Dear Brothers and Sisters,
As we contemplate the Magi opening their treasures and offering Jesus their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, it is a good time to be thankful for what we have received from the loving hands of others this Christmas.
I want to thank all of you who have overwhelmed me with your generous gift giving this Christmas through multiple cards, gifts, and well wishes.
Yet, the greatest gift that I want to thank all of you for is your prayers. Especially all the prayers that you have been offering for my dad, Donald Linden, Sr. We were NOT supposed to have Thanksgiving or Christmas with him around anymore. He was told several months ago that he had two weeks to live.
But we had him for Thanksgiving and Christmas! We do not know how much longer he will spend with us in this world, but both he and I believe with great confidence that all your prayers have been key to the extra time we have already had.
I want, of course, to ultimately thank God. Dad is happy to be a recipient of God’s gift of time, particularly for the sake of strengthening the faith of all.
God does listen to our prayers and to our tears, and he wants us to know this truth. Dad may or may not have much longer to be with us, but these last six months have been nothing but a PURE gift.
This is a good opportunity to realize that we don’t need a two-week death notice to see that every moment God gives us with each other as nothing but a PURE gift.
With that being said, I want to thank God profoundly this Christmas for giving me the precious time that I have had with all of you thus far. How much more he will give, none of us know. I have learned this through an abundance of losses over the past couple of years, and through one precious gain.
May God bless us abundantly in every moment of this new year of life on earth,
Fr. John
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Election day is a little over three weeks away and never have we had such an election. The people of Michigan will be voting for or against declaring it a constitutional right to legally end human lives, to legally disregard parental rights, and to legally disregard the safety and concern for desperate mothers who don’t feel they have anywhere else to turn except to abortion.
As I have said many times, I have worked often with mothers (and fathers) who have aborted their children and have suffered years and years of agony. It is always such a grace and a joy to help them find healing in the Sacrament of Reconciliation and in counseling. Healing for them comes, in large part, by their asking forgiveness from their children who are forever lost to them in this life.
Up to this point, there was nothing that I could ever do for them before that fateful day, when they made the most regrettable decision of their lives. I didn’t know them then, and I had nothing to do with their ability to make such a desperate and grave mistake. But I do now!
I may not be able to change the fate of thousands, if not millions of lives, with my one vote. But my one vote can be the proxy voice of one child who will have no ability to vote for the chance to see a sunrise, to see a Michigan fall, or to meet their mother in this life.
I also have the chance to pray, day and night, to Our Father in Heaven, for the welfare of these beautiful masterpieces of His Love on earth.
In fact, we all have that chance. And so, from this weekend until November election day, we will pray for the sake of all mothers and children, and for all the people of Michigan, at every Mass, together as a family. We will pray the beautiful Prayer for Life and Right Laws that we received from the Diocese of Lansing (see page 7). Our Blessed Mother Mary has willed that we pray this with her rather than our normal Hail Mary at the end of the intersessions at each Mass.
“Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night?”
Will he not hear the prayers of those who cry for the little ones whose own cries are yet to be heard?
I know God will hear us, and I know that he will answer. My hope is that it will stop his people in Michigan from taking the right to disregard his masterpieces of love into our own hands.
May God bless all his children and their parents in Michigan,
Fr. John
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
As we are now engaged in trying to help our state not make a horrible constitutional mistake regarding unborn children, there are many ways in which we can labor toward this goal. In the end, however, the best way will always be how we treat all lives and especially the little lives in our midst.
I want to thank and encourage everyone for cultivating a beautiful, open, and welcoming atmosphere, especially toward families and those with infants and toddlers, here at St. Andrew the Apostle Parish.
We live in a world, and especially a media culture, that increasingly presents a sour attitude towards children in general. There are increasing numbers of commercials, for instance, that present children as an inconvenience that hinder a lifestyle of “real happiness.” Nothing could be more untrue!
Children are God’s greatest gifts on earth, particularly as instruments of teaching us how to increase our love to be more like his. They teach us how to love precisely because it can be, at times, difficult, and precisely because they can so often be uncontrollable! Their cries and their needs always interfere with our wants and desires.
These little self-centered ones are the greatest instruments God will ever have to help break us big children out of our own self-centeredness. We were all once children. If we have the fortune to have gotten past that stage, when “the world revolves around me and all my wants and needs,” it was precisely because someone else’s wants and needs drew my attention away. That is what children are supposed to do!
What a blessing we offer to our young parents by way of our patience when they try everything they have in their tool boxes to navigate those unexpected, instant, uncontrollable outbursts. They struggle in front of all of us, like Kenny Rogers trying “to know when to hold ‘em, know when to [en]fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run!”
