We Must Focus on Vocations to the Ministerial Priesthood!

Even those who do not attend Holy Mass regularly should have become painfully aware that our Archdiocese is hurting for vocations to the ministerial priesthood. The Most Reverend Allen H. Vigneron, our Archbishop, has made it abundantly clear that we are facing a crisis of alarming proportions. The measure of dividing the AOD parishes into Families of Parishes should indicate to all the faithful of goodwill that we should all be wholeheartedly involved in storming heaven so that the Lord may bless our Archdiocese with many more priests as the Moderators of the various Families of Parishes and the One-Pastor Families of Parishes are forced to rely very heavily for pastoral assistance on the help of retired priests, some of them well into their eighties! 

If you go on the AOD website and search for “Vocations” you will see all kinds of suggestions and ways we can help so that our Archdiocese may be blessed with enough new, holy priests. 

Here I report the prayer which we recite after Holy Communion in church and the prayer of Intercession for Vocations which our Archbishop asked us priests to include in the Solemn Intercessions, which are part of the Good Friday Liturgy.  

Heavenly Father, Lord of the Harvest, 
call forth vocations to the priesthood 
from our archdiocese and families. 

Jesus, Eternal High Priest, 
give us men willing to sacrifice and serve. 
Make their hearts after your own Sacred Heart. 

Holy Spirit, Everlasting Love between the Father and Son, 
strengthen, inspire, and set men on fire with divine charity. 
Grant them the courage to say yes to their vocation. 

Holy Mary, Mother of God, Mother of priests, 
comfort and protect your sons as they discern their call. 
With Saint Joseph, may they know your love and companionship 
as they deepen their relationship with Jesus. 

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us. 
St. Anne, pray for us. 
St. John Vianney, patron saint of priests, pray for us. 

 

Solemn Intercession for Vocations to the Priesthood 

Let us pray, dearly beloved, for vocations to the Holy Priesthood of Christ in the Archdiocese of Detroit, to continue to nourish us with the Body and Blood of Christ through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and strengthen us with the grace of the Sacraments of the Church. 

Prayer in silence.                                                

Then the Priest says: 
 

O God, who willed to provide shepherds for your people, pour out in your Church a spirit of piety and fortitude, to raise up worthy 
ministers for your altars and make them ardent yet gentle heralds of your Gospel. 
Through Christ our Lord. 
R. Amen. 

Supporting Our Own Seminarian, Antonio La Barbera 

Antonio La Barbera is the son of Salvatore and Maria La Barbera from Lenox, Michigan. They are members of our San Francesco Church. Antonio, who has an MA in Theology from Sacred Heart Major Seminary, is a seminarian for the Diocese of Lubbock, Texas. He will be ordained a priest for that Diocese in about three years. Unfortunately, for his education towards the priesthood Antonio has piled up a sizable debt which he is paying through his work for the Labouré Society whose noble purpose is to help rescue vocations of seminarians by mitigating their debt. Antonio is humbly asking us for our prayers and donations. To donate please go to https://rescuevocations.org/antonio. Do not be scared by the figures you see there. They are the sum of the debt of the whole group of seminarians and nuns helped by the Labouré Society at this time. Make sure that you donate in “honor of Antonio L Barbera.”

May the Lord reward your generous heart. 

Fr. Dino Vanin, PIME

Now What?

Proposal 3 passed despite all our prayers, sacrifices, sincere efforts, and passionate urgings made to family members, friends, and acquaintances to be informed about the radical and extreme proposed change to the Michigan Constitution so that they would join our noble cause of the defense of the unborn and parental rights. We had Holy Masses offered; we watched videos on this subject, and we enthusiastically joined the most massive and well-organized effort ever put forth by the Michigan Catholic Bishops’ Conference.                  

To say that we are saddened by the decision reached by 55% of Michigan voters doesn’t even begin to describe our disappointment and anguish. Ours was a most noble cause. We were never in doubt of that. We knew viscerally that God was blessing our fight for the unborn whom He had called to life. As we heard the news that we had failed in stopping Proposal 3, we began to ask why the Lord allowed this to happen.

Thumbing inquisitively through the Bible, we find out that this is not the first time the Lord doesn’t go along with His people’s good intentions. While God’s law is an eloquent sign of His predilection, it is also true that manmade laws are all wanting.

