"Be still and know that I am God. exalted over nations, exalted over earth! The Lord of hosts is with us: the God of Jacob is our stronghold" (Ps 46:11-12). Please click on the title of the article to read this reflection.

Bishop Bradley is calling for a Diocesan Day of Prayer and Penance on Friday, April 3, 2020. Please see the attached graphic or the Diocesan website (diokzoo.org) for details.

Today, March 30, Father Jeff has written a Reflection about Saint John Climacus, Abbot. Please click on the article title to read this reflection.

This morning's Mass is finally uploaded to YouTube and our website! You can view the recording here: https://youtu.be/0IjNuvR94ac.

Join us here on our website or on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/stcatherinesiena/) today, Saturday, March 28th, at 4 pm for our first official live-streamed Sunday Vigil Mass. Father Mark will be the presider. Also, the Diocese has released information about a Special Indulgence opportunity available during this COVID-19 crisis. Please see the graphic with this post or visit the Diocesan website (https://diokzoo.org/coronavirus-indulgence) for more information.

Join Pope Francis in prayer today at 12:55 PM (EST) for an extraordinary "Urbi et Orbi" blessing (out of the ordinary because this blessing is usually only given at Christmas, Easter, and at the moment of a Pope's election). Set your clocks to remind you! Tune in live at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJHI8bI0LWg More information at: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2020-03/pope-prayer-friday-urbietorbi-plenary-indulgence.html

March 26: Saint Peter of Sebaste Saint Peter was the youngest of ten children of his father, Saint Basil the Elder, and mother, Saint Emmelia. You may already know about two of his older brothers: Saint Basil the Great and Saint Gregory of Nyssa. The whole family was set apart for their love of God. Peter's path, however, was very different from his brothers'. Peter's father died when he was only a few months old and so he was raised by his mother and his older sister, Macrina, who was the eldest of the family. Macrina educated Peter at home and showed him that all of his studies can only be helpful and profitable to him if they help him to attain eternal life. She may have had their brother Basil in mind when she taught him this lesson since Basil had come back from his university studies bursting with self-importance and pride. As he grew, Peter chose to enter the monastery which his brother founded. His brother was later called away from the monastery to become a bishop, the brothers chose Peter to become his successor as ruler of the monastery. Peter dedicated himself in his position to charitable works: during times of plague and destitution, he made the monastery's supplies available for all the townspeople to supply their needs. At the age of 40, Peter was called from the monastery to become Bishop of Sebaste in Armenia. As a bishop, he was known for his sanctity, prudence, and zeal. He died on March 26th, in the year 390. Saint Peter of Sebaste, pray for us!

Good Morning, St. Catherine's family! As we all continue to do our best to adapt to "staying home", we thought we would provide you with a few resources to help you stay connected to our parish. For those who have enjoyed Jay Landry's Bible Studies, please check out the Adult Bible Study page of our website (https://www.stcatherinesiena.org/adult-bible-study). Jay has prepared two new videos for his Gospel of Matthew study (as well as handouts) and both videos and the handouts are posted to the Bible Study page. From that page, you can also access previous studies, including the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Revelation, either from the left side menu or from the links further down on the Bible Study page. Many of you probably know and remember Father Bob Flickinger, who was our Pastor some time ago. Father Bob has prepared a coronavirus-inspired version of "The Way of the Cross" and has given us permission to share that with all of you. You can find that document here: https://bit.ly/WayoftheCrossFlickinger. We are still hoping to live stream Mass here on Facebook AND on our website in the very near future. Please continue to check our Facebook page (and like/follow us for timely alerts) and our website for information as we work on this project. If you haven't already done so, this would be a great time to fill out our online Parish Census form (https://stcatherinesiena.org/census2020) to make sure we have your most-current information in our parish database. We're using this information to email and mail regular communications to our registered active parishioners. Want to join the parish? No problem! You can register yourself/your family online, too (https://stcatherinesiena.org/join)! We will also continue to publish our bulletin online (with some delay due to publisher staffing), so please check the bulletin page of our website: https://www.stcatherinesiena.org/bulletins for the most current file and files from previous weeks. Finally, we know you have many things to think about with the current situation happening in our country and around the world. We humbly ask you to add our church to your list of concerns. We anticipate a serious fall in collections as parishioners stay home to flatten the curve of the coronavirus spread. Please keep us in mind during this time of crisis. You may continue to mail your donations, or you may give one-time donations or setup recurring donations via electronic check/credit card through our online giving system (https://stcatherinesiena.org/give). Thank you for anything you can give during this time. We miss all of you and look forward to the day when we can all gather together as one for prayer and worship. Until then, please stay safe, stay healthy, stay HOME, and know that we are here if you need us. Please contact us by phone (269-327-5165) and leave a message or email (frontdesk@stcatherinesiena.org) and someone will get back to you just as soon as possible. May God Bless all of you!

