St. James Catholic Church

The Catholic community of St. James Church is made up of loving and sensitive members seeking to meet their spiritual needs, strengthen their faith, and affirm their continued existence as the church of Jesus Christ today and tomorrow.  In their quest to evangelize, it is their mission to assist everyone toward a more abundant experience of the riches of their liturgy and scaraments, and to convince all of Christ's sheep that the Lord's Day is indeed for all.

Wednesday at 12:00 Noon, please bring your announcements and notices to the office in legible and written form for insertion into the bulletin. Thank you!

St. James parish welcomes all newcomers.  Please contact the parish office to register.

1) We are to be a Resurrection people:  Easter, the feast of the Resurrection, gives us the joyful message that we are a “Resurrection people.”  This means that we are not supposed to lie buried in the tomb of our sins, evil habits and dangerous addictions.  It gives us the Good News that no tomb can hold us down anymore - not the tomb of despair, discouragement or doubt, nor that of death.  Instead, we are expected to live a joyful and peaceful life, constantly experiencing the real presence of the Risen Lord in all the events of our lives. “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad” (Psalm 118:24). 

2) We need to seek our peace and joy in the Risen Jesus:  The living presence of the Risen Lord gives us lasting peace and celestial joy in the face of the boredom, suffering, pain and tensions of our day-to-day life.  “Peace be with you!” was His salutation to His disciples at all post-Resurrection appearances.  For the true Christian, every day must be an Easter Day, lived joyfully in the close company of the Risen Lord.

3) We are to be transparent Christians: We are called to be transparent Christians, showing others, through our lives of love, mercy, compassion and self-sacrificing service, that the Risen Jesus is living in our hearts.  

4) We need to live new, disciplined lives in the Risen Jesus:  Our awareness of the all-pervading, loving presence of the Risen Lord in and around us, and the strong conviction of our own coming resurrection, help us control our thoughts, desires, words and behavior.  These salutary thoughts inspire us to honor our bodies, keeping them holy, pure and free from evil habits and addictions. Our conviction that the Risen Lord is present in our neighbors and in all those we encounter should encourage us to respect them, and to render them loving, humble and selfless service.

5) We need to remember Easter in our Good Fridays:  Easter reminds us that every Good Friday in our lives will have an Easter Sunday and that Jesus will let us share the power of His Resurrection.  Each time we display our love of others, we share in the Resurrection.  Each time we face a betrayal of trust, we share in the Resurrection of Jesus.  Each time we fail in our attempts to ward off temptations – but keep on trying to overcome them – we share in the Resurrection.  Each time we continue to hope – even when our hope seems unanswered – we share in the power of Jesus’ Resurrection.  In short, the message of Easter is that nothing can destroy us – not pain, sin, rejection or death – because Christ has conquered all these, and we too can conquer them if we put our Faith in Him. 

6) We are to be bearers of the Good News of Resurrection power. Resurrection is Good News, but at the same time, it’s sometimes painful because it involves death. Before the power of the Resurrection can take hold in our own lives, we’re called to die to sin, to die to self. We may even have to die to our own dreams, so that God can do what He wants to do with our lives. Resurrection is about seeing our world in a new way. Early that Easter morning, Mary Magdalene did not find what she was looking for, the dead body of Jesus. But she found something better than she could have imagined: The Risen Jesus. Sometimes, the things we think we want most are not granted to us.  What we get instead is an experience of God’s new ways of working in the world. That’s the power of the Resurrection. When those moments come, we must spread the news--just as Mary Magdalene did: We have seen the Lord!

7) We need to be Easter people: We are in truth called to be an "Easter people", because there are many Easter moments in our lives. It may be in prayer, when for a moment we really experience the love of God, especially having felt His absence, as we often do, like the disciples who experienced the emptiness of the tomb. It may be that moment when we are touched and given hope by a word of Scripture - like the disciples on the road to Emmaus when their hearts were uplifted in joy and hope as the Lord opened up the scriptures to them. Or it may be a moment during the sacrament of reconciliation, after we have acknowledged honestly our weakness and selfishness, our sinfulness and come to experience his forgiveness. Indeed, there are times in our lives when we know, through Faith, that the times of calm after the storm, of joy after sorrow, of restored vitality after weary days on our journey of Faith, are truly times when we share in his paschal mystery. (Fr. Varghese Kizhakevely). 

(1) Jesus himself testified to his Resurrection from the dead, giving it as a sign of his divinity. (Mark 8:31; Matthew 17:22; Luke 9:22). Tear down this temple and in three days I will build it again” (Jn 2: 19).  

