REVEREND CHARLES IRVIN was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on January 6, 1933. He was raised and educated there, graduating from the University of Michigan's Law School. After a brief career as an attorney he entered the seminary and was ordained a priest in 1967. Shortly thereafter he began an eleven-year ministry at St. Mary's Student Chapel in Ann Arbor. A rich variety of ministries followed including appointments to many advisory positions in the Church and three other pastorates. In the early 1970s he began writing columns for several Catholic newspapers in Michigan. In 1999 he was appointed founding editor of Faith magazine, published by the Diocese of Lansing, Michigan. Today, the magazine serves seven dioceses. Fr. Irvin passed into eternity on February 11, 2021. May God rest his soul.
Dante Alighieri, simply known by us as Dante, was a major Italian poet of the Middle Ages. In his classic epic poem, The Divine Comedy, he has these words inscribed over the gates of Hell: Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. The damned, those who...
Advent begins with us looking at the eventual end of the world. The passage in today’s Gospel account is taken from St. Mark’s (13:33-37) report of Jesus speaking to His disciples about the end of the world, telling them (and us) to be watchful and...
I don’t know who first uttered these words but they set forth a truly important bit of wisdom: If there is nothing above us we will be consumed by all that is around us. Our nation’s Founding Fathers recognized its truth when they wrote: We hold...
The gospel accounts of last weekend, this weekend and next weekend are all taken from the 24th and 25th chapters of St. Matthew. The teachings presented in them by Christ are his last ones before he was to enter into Jerusalem and there be put to...
Have you ever wanted to go back to see the home in which you lived as a child? Go back to the school in which you entered kindergarten or the first grade? Or maybe, with friends, go back to your old high school? Have you ever wanted to see the home...
From yesterday each one of us has today moved one day closer to death. It’s our common destiny. The Mass of All Souls puts that reality in front of us in a special way even though in every celebrated Mass we always pray for those who have, along...
Every three years we are presented with these verses (22:15-21) from the Gospel of Matthew, one that interests many of us because it deals with the question of separation between Church and State. The first thing we should note is that the question...
Weddings and clothes – they are important parts of every culture. Can you think of any culture that doesn’t have weddings? That is not concerned with clothes? I can’t. For instance Jesus spoke of how the flowers are clothed, clothing the naked, rich...