March 25: The Annunciation Today, the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Annunciation. Spend a moment today reading and praying with the beautiful Gospel passage that recounts that moment when Mary allowed God to work something beyond her comprehension in her heart and in her body. From her "Yes", Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, was conceived in her womb. The Lord too works beautiful and wonderful marvels in you if only we respond to God in faith and with trust: "In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, / to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. / And he came to her and said, 'Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!.' / But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. / And the angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid Mary, for you have found favor with God. / And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. / He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, / and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there will be no end.' / And Mary said to the angel, 'How can this be, since I have no husband?' / And the angel said to her, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. / And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. / For with God nothing will be impossible.' / And Mary said, 'Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to you word.' And the angel departed from her." (Luke 1:26-38 RSV).

Pope Francis has asked Christians around the world to unite in praying the Our Father prayer on Wednesday, March 25th, the Solemnity of the Annunciation, at 7 am Michigan time (Noon Rome time) in response to the coronavirus pandemic. For more information, please see the picture below or read the full story here - https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pope-francis-as-humanity-trembles-from-pandemic-let-us-unite-in-prayer-40234.

Today we remember Saint Oscar Romero. Oscar was the second of seven children. He was ordained a priest and served in El Salvador. He became the auxiliary bishop of San Salvador in 1970. A conservative man and cleric by nature, he was at odds with many of the area priests who were opposed the repressive El Salvadorian government, and who were aligned with leftist ideologies. By this point, Romero had come to realize that the ruling class had no concern for the condition of the rest of the population, and was determined to violently repress any opposition. He was out-spoken for the cause of the poor and oppressed, and always within the duty and limits of his vocation as a Catholic priest and bishop. He was shot on March 24, 1980 while celebrating Mass. He was canonized by Pope Francis in 2018. Today is the 40th anniversary of his death. Vatican News put out a video today on his life using footage from his life. Take a minute to check it out (run time 2:08)! https://youtu.be/2dY03-b6Bvc

As Governor Whitmer announced in an executive order on March 23, 2020, the State of Michigan is now under a Stay in Place Order effective until the end of the day for the 13th of April. From our priests, deacons and staff at St. Catherine, we ask everyone to be considerate of this order and use these next few weeks to stay healthy and to stay home until the height of this pandemic passes. We pray in a special way for all Doctors, Nurses, First Responders, Police, Fire and others who are keeping us safe; keeping the stores open for us or places that will feed us during this time. Bishop Bradley has communicated with us that our Sunday Masses and daily Masses continue to be suspended. Our priests are offering Private Masses throughout this time with all of you in our special prayers. A dispensation from Sunday Mass continues throughout this time. All our programs and activities are canceled during this time. Our staff are at home as well. Please continue to watch our Parish Website as well as Facebook as we will use these as a way to give you the Mass remotely, at least on Sundays. At the time we write this, we do not know if the equipment we had ordered and scheduled for streaming the Mass will be installed or not. Nor do we know what Holy Week will look like yet. Stay tuned and we will update you as we work out all these details. Once again, we thank everyone who is supporting the parish through online giving or by the mail. It will help us through this time where we do not have public masses.

We successfully live-streamed Mass on Facebook at 4 pm today for the Fourth Sunday of Lent. Since we weren't certain if our temporary technology would work, we didn't advertise or promote our live Mass (though some were able to join us anyway - thank you!). But, we've uploaded the video from tonight's Mass to YouTube so that perhaps more of you can connect with St. Catherine's this weekend; just click on the title of this article or visit our parish YouTube page: https://youtu.be/uH4bQXEYwk4. Father Mark's homily is also posted on the "Homilies" page of the website if you just want to listen to that (text will follow shortly). Though we hope to have a better live-stream process in place in the next week or so, we hope you'll find our first attempt at live-streaming helpful. We miss you all!

As we approach the first Sunday in the Diocese of Kalamazoo without "in-person" Sunday Mass, we thought it might be helpful to share some resources on how to watch Sunday Mass on the internet/TV, as well as some additional prayer resources. On our parish's dedicated page for COVID-19 (https://www.stcatherinesiena.org/covid19), at the bottom of the page, there is now a section for "Helpful Resources and Websites" (see screenshot to the left). This section will continue to be updated as we find things that might help all of us "stay connected" to our faith. Are you looking for something specific? Is there a way we can help you during this time of social distancing? Please let us know! You can email us at communications@stcatherinesiena.org or send us a Facebook message and we'll respond as quickly as we can.

