24 February 2010

Interfaith Dialogues

Dear Villagers,

Hope all is well with you! We had a massive game of Hide and Seek this past Sunday at Village, using the whole building! At your request we talked about Satan- who he is and how/why he tries to influence us for evil. We wrapped up the evening with a powerful time of Eucharistic Adoration followed by pizza and social time.

This week we're renewing our focus on being witnesses of God's love through Interfaith Dialogue. Join us this Sunday at our regular Village Meeting to get tips for discussing Catholicism with Protestant Christians, Agnostics, and fallen-away Catholics! The Catechism urges us to engage our contemporaries in meaningful dialogue about matters of faith saying, (#3) “Those who with God’s help have welcomed Christ’s call and freely responded to it are urged on by love of Christ to proclaim the good news everywhere in the world.”

In other news, Spring Retreat is just around the corner, the weekend of March 19th-21st! Registration forms are attached and will be distributed at Village this Sunday. Sign-up by Monday, March 8th, and pay just $50 per person in addition to being entered into our Early Bird Drawing!

Our Spring Retreat theme is "Salt and Light" from Jesus' words, "You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world." (Matthew 5:13-14) Jesus calls us to be different from those around us! He calls us to be witnesses of His love in the world. Join us as we discern His calling on our lives, and what it means to be His witnesses from day to day!

-No Dead Theologians Society this Thursday 2/25

-This Sunday @ Village 5-6:30pm: Interfaith Dialogues- Knowing Your Stuff

-Spring Retreat is coming soon, 3/19-3/21!

-Your Questions of the Week:
---- Is being physically attractive as bad as we say it is?
---- As a Republican I support the Death Penalty, but as a Catholic I oppose it. What should I vote for?
------------------------

The Village News

No Dead Theologians Society this Thursday

Pray for Beth, she will be away on at a Youth Ministry Conference! Join us next week for a night of prayer, we’ll discover Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha.

This Sunday, 2/28: Interfaith Dialogues, Knowing Your Stuff
Join us this Sunday to learn basic apologetics to equip you for dialogues with Protestant Christians, Agnostics, and other Catholics who have left the Church. The Catechism urges “those who with God’s help have welcomed Christ’s call and freely responded to it are urged on by love of Christ to proclaim the good news everywhere in the world.” (#3) We are called to proclaim the good news by engaging our contemporaries in meaningful discussions about faith- so they can know Jesus!

Steubenville High School Youth Conference, July 9-11th
Spaces are still available, but going fast. Cost for participation is $235, all-inclusive. Registration is due ASAP with a $70 deposit. The remaining $135 is not due until April 18th.

Spring Retreat is Coming- March 19th-21st!!

Spring Retreat is just around the corner, the weekend of March 19th-21st! Registration forms are attached and will be distributed at Village this Sunday. Sign-up by Monday, March 8th, and pay just $50 per person in addition to being entered into our Early Bird Drawing!

Join the Village @ St Thomas for a Lenten Retreat discerning God’s calling on our lives! As Catholics, Jesus calls us to be different. He calls us to be the “salt of the earth...the light of the world!” Together, we’ll discover what it means to walk closely with Jesus; how the Saints lived such holy sacramental lives; and how we can be witnesses of God’s love in the world!

Your Questions of the Week: Is being physically attractive as bad as we say it is?
Who said being physically attractive is bad? Good heavens NO! Beauty, inside and out, in people and in nature, are little pieces of heaven on earth; glimpses of Christ among us. We are God's masterpieces, the culmination of his creations. The world glorifies particular qualities, and that can impact our opinion of ourselves and how we view others. God appreciates each of our qualities just as he intended them. The difficulty with outside beauty is that it's the first thing you notice, so it's commonly objectified. Meaning, it's the ONLY thing you notice and appreciate about a person. However, as Christians, we are called to see each other as God sees us; appreciating every quality in a person, not just their physical characteristics. We were all made in the image and likeness of God.

Here’s more scripture on the goodness of beauty: "And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good."(Genesis 1:26) "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb."(Psalm 139:13) “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well"(Psalm 139:14) "Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made." (Romans 1:20)

Your Questions of the Week: As a Republican I support the Death Penalty, but as a Catholic I oppose it. What should I vote for?
What the Church teaches on the Death Penalty: The Church upholds its traditional teaching that the state has the right and duty to protect general society from violent offenders, including by means of the death penalty if non-lethal means are insufficient to protect lives in an individual case. Today it is quite rare to find cases in which it would be impossible to suppress the offender in a non-lethal way; therefore the Church generally opposes the Death Penalty. Non-lethal means of suppressing criminals are in better conformity to the human dignity of the offender and prevent the state from growing callous and imprudent in its application of the death penalty. (Catechism of the Catholic Church #2267)

Voting: Catholics have a moral obligation to promote the common good through the exercise of voting (Catechism #2240). But the Church goes further, saying that "a well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law that contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals" (Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith 4).

The Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics lists 5 non-negotiables: abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, human cloning, and homosexual marriage. Absent from the Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics is anything about capital punishment. That’s because the Church does not give a blanket condemnation of capital punishment. Whether capital punishment should be employed is a prudential determination. As Karl Keating says, “One can be a good Catholic and oppose all applications of capital punishment, and one can be a good Catholic and endorse the use of the penalty.”

Your Choice: So it seems that the Church leaves your decision up to you on this one. As with every decision, you are encouraged to practice prayerful discernment before you decide. Ask yourself, what is more important to you, being a Republican through-and-through, or being a Catholic faithful to the Lord’s revelations in Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church? As long as you can answer that one right, it doesn’t matter what you decide.

15 February 2010

Lent is (almost) here!


Dear Villagers,

Twenty of us had a sweet time bowling this past Friday night, with Rob Peters putting the rest of us to shame with a 182! Checkout the attached pictures. More random Village hangouts to come in the near future!

Last night at Village we dug around in 20 pounds of dirt to discover rocks with crosses engraved on the side. It was dirty, wet, and squishy! Sometimes we need something sensational to bring us back to the basics of our faith. The Church needs Lent- each of us needs Lent to rediscover the Cross of Jesus!

As Pope John Paul once said, “Lent is a time of profound truth which brings conversion, restores hope and by putting everything in proper order brings peace and optimism.” We each need the reminder, that the self-denial that so often accompanies Lent brings peace and optimism. Our Lenten observances "put everything in proper order." When we thoughtfully increase our devotions to prayer, fasting and almsgiving- we are more closely united with Jesus and His Cross. Let us carry the Cross with Jesus this Lent!

In Deuteronomy we hear the promise, "It is the LORD who marches before you; he will be with you and will never fail you or forsake you. So do not fear or be dismayed." (31:8) Remember that Our Lord is with you! Let us to set out courageously on the journey towards Good Friday and Easter Sunday!

---St Paul Miki and Companions @ DTS this Thursday

---Next Sunday @ Village: Eucharistic Adoration, Short Talk on Satan

---A Few Spaces Remain for Steubenville; Spring Retreat is coming soon (3/19-3/21)

---Your Question of the Week: Is it a sin to listen to music pertaining to sex?

--------------------------------------
“Even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment.” -Joel 2: 12-13


The Village News 2/14


This Thursday, 7-8pm: St Paul Miki @ the Dead Theologians Society

Come out this week to meet the courageous man who as he was being martyred for the faith, looked to heaven and said “Lord into your hands I commend my spirit. Come to meet me, ye saints of God.”
--6:30pm: socializing in the Parish Offices
--7-8pm: gather in the Church choir loft for prayer (the Elizabeth St door is always open)
--8-8:30pm: return to Parish Offices for hot cocoa & snacks

Next Sunday, 2/21: Eucharistic Adoration Night
J R R Tolkien once said, "Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament...There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth.” The Village has a special devotion to the Eucharist– and we have a time of Eucharistic Adoration once each month! The topic you’ve selected for next week: What’s the story on Satan?

Steubenville High School Youth Conference, July 9-11th
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”(John 1:14) Join us this summer for a transformative weekend! Cost for participation is $235, all-inclusive. Registration is due ASAP with a $70 deposit. Spaces are still available, but going fast. The remaining $135 is not due until April 18th. Register soon!

Spring Retreat is Coming Soon- March 19th-21st, Save the Date!

Your Question of the Week: Is listening to music pertaining to sex a sin?
Great question! A sin is “an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience- it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor. (Catechism of the Catholic Church #1849) Listening to music with sexually explicit lyrics and themes may be a sin, but it is certainly an occasion to sin.

Fr. John A. Hardon writes in his Modern Catholic Dictionary, that an occasion to sin is "Any person, place, or thing that of its nature or because of human frailty can lead one to do wrong, thereby committing sin." Certain things, such as pornographic images, are always, by their nature, occasions of sin, while other things may only be an occasion of sin for some. Perhaps the best way to think of near occasions of sin is to treat them as the moral equivalent of physical dangers. Just as we know we should stay alert when we're walking through a bad part of town at night, we need to be aware of the moral threats around us. Repeatedly refusing to avoid the near occasion of sin can be a sin itself. We aren't allowed deliberately to put our soul in peril. If a parent forbids a child from walking on top of a high stone wall, for fear that he might hurt himself, yet the child does so anyway, the child has sinned, even if he doesn't hurt himself. We should treat near occasions of sin in the same way.