Let the whole world know that, here at St. Andrew, we know and understand exactly what you’re feeling, mom and dad! Let us welcome all the little teachers of virtue that God wants to send our way. Because of their innocence, these little saints are not the least bit guilty for their self-centeredness. But, boy are they important in the formation of us BIG children, who are without excuse for ours!
In God’s love for all,
Fr. John
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
This week, the priests of the Diocese of Lansing will be together for our annual priest convocation. It is an opportunity for our priest fathers to join in prayer and fellowship while enjoying some presentations designed to inspire and enrich our vocation and ministry.
Each year, I especially look forward to our Mass together on Wednesday at convocation. It is always offered for the deceased priests who have served the people of God in the Diocese of Lansing. Every priest that has passed is named individually at the beginning of the Mass. This means that not only does the list grow each year, but so do the names of priests that I have personally known.
Because our pastors will all be away, there will be no Masses offered from Tuesday to Thursday this week at any of our three parishes of St. Andrew, St. Mary, or Immaculate Conception. This gives us the experience of what it would be like to not have priests so readily available as we are used to. We will have the opportunity to be united with so many others in the world who must travel sometimes for days on foot to get to Mass and also with those who wait months for a missionary priest to make his rounds through sometimes 30 or more villages.
Therefore, it is a great opportunity for the whole Church to participate by way of prayer for priests and for those being called to consider the priesthood, especially those here at St. Andrew. I am certain that God calls the exact number of men needed, but that not all men hear or heed his call. However, I am just as convinced that, with increased prayer, the number of positive responses will grow.
On Thursday this week, right here at St. Andrew, we will be having Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament (the Eucharist) all day, as usual. Only this time, it will begin at 9:00am (which is normally Mass time). I would like to encourage everyone to come to Adoration at some point on Thursday and pray for priests. At 7:00pm, Deacon Gordon will be offering a special Holy Hour for Vocations, as we do every first Thursday of the month. This is an hour of praying for all vocations, including marriage, deaconate, and consecrated life. But on this occasion, we will focus our prayer especially on the vocation of priesthood.
If we don’t have priests, we don’t have Mass or the Eucharist, and if we don’t have Mass and the Eucharist, we don’t have the Church. It isn’t because individual priests are somehow more special, it’s because Jesus’ priesthood, which he shares with the few of us, is very special indeed! As the list of deceased priests increases each year, please pray that the list of living priests grows even more!
May God bless and keep you all,
Fr. John
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
What is a 54-day novena? "Novena" is traditionally a nine-day prayer.
In fact, it comes from the Latin word for nine, which is "novem." It is a series of days of prayer modeled after the nine days of prayer that our Blessed Mother Mary and the Twelve Apostles offered from the day that Jesus ascended into heaven until the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.
So, why call it a novena if it is 54 days? This is because we are using the same model of imploring heaven for a very important cause - six times over! Essentially, six novenas in a row.
Sometimes causes are great, like preparation for receiving the Holy Spirit. At other times we pray because of the threat of something terribly grievous.
In the case of this novena, we are begging God to help us prevent the validation of a constitutional amendment in our beautiful State of Michigan. The amendment is called "Reproductive Freedom For All."
This amendment essentially names unborn babies, parental rights over their children, and the conscience rights of health care workers as threats to individuals and to the State. The amendment therefore gives individuals and the State a constitutional right to eliminate these threats at will.
Hence, 54 days, because this is incredible evil. Yet, The Church has come against similar horrid evils and threats to humanity throughout all her history. Those evils eventually come to an end, but the Church has endured all of them and continues now as a clear source of light in a darkened world.
So, then what do we do for 54 days? Bishop is asking us to pray a Rosary every day for the intention of overcoming this threat as well as offering other forms of prayer. He is asking us to offer fasting, such as limiting food intake, limiting, or forgoing sweets, alcoholic drinks, or any other desirable but unnecessary pleasures.
He has asked that we give alms. This can be especially helpful to pregnancy help centers and social services that help mothers with children in need. This is expressly needed now as efforts have been made to prevent any State resources from going to help mothers keep and raise their babies while diverting all available State resources to abortive options.
Finally, It is most dearly important that we pray for all who are involved in formal or material cooperation with these evil and misguided efforts. The peril to our babies, our parents, and to our healthcare workers is certainly terrible but, at the same time, it is only temporal, or earthly peril.
The peril that threatens those who are engaged in the promotion of this amendment and similar efforts is eternal peril. This is no light pronouncement because it is no light matter. Hence 54 days of begging Jesus and Mary and all the saints in heaven to help us all.
God will eventually prevail over all earthly perils and we with Him if we remain steadfast and do not seek easy ways to escape peril by causing harm to others.
I love you my brothers and sisters, just as I love every lost sheep and every found sheep in the world. God is who bound us together at our creation and is the one to who can make us whole once again. Nevertheless, may we always do our part for His kingdom with steadfast faith, hope, and love,
Fr. John