Today, March 20 is the Feast Day of Saint Jósef Bilczewski. Jósef was the oldest of nine children, born to a farming family in Poland. He was quite intelligent and balanced study with work around the farm. He entered seminary in Krakow and went on to study Dogma and Christian Archeology in Rome and in Parish. He became a professor at the University of Lviv and later rector (principal). He was then asked by Pope Leo XIII to become archbishop of Lviv. He led his flock in the troubling times of WWI, the Polish-Ukrainian War, the Bolshevik invasion, and the Communist threat to the Church. His intellect was brilliant and his heart loving and fatherly. He protected and cared for his people and in particular, the poor. When Jósef Bilczewski died on March 20, 1923, he was buried in a cemetery for the poor, as he felt most at home among them. Two additional notes from me today: • Today is a Friday in Lent; please remember to abstain from all meat. As Catholics, this is an obligation: we give up flesh meat on Friday in honor of our Lord's sacrifice of his flesh, the "flesh for the life of the world" (John 6:51), on the cross. • I encourage each of you to pray the Stations of the Cross devotion today. You may do it privately, or together with your family. Below are two very good versions of the Stations of the Cross that are currently available on YouTube. As you make this devotion, it is helpful for your prayer to continue make the gestures of genuflecting at the beginning of each station and kneeling for the prayers. The Stations can be made on any day of the week but are especially recommended on Fridays in Lent. Choose one of the Stations to make today. Here are the links (there are others on YouTube as well): o Stations of the Cross by Saint Alphonsus Liguori: https://youtu.be/456Y0ZQWxB0 o Stations of the Cross, based on the Scriptural texts: https://youtu.be/-8lUZ1Hyx4I

Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, our regular Reconciliation schedule has been adjusted.  For the next few weeks, all confessions will be held "drive-in" style in the main church parking lot.  Beginning Saturday, March 21, 2020, and continuing until at least Saturday, April 4, 2020, confessions will be offered: Saturdays from 11 am -12 Noon, Mondays from 9 am-10 am, and Fridays from 11 am-12 Noon. Please drive into the St. Catherine parking lot and look for the parking cones. We hope to have at least two priests hearing confessions during this time. When the priest sees you, he will come to you after you pull up or will be waiting outside. If you are the only person in the car, please drive forward for confession and remain in the car. If there are several people in the car that need to go to confession, please exit the car one at a time and go to confession. Please remain a social distance from the priest during your confession and also maintain privacy distance from others who are having their confession heard.

Good Morning, St. Catherine's Family! If we have an email address for you/your family in our parish database, you likely received an email last night or this morning from Marianne Verner, our Office Supervisor, with the title "Letter from Father Mark". This is a legitimate email, and not spam or some kind of hack. Since we know that many of our parishioners are not on Facebook and may not be checking our website regularly, we wanted to reach out to everyone in as many ways as we could to share Father Mark's most recent letter about our parish's updated response to COVID-19. We will also be mailing Father Mark's letter to a subset of our parishioners who do NOT have email addresses on file with us. If you would like to add your email address to your record in our parishioner database or otherwise update your contact information, please fill out our 2020 Parish Census form on our website (https://www.stcatherinesiena.org/census2020) so that we can continue to keep all of our parishioners updated with the latest news from the parish. Please continue to let us know if you have questions or concerns; we're here to help!

Father Mark has written a letter detailing our parish's updated response to the COVID-19 pandemic (please click on the article title to read this letter or go to http://bit.ly/FrMark3192020). Although all parish activities and Masses are canceled through Sunday, April 5th, starting tomorrow, Friday, March 20th, St. Catherine's will provide access to Trinity Chapel each day between 9 am and 3 pm for those who wish to pray. Please read the letter for full details about this and other ways you can stay connected to our parish during these challenging times. We will continue to post updates on our parish website (stcatherinesiena.org/covid19), as well as on our parish Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/stcatherinesiena) as we have more information. Please continue to keep our parish clergy and staff in your prayers; we will do the same for all of you. God Bless!

Bishop Bradley has officially canceled the public celebration of the Mass, effective Friday, March 20, 2020, through at least Sunday, April 5, 2020. Father Mark has also canceled daily Mass for tomorrow, Thursday, March 19, 2020. To read the full text of the Bishop's letter, please click on the article title (or visit http://bit.ly/DioKzooLetterMar182020). For the most up-to-date information from our parish about how we're responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, please check the dedicated page of our website (https://www.stcatherinesiena.org/covid19) or continue to follow our Facebook page. We appreciate your patience and your prayers during these challenging times.

Effective immediately, Bishop Bradley has asked us to CANCEL daily Mass. For now, daily Mass on Tuesday, March 17th and Wednesday, March 18th are canceled. As we receive more information from the Diocese, we will update our Facebook page, our parish website calendar, and the COVID-19 page of our website (https://www.stcatherinesiena.org/covid19). At this time, we have not received any information on weekend Masses, but we will post updates when we receive them.