St. Pius Catholic Church

Hello Everyone,

Happy Tuesday!  Believe it or not I am stumped as to what to say to everyone this morning.  I know that Punxsutawney Phil, did not see his shadow this morning, meaning that we are in for 6 more weeks of winter.  Let's pray that that is not the case this winter.  Please remember in your thoughts and prayers, Ann Kelly, whose funeral mass was yesterday here at church.  Other than that its been the usual run here, run there routine of the parish over the last week.  Bishop Jenky will be here on Wednesday at 1:30pm, to celebrate a special mass with the students from Jordan Catholic School celebrating Jordan's 35th anniversary as a Catholic School.  Also on Wednesday evening, I will be going to Iowa City to Carver Hawkeye Arena to see Illinois take on Iowa along with three other parishioners, don't worry we all plan on wearing our orange and blue proudly and cheering loudly for the Illini. 

A reminder to all of our teens that TEC 271 (Boys Weekend) is coming up soon on February 13-15, 2010 at the Believers Together Center at Christ the King Church in Moline, Illinois.  And for the girls interested in going on TEC, the next girls weekend is March 6-8, 2010 also at the Believers Together Center at Christ the King Church in Moline.  Details and registration is available at: www.northwest-tec.com

I would like to continue to invite everyone to continue praying about joining the pilgrimage that I will be spiritual director for coming up in October.  There several parishioners who have told me that are seriously considering going on the trip, as people from other pilgrimages that I have been a part of.  Your not going to want to miss this trip, we again are going to: Portugal, Spain, and France, with stops in: Fatima, Lisbon, Santarem, Salamanca, Avila, Burgos, Loyola & Lourdes from October 9-19, 2010.  Then there is also a post-trip excursion, for four more days in France, available for an extra fee to: Nevers (This is where St. Bernadette's incorrupt body is), Lisieux (To see the Carmelite Monastery where Saint Therese of Lisieux was a nun), Rouen, and Paris.  All the details and information, as well as, registration are available at: www.pilgrimages.com/frzorjan

For those who listen to the Christian Music Station K-Love here in the Quad Cities.  There is a great Christian concert coming up at the I-Wireless Center on Friday night March 12 at 7pm.  The event is called "Winter Jam" and is going to feature some great bands.  Headlining the show is Third Day, and if you have never seen Third Day then you are in for treat.  Joining Third Day is also: Newsboys, Tenth Ave. North, Firefly, Sidewalk Prophets, Revive, and more.  Tickets are only $10, and only are available at the door the day of the show, there is no advance ticket sales for the show.  First come, first served until the event sells out that day.

Other than that there is not much more to say.  Due to popular demand, I will posting my homily from last Sunday on being builders of unity and peace, in the little lesson section this week below my signature.  May God bless you always.

Till next week.

In Christ,

Father Peter Zorjan
Assistant Pastor at Saint Pius X
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"United We Can Succeed, Divided We Definitely Fail"
(This homily was given on 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time and is based off the second reading from 1 Corinthians 12)

    I do not know about all of you present here today, but I think that the timing of today’s second reading could not be more perfect.  It is a reading about being united as the body of Christ and it was written by Saint Paul to the church in Corinth.  This was a particular church that Saint Paul loved deeply and wrote to more than any of the other churches of his day.  The Christian community was located in Greece, and Corinth itself was a big, bustling city, the capital of the region, it even had a terrible reputation for its sinful behavior, which Saint Paul addresses in his letters to the Corinthians.  It also happened to be struggling with a big internal problem within the church: division.  Some of the Christians there, had been Jewish converts, and others had been pagan converts.  Some claimed that they had received the faith from Saint Paul, others from Saint Peter, and others from another famous preacher of the time, Apollos.  These differences had given rise to factions within the Church.  Quite often, whenever a new opportunity or problem came up within the church, the various factions fought over it and created more problems than solutions.  This constantly aggravated division was tearing the young community apart, and as a result of the fighting, spread scandal and distress to the surrounding Christian communities.  It was, in short, a crisis that needed to be addressed and today Saint Paul was addressing the situation to bring about unity and peace.
   
    Now I do not know about all of you, but doesn’t this kind of scenario remind you about what we are seeing here and now today in our own country.  We have in our own government, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents; conservatives, progressives, and liberals fighting back and forth everyday over the smallest things; both sides always having to be right about everything, pointing fingers at the other side constantly when things are not going well for the country or the side and issues they support, and even being willing to make fun of and tear down those who might oppose their viewpoints, as well as, their family members and friends, rather than having an honest and fair discussion to solve the problem. 
   
    We seem to forget that we are all Americans sharing in the same struggle and that we need to do what is best for our country, not to sit there and promote a certain agenda, special interest, or personal aspirations.  Likewise, even within our own Church and among the Christian denominations in general, we see the same kind of thing happening.  And rather than building up the body of Christ, as Saint Paul tells us to do in the second reading today, we are tearing it down, by our lack of unity and willingness to work together and lack of remembrance that we do share a common goal and that is to build up the kingdom of God here on earth and teach people about the truth and love of Jesus Christ.
   