Listening to sexually explicit music is an occasion to sin because it works against the normal formation of a healthy conscience. The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that “The education of the conscience is a lifelong task.” (#1784) While there are some circumstances in which one’s poorly formed conscience is not one’s own fault (Catechism #1792-1793), we also know that we are responsible for our own poorly formed conscience when we “take little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when our conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.” (#1791)

Sexually explicit music destroys a healthy conscience by glorifying pre-marital sex as well as the objectification of both men and women. We know that sexual love is the ultimate gift of self- the promise to love another person faithfully for life, fruitfully, freely, and totally. Sexual love is reserved for the consummation of the Sacrament of Marriage! Any other message presented through the media is the counterfeit of true love, based on use. The opposite of love is not hatred- but rather use (Theology of the Body, Pope John Paul II). As far as objectification goes, it is a way of looking at men or women as objects for one’s own sexual gratification (using others), instead of sons and daughters of God with innate dignity.

Personally, there are some songs that I definitely won’t listen to. There are others that I simply turn the volume down for most of the song and listen only to one part. There are so many legit songs and artists out there, you can be choosy! Choose to stand up for your faith and the dignity of men & women with what you listen to! As Saint Paul says, “do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” –Romans 12:2

08 February 2010

The Village News



Dear Villagers,

Hope you are all doing well! This past Saturday a group of us went to St Andrew's Episcopal Church to help with their Breakfast Program. We served breakfast to nearly 200 disadvantaged men and women! Brian and Paul served the hot cereal, Clare served juice and milk, Erica and Ellen served rolls with ham and cheese- and Allison gave out the coffee. Renee and I helped where we were needed, and as a group we had an awesome time answering Jesus' call to "feed His sheep" (John 21:17) in a very literal way. Checkout the attached picture of Villagers Serving!

In other news, a bunch of us have decided it's high time we had a random Village hangout! The votes have been counted, and the result is a Bowling Social this Friday from 8-10pm. Come on out and join us at Colonial Lanes on South Industrial! We'll be bowling for a couple hours, and drinking unlimited pop. It only costs $6 to join the party, which includes shoes, pop and bowling. You absolutely must RSVP to me by this Wednesday 2/10 to ensure they reserve enough lanes for us. If at all possible, please submit your permission slip and money by then as well.
--------------------

The Village News 2/8


No Dead Theologians Society This Week
Read all about St Bernadette in her bio, and join us next Thursday from 7-8pm. Through the Saints of yesterday, the Dead Theologians Society, or DTS, inspires the youth of today to become the saints of tomorrow!



Bowling Social This Friday, 8-10pm
A bunch of us have decided it’s high time for a Village hangout! Therefore, we’re headed to Colonial Lanes this Friday 2/12 for some bowling and pop. We’ll be meeting at Colonial Lanes (1950 S Industrial Ann Arbor, MI 48104) at 8pm. Pickup will be there as well, at 10pm. Cost for participation is $6, and covers 2 hours of bowling, shoe rental, and pop. You absolutely must RSVP to me by this Wednesday 2/10 to ensure they reserve enough lanes for us. If at all possible, please submit your permission slip and money by then as well.



Sunday’s Village, 2/14: Observing the Three Pillars of Lent

As Pope John Paul II once said, “Lent is a time of profound truth, which brings conversion, restores hope and, by putting everything back in its proper place, brings peace and optimism.” The Church needs the season of Lent to help us prepare for Good Friday and Easter Sunday! The Church has given us three pillars which we should use to guide our personal Lenten practices– Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving. Join us this Sunday to discover the Lenten call to holiness and how these three pillars can guide you on your path!



Steubenville High School Youth Conference, July 9-11th, Registration Due
Cost for participation is $235, all-inclusive. Registration is due this Sunday 2/14, with a $70 deposit. The remaining $135 is not due until April 18th. Spaces are still available, but going fast. Register soon!

The theme for the Youth Conference is, “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14) We'll be focusing on the gift of the Incarnation of Jesus! Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to grow in your faith and experience Our Lord in a powerful way! Harass Villagers who have gone before to find out what it's like.

01 February 2010

Serving @ a Soup Kitchen!

