the Mass of Christ the King (this “Introit” is a processional psalm-antiphon sung in many churches and can be found here: https://youtu.be/B8z0WikKSPY or here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IVZIMSnPfo).  You might decide to pray by listening to the prayerful chant as you reflect on the meaning of the words in English. Jesus, the Lamb, who took on a body to sacrifice his life for us, is at the same time the seat of power, divinity, and wisdom! What a powerful reality. Here is the full text in English:

 

The Lamb who has been slain is worthy to receive power, and divinity, and wisdom, and strength, and honor; let glory and dominion be his for ever and ever. Endow the King with your judgment, O God, and the King’s son with your righteousness.

 

 

With tradition and Scripture – The Liturgy of the Hours

 

Another way to “pray” this feast is to pray with the Church that never ceases to pray. The Liturgy of the Hours, also known as the Divine Office, “is the daily prayer of the Church, marking the hours of each day and sanctifying the day with prayer” (USCCB).  Certain religious communities and all priests are required to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. They represent and enact the Church that never ceases praying for humanity.

 

What a beautiful reality to think that somewhere in the world, the hours of our day are being sanctified by someone in the Church who is praying! This prayer, made up of specific psalms, antiphons and canticles, forms the heart and psyche of the one who prays it, because it is an “objective prayer”, not subject to our feelings or emotions. One who prays the liturgy of the hours knows that he or she is uniting their prayer to the Church who is praying the same prayers. If you feel called to join the Church in prayer today, you may access the liturgy of the hours on your phone by downloading the iBreviary, or you may access part of the Liturgy of the Hours for the Feast Day by clicking on the following link http://www.ibreviary.com/m/breviario.php?s=ufficio_delle_letture.

 

Conclusion

Take time this weekend to reflect on Christ the King. Is he King of your life? Does he reign in your heart? There is no time like now, with Advent around the corner, to reflect on ways to make Jesus more fully the center of your life! God bless you all on this special feast day.

 

Beth Mersino

Coordinator of Faith Formation

 

*Note. If you have a love or even just a curiosity for icons, please take a walk down the church hallway toward the library to contemplate our new “Wall of Icons”, a beautiful display that we have acquired thanks to a generous anonymous donor.  

Veterans Recognition

Saints John and Paul Church would like to establish a database of all of our veterans: living, deceased, and still serving.  We need your help if you are a veteran or a loved one of a veteran that was a member of SSJP Parish.  Steve Krajewski (user) has been asked to take on this project and he has embraced it.  To complete this project, we need a military photo (a current or late photo), any awards/decorations received, and a brief summary of your military experience.  The information needed can be given to the parish office or Steve Krajewski.  The information can also be emailed to Steve: FreedomChief@comcast.net.

His cell phone number is (586) 453-6388.

 

Come, Rest in Jesus

Please join us for:
Once-a-Month 5pm Mass on Sunday
This year SS. John and Paul is adding a monthly Sunday evening Mass, October through May (except for April).
The 5pm Sunday evening masses are scheduled to coincide with the SSJP ENCOUNTER and G.R.A.C.E. evening programs.
5pm Masses will be held on:
October 2nd
November 6th
December 4th
January 8th
February 5th
March 5th
April (NO Sunday
     evening Mass)
May 7th
Adoration
We encourage you to join us,
as we will be hosting Adoration at 6:30pm
on the following dates:
Sun, October 16th
Sun, November 20th
Tues, December 20th (All Day Adoration)*
Sun, January 22nd
Sun, February 19th
Sun, March 19th
Tues, April 4th (All Day Adoration)*
Sun, April 16th
*These days will end with
Advent/Lenten Penitential services
Adoration is also offered every
Tuesday after the 9am Mass.  Come, visit Jesus in the Eucharist. He awaits you!

ENCOUNTER – Adult Faith Formation

ENCOUNTER: A New Adult Faith Formation Program
Nourish your body and soul in community through Small Group Discussions over coffee and dessert.
One Sunday Evening a month for 8 months starting October 2nd.
6:30 Video with Small Group Discussion over coffee & dessert
(if you attend the once-a-month 5pm Sunday Mass and would like to join the G.R.A.C.E. families for dinner at 6, please be sure to indicate this when you register).
$30 fee includes all meals and desserts for the 8-month series. $10 fee for desserts only over the 8 months.
Please visit the link below for more information and to register.

Campus Beautification Projects

We hope you have noticed the additional care that’s been given to our front prayer garden.   The SSJP Gardening Angels, under the direction of Karen Hessler, have been working very hard.  We have a few new angels!  Clem Chargot has been going above and beyond sharing his time, expertise,  and treasures with our parish. We couldn’t be more grateful!   Phase I of the Parking Lot Island Project is complete.  Phase II will include planting when the season is right.

 

A special shout out to Oliver Sod Farm for their extremely generous donation of the sod which was recently laid in the front of the prayer garden.  If you have a need, please do not hesitate to patronize this very generous business.   They are located at 23730 24 Mile Road in Macomb.

Call them at 586.949.3000 if even just to thank them on our behalf!