Oftentimes laws have a very limited effect on the problems they are issued to solve. Gun violence is out of control precisely in cities where gun laws are more stringent and more numerous. Prostitution flourishes in cities with the highest multiplication of laws against the oldest profession. Corruption is widespread where it is the accepted way of getting things done despite the law.

I think that the Lord wants us to realize that working for laws to correct barbaric horrors, such as abortion, is a convenient shortcut to a solution that would make us feel good without requiring a high personal cost and with limited inconvenience. The following passage from the Prophet Jeremiah might reveal to us the reason why Proposal 3 passed. Truth be told, we should have had warning signs dating back fifty years: despite all we did and the innumerable prayers we said, and the many sidewalk counseling sessions in front of abortion mills, abortions were performed legally and illegally because the laws had remained on paper rather than interiorized.

 

But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD. I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Jeremiah 31:33

 

By now God’s message to us should be clear: no shortcuts. Abortions are reduced and, eventually, eliminated one heart at a time. We ought to roll up our sleeves and instill respect for life in all the budding new generations in our families, social gatherings, places of work, and anywhere else we can engage in private, kind, unthreatening conversations that are determined to listen respectfully and refrain not only from judging but also from uptight body language. We will reap fruits according to the amount of time, patience, and self-sacrifice we are willing to make so that God’s law will be written in another heart. Fr. Dino Vanin, PIME

Devoted to Breaking Bread in our Church (Acts 2:46)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has a wonderful definition of the Eucharist: The Eucharist is “the source and summit” of the Christian life. The other Sacraments and, indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch. (1324-1327).

The pandemic has revealed those of our parishioners who truly live out this definition by the aching that gripped their hearts during the lockdowns and the intensity of their longing to return to worship in their beloved church of San Francesco so as to ease their hunger for the living Bread.

But the pandemic has also brought to the surface the painful reality that only one third of Catholics believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharistic species, i.e., present with his Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity. For them the Eucharist is far from being the ‘source and summit’ of Christian life. Alas, they might feel lukewarm about the Eucharist and reserve it for the occasional thought that prompts them to set foot inside a church on Christmas Day, Easter Sunday, a few other Sundays and on special occasions such as First Holy Communions, Confirmations, weddings, and funerals. Their body language, more than their actions, denotes a lack of that burning desire that should be visibly displayed by their entire being; this is if they firmly believe in truly becoming divine by assimilating the heavenly food that guarantees genuine believers to live on into eternity, way past their inevitable physical demise.

Let me confess to you all how deeply concerned and troubled I am that the other two thirds of “Catholics”, de facto, are not Catholic anymore, because they are missing out on the source and summit of Christian living.

The first of the two most disconcerting signs of apathy towards the Catholic belief in the Eucharist is: having adjusted to a general spiritual malaise of being sinful and weak. Spiritually healthy believers, realizing that their love for Jesus has become tepid, would rush to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Those who do not believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharistic species instead go years or even decades without receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation, because their sinfulness has metastasized. The other disconcerting sign is a loss of craving for the Flesh of our God in Holy Communion. The fire of love for Jesus that once was burning inside has been gradually replaced by tepidness, as they have adjusted to the near flat line of their Christian life.  

Hence, tragically, two thirds of nominal Catholics find themselves trapped helplessly in this vicious cycle. Tepid love for Jesus makes them minimize their sins until they find themselves in a deep sinful rut, and they become weaker and weaker. Having become spiritually weak, they still keep “the habit” of going to Holy Communion, but without feeling the urgency of reforming their life and without the burning hunger for the heavenly food that would make them recover their strength and be set ablaze again with love for Jesus. The vicious cycle is only broken by genuine love for Jesus, which is eloquently visible in the Crucified Lord and readily available in the Sacraments of Reconciliation and The Eucharist, in that order.

 

Fr. Dino Vanin, your very concerned pastor

 

(Link) Recommended readings: “The Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.” It is found on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).                                                                 

For your edification, you might also want to Google “St. Tarcisius;” you will find a variety of narratives about the inspiring feats of faith and courage of this young Christian boy martyred for his love of the Eucharist.

The Missions Corner