The Village
Real Questions. Real Dialogue. Real Faith.

Dear Villagers,

Hope all is well with you! Last night at Village we had an impressive game of dodge-ball that involved quite a bit of running, obstacles, and blindfolds. We talked about Marian Apparitions- moments in history where Mary appeared to people and gave them a special message for their time. Throughout the history of the Church, Mary continues to lead us to her son, Jesus!

As Pope John Paul II once said, “Mary was given to you to help you enter into a more authentic and more personal relationship with Jesus. Through her example, Mary teaches you to gaze on him with love, for He has loved us first. Through her intercession, she forms in you a disciple's heart able to listen to her Son.”

One aspect of being a disciple of Christ is service! As Christians we are Christ's body in the world- we are called to show His love for mankind through loving service. It is only when we give of ourselves that we discover the fullness of life that Jesus promised us (John 10:10). This Saturday The Village has been invited to serve at St Andrew's Episcopal Church's Breakfast Program- where for 25 years they have been providing a free meal to the poor and homeless of our society.

Jesus told us that what we do for the least of the brothers, we do for Him (Matthew 25:40). Won't you come out this Saturday from 7-10am to provide a warm breakfast to nearly 150 people? Of all the reasons to get up early- doesn't this top them all? Join me, Renee Sink, and a number of other Villagers as we answer Jesus' call to feed His sheep (John 21:17).

-RSVP to Serve this Saturday @ St Andrew's

-Meet St Blaise @ the Dead Theologians Society on Thursday

-No Regular Village Next Sunday- Enjoy the Superbowl!

-Your Question of the Week: One of my acquaintances needs help, but she won't talk to me. What can I do?

------------------------------ --------
This Thursday, 7-8pm: St Blaise @ the Dead Theologians Society
Join us as we discover St Blaise, a martyr for the faith who remained faithful until the end. Through the Saints of yesterday, the Dead Theologians Society, or DTS, inspires the youth of today to become the saints of tomorrow!
---6:30pm: socializing in the Parish Offices
----8pm: gather in the Church choir loft for prayer (the Elizabeth St door is always open)
---8-8:30pm: return to Parish Offices for hot cocoa & snacks

RSVP to Serve at the St. Andrew’s Breakfast Program this Saturday 2/6 from 7-10am
Saturday, Feb 6th The Village be joining our Christian brothers and sisters to serve breakfast to 100-150 people in need! We’ll be meeting at St Thomas at 7am, serving until 9am, and catching the 9am Mass to finish! For over 25 years, men and women in need have made their way to St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church for a cup of coffee and a hot breakfast any day of the week. RSVP to Youth Minister Beth Spizarny as soon as you can!

Next Sunday, 2/7: No Regular Meeting, Enjoy the SuperBowl

Sign-up for the Steubenville High School Youth Conference
This July 9th-11th, join The Village @ St Thomas for our annual roadtrip to the Franciscan University of Steubenville High School Youth Conference! Submit registration forms and $70 deposit by February 14th to guarantee your spot, as space is limited. Total cost is $235, all-inclusive.The Village has been attending these Youth Conferences since 2008. This Conference will feature at least one powerful hour of Eucharistic Adoration, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass each day, nationally-renowned Catholic speakers, men’s and women’s time discussing the call to chastity, and two workshop s essions addressing a broad spectrum of topics.


Your Question of the Week: One of my acquaintances needs help, but she won't talk to me. What can I do?
This question has varying answers depending on your friend's circumstance. However, in relationships, the most important thing to always remember is that you can't control another persons actions or make choices for them. You are NOT responsible for their actions. You are only responsible for your own actions. So, your first step to help anyone in need is always to pray for them. Pray that your friend will find the help they need, even if it's not through you. Even when they refuse your help Christ is still always with them.

Your next step, if your friend doesn't want your help, is to suggest other resources that could help them. Sometimes, even the best friends, can't help with certain problems. While it can be frustrating not being the one your friend turns to in their time of need, recommending other places for them to turn is a bigger help than you can imagine. There are so many free resources around Ann Arbor. For help finding the right resources to recommend ask a trusted adult, like your Youth Minister, Beth Spizarny.

Always remember that if your friend is ever a danger to themselves or someone else, it is extremely important not to try and handle the situation yourself. Always immediately seek help from a trained professional. Speaking from experience, a teenager is not always equipped to handle their friends' issues. Know you are not the first to go through this, and unfortunately not the last. Sometimes asking for help from trained professionals is the hardest, most brave and wise thing you can do. Remember that Christ never leaves your friends' side, and He will never leave yours either.