ST. JOSEPH CATHOLIC CHURCH
TRENTON MICHIGAN

welcome home !

Rats! My ticket wasn’t picked for our first “early bird” drawing for the Nest Egg Raffle. I wish to offer my
congratulations to the two persons who were $500 winners. Perhaps I’ll have better luck today when two
tickets will be drawn for $200. Don’t miss out on the remaining “early bird” drawings and of course the $10,000 Grand Prize drawing on September 19th. Ticket sales have been good but there are still some tickets to be had. Sellers are positioned outside of church after Masses, or you can stop by the parish office to purchase a ticket as well.

I would love to win. However, the primary reason I have purchased a Nest Egg Raffle ticket is because I know that all the proceeds from it go toward reducing our parish debt. If you have not yet done so, I hope you will purchase a Nest Egg Raffle ticket for the same reason as well. Good Luck!

Before you know it the school year will be starting up, not only here at St. Joseph’s but all around the area. In today’s second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews the emphasis is on “discipline.” Discipline is not just about punishing. Athletes discipline themselves for competition through conditioning their bodies through training, exercising and managing their diet.

Schools help to discipline young minds to reason, to think, to problem solve and to learn. The passage from Hebrews states, “At the time, all discipline seems not a cause for joy but for pain.” Boy, can I identify with that statement from my own life experience. Athletes enduring two a day practice sessions at this time can identify. Students, when dealing with homework assignments can feel that way. But as the Letter to the Hebrews also states, “…yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained in it.” This passage too I can identify with.

If we are going to be good athletes or students we must endure some pain in order to perform at our best. The same is true with our faith. If we are going to be our best as Catholic Christians we need to disciplineour spiritual lives. This requires daily prayer and weekly attendance at Mass on Sunday. This means coming to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This means living our faith daily. This discipline is not always easy but if we dedicate our lives to such discipline now “… yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained in it.”

Let this time of new beginning of the school year be a time for “all” of us to be renewed in our commitment to learn about our faith and to become disciplined in our practice of it.

I recently connected with a long time friend of mine. We hadn’t seen each other for many years. He was always good at telling jokes and he shared one with me that I thought you would enjoy. After concluding the arduous task of painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, Michelangelo met privately with the Pope to survey his work. The Pope was very much impressed by his work. Saying not a word, he stood looking up admiringly at the ceiling. After concluding their survey the Pope spoke, “Michelangelo, that is really nice, however, I must remind you that your contract called for two coats.”