(2) The tomb was empty on Easter Sunday (Luke 24:3). Although the guards claimed (Matthew 28:13), that the disciples of Jesus had stolen the body, every sensible Jew knew that it was impossible for the terrified disciples of Jesus to steal the body of Jesus from a tomb guarded by an armed, 16-member Roman Guard detachment.

(3) The initial disbelief of Jesus’ own disciples in Jesus’ Resurrection, in spite of His repeated apparitions, serves as a strong proof of his Resurrection. Their initial disbelief explains why the Apostles started preaching the Risen Christ only after receiving the anointing of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

(4) The transformation of Jesus’ disciples: Jesus’ Resurrection and the anointing of the Holy Spirit transformed men who were hopeless and fearful after the crucifixion (Luke 24:21, John 20:19), into men who now were confident and bold witnesses to the Resurrection (Acts 2:24, 3:15, 4:2) powerfully preaching the Risen Lord.

(5) Neither the Jews nor the Romans could disprove Jesus’ Resurrection by presenting the dead body of Jesus.

(6) The Apostles and early Christians would not have fearlessly preached Christ as Savior and faced martyrdom if they were not absolutely sure of Jesus’ Resurrection.

(7) The Apostle Paul’s conversion from a persecutor of Christians to a zealous preacher of Jesus supports the truth of Jesus’ Resurrection (Galatians 1:11-17, Acts 9:1,  Acts 9:24-25,  Acts 26:15-18).

(8) The sheer existence of a thriving, empire-conquering early Christian Church, bravely facing and surviving three centuries of persecution, supports the truth of the Resurrection claim.

(9) The New Testament witnesses do not bear the stamp of dupes or deceivers. The Apostles and the early Christians were absolutely sure about the Resurrection of Jesus.

:) “See what happens.”  One lady wrote in to a question-and-answer forum. "Dear Sirs, our preacher said on Easter, that Jesus just swooned on the cross and that the disciples nursed Him back to health. What do you think?  Sincerely, Bewildered.

Dear Bewildered, beat your preacher with a cat-of-nine-tails, nail him to a cross; hang him in the sun for 6 hours; run a spear through his side...put him in an airless tomb for 36 hours and see what happens."  Sincerely, Charles.   

:) Rented for a weekend:  Joseph of Arimathea was a very wealthy Pharisee, a member of the council, and a secret follower of Jesus. It was Joseph who went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body after the crucifixion. And it was Joseph who supplied the tomb for Jesus’ burial. I wonder if someone pulled him aside and said, "Joseph that was such beautiful, costly, hand-hewn tomb. Why on earth did you give it to someone else to be buried in?"  "Why not?" Joseph may have answered.  “He only needed it for the weekend."   

:) Resurrection in election: Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was once asked if he believed in resurrection. “Of course, I do,” said Huckabee. “Dead people vote in every election we have in Arkansas. Resurrection is very real to us.”

1)      Vatican website: http://w2.vatican.va/content/vatican/en.html

2)      Monks of the desert video: https://youtu.be/U5YY684ZXDE

3)      Catholic League: http://www.catholicleague.org/ 

4)      Community in mission blog: http://blog.adw.org/author/cpope/

5)      Church teachings index: http://www.ourladyswarriors.org/teach/index.html

6)      Catholic liturgy library: http://www.catholicliturgy.com/

7)      Church cartoons: http://www.toonfever.com/

From: https://sjvomaha.org/lent/121-website-resources

1. Pray, Fast, Give - USCCB’s Lent Page has it all:http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-year/lent/

   What Should I Do For Lent? Pope Francis' 10 Tips -http://www.focus.org/blog/posts/what-should-i-do-for-lent-pope-francis-ten-tips.html

2. Got Questions about Lent? Check out the USCCB Q&A Page:http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-year/lent/questions-and-answers-about-lent.cfm

3. Why do we give up something for Lent? http://bustedhalo.com/questionbox/why-do-we-give-up-something-for-lent

4. List of Lenten Reflections and videos: http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/Seasonal/Default.aspx?id=5

5. Living Lent Daily: http://www.loyolapress.com/living-lent-daily.htm

6. Creighton University Praying Lent: http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Lent/

7. Read MAGNIFICAT online and on iPhone: https://www.magnificat.net/english/iphoneweb.asp

8. Great Catholic Apps: http://catholicapptitude.org/lenten-apps/

9. CRS Rice Bowl: http://www.crsricebowl.org/ & https://www.facebook.com/CRSRiceBowl

10.  https://stpatrickyork.org/lenten-resources

11. Mathew Kelly’s 2016 Lenten reflections: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w67FFFsqguo