    Make no mistake about it, my brothers and sisters, dividing people and communities apart is one of Satan’s favorite tactics.  Pride and sins associated with pride, such as hatred, anger, bitterness, and resentment always divide people apart from each other.  If we think about it carefully, from the very beginning, Satan’s goal was to divide humanity.  The very first sin in the Garden of Eden is the perfect example; it created antagonism between mankind and God (that is why Adam and Eve hid from God after eating from the forbidden tree); it created antagonism between Adam and Eve (that is why they sew fig leaves together and concealed themselves from each other); and it created antagonism between mankind and the rest of creation (that is why Eve was cursed with pains in childbirth and Adam was cursed to earn his living by the sweat of his brow).  Division is clearly from these examples, among so many others in our world, the work of the Devil.  Did you know that the very word “devil” comes from a Greek word for accuser or slanderer, the original meaning of which was “to throw across”, as in throwing an obstacle across someone’s path, dividing that person from his goal; or as in throwing obstacles between people, dividing them from each other.  The Devil wants to divide us from God and from each other.  This is what evil and pride are all about.
   
    God, the source of all goodness, is in His very essence a communion of persons, a unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The Holy Trinity is all about unity.  And we are created in His likeness and image, so we need to learn from the Holy Trinity that we are called to live a life of unity in imitation of the unity found in the Holy Trinity.  Sowing division and discord among us, then, is the Devil’s way of insulting God, whom he hates, and of disrupting us from imitating the unity of the Holy Trinity in our lives and world.  Make no mistake about it, every sin is in some way is a fault against the unity and harmony that should reign between us and God and among ourselves.  There is a great example in history that illustrates this point.  It goes back to the time when the various Cesar’s ruled over Rome.
   
    If we think about it, what was their strategy in war.  It was divide and conquer.  The strategy being that if you could divide your opponent into smaller weaker groupings then you could more easily conquer them with your larger more powerful army.  In my opinion, this is what Satan is trying to do to us, divide and conquer.  By dividing us into smaller factions and groups within the church that are constantly fighting, we lose sight of our common goal and purpose, making it easier for evil and sin to come in and penetrate the unity of the church and the ultimately the faith, thereby giving scandal to outsiders and to those whose faith is weak causing many of them to flee and run away from God and the Church.
   
    As I said earlier, Satan sows division, spreads lies, and loves to spread misinformation to stir up our emotions and feelings negatively.  He tempts us to think badly of others, to speak badly of others, to think that we are always right and that everybody else is always wrong.  He does it in families, in churches, in communities, in government, in businesses, anywhere he can, just as long as it creates disharmony he is happy.  Satan and his minions keep us fighting so much among ourselves; they keep us so full of resentment and anger, that we can never experience the satisfaction and maturity that God wants for us.  And as a result, our effectiveness in building up the Church and winning souls to Christ is severely diminished.  Division is the Devil’s work, but on a positive note, reconciliation and communion is the work of the Church and that is where our focus and attend must go as Christ’s disciples.  If we want to be the Devil’s disciples and experience frustration, all we have to do is sow and foster division.  If we want to be Christ’s disciples and experience lasting satisfaction, all we need to do is be builders of unity, peace, and justice centered on reconciliation and communion.  And if we paid attention today, Saint Paul tells us how we can do this.
   
    Remember, the community of Christians in Corinth is beginning to experience the breakdown that comes from factions and division today in the second reading.  In this context, Saint Paul urges them to stop fighting among themselves, and to be united in Christ, just as the different organs and limbs are united in the body.  This is the attitude that must reign among Christians of every generation, including us.  So the question becomes, how can we develop that attitude?   How can we learn to stop criticizing, fighting, and spreading the Devil’s seeds of division and discord?  I would like to suggest two ways to everyone today.
   
    First, we need to pray for the virtue of prudence and learn how to be more prudent with how we use the gift of speech.  Going back to the example of how Satan trapped Adam and Eve in committing the first sin, how did he get them to falter?  The Devil simply fed them lies, flattery, and subtle words; and ever since then, we have become experts as a human race at damaging and hurting others in the same way.  Imagine how different your family would be if no one criticized each other; how different the atmosphere at school would be, at work, even imagine how different it would be in our own parish here at Saint Pius X.  So for starters, let us learn how to train our tongues and be prudent in our speech so as to build up our neighbors, and not tear them down. 
   
    Secondly, we need frequent confession.  Every sin, whether we realize it or not, no matter how small, is a blow to unity and harmony with God and with our neighbor.  Every sin sows brings about disharmony in our souls and our community.  Every confession, on the other hand, purifies our souls and gives us a fresh start.  In confession God not only forgives our sins, but He gradually strengthens us to become the mature, wise, joyful Christians He created us to be.  In other words, don’t ever be afraid of coming to confession frequently!  Don’t ever be afraid to keep Fr. Schaab, Fr. Mark, and I busy in the confessionals, after all that is why we were ordained in the first place to bring souls back into full communion with God!  Come to confession and come often!  In just a little bit, Jesus is about to come among us once again in Holy Communion, the sacrament of unity.  Let us promise Him today that this week and for the rest of our lives we will set out once again on the path to becoming builders of unity and peace, true disciples of the Holy Eucharist.  Today Saint Paul challenges us, now let us hear his call and go make a difference in our world!