ST. MICHAEL ARCHANGEL, DEFEND US IN BATTLE!

May the peace of the Lord be with you! We begin this month with the great feast of the Presentation of the Lord, one of the joyful Mysteries of the Rosary. It commemorates that event in Jesus' life where He is formally presented to the Lord in the Temple, accompanied by prophetic words concerning His future. As we pray this joyful mystery, it reminds us to plead with God to deepen our own awareness of the Lord and His ministry in our lives and to give us the grace to live in a way that is fully pleasing to Him, so that, after our own journey home, we ourselves might be presented to Him and hear those longed-for words: "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Master!"

We also begin this new month under the shepherding of our new Bishop. As we are all aware, there are several key issue currently facing the Parish, e.g. building issues, school issues, etc. and we will need input from our new Bishop on some of these questions. I know and am very grateful for the number of folks who have been praying for him, and I hope and trust that folks will continue to pray for him, especially for his openness to the presence and the power of the Spirit and respect for what God in His mercy has been doing here in the Spirit for these many years. Bishop Povish was a great friend to both Christ the King and the Communities, let us pray that Bishop Carl will be the same!

In the meantime, we will continue to be what the Lord Jesus has called us to be: a Parish whose members are surrendered to Him, in the power of the Spirit, in the heart of the Church. Let us receive this time of transition as a special grace from the Lord. Let us plead with Him to give us obedient hearts to His Word in our midst, especially as He may come to us through our new Bishop.

On a more somber note, we are implementing some different steps to protect our kids, and help them in some difficult situations. I believe that our kids, especially our teens, are under an unprecedented amount of spiritual warfare right now. All of the suicides and other things affecting them have caused me to prayerfully reflect on what more we can do as a Parish to support them. The first step we are taking is to network our parents at Ypsi Hi so that they are praying and fasting for our kids there. We may do this at the other high schools as well. We are starting at Ypsi Hi because the need is more immediate and critical there. The second thing is that we as a Parish are going to start doing more spiritual warfare. One of the weapons we will use is the prayer of St. Michael. We will begin praying this prayer at every Christ the King Mass. We will do so after the final blessing and before the closing song. We will offer it particularly for our kids, but also for any parishioner in need of St. Michael's protection. There is a copy of the prayer we will be using in this bulletin. Perhaps a little family project would be to memorize it, so that we can all pray it together at Mass! We will also be including in our monthly bulletin a prayer calendar for the month, with intentions for each day. We invite all the parishioners of Christ the King to make those intentions part of their prayer for that day. (Perhaps the intention calendar and the prayer to St. Michael would make useful 'fridge-door' additions. ) We all know from past experience that the Lord has a plan for us, and we also know that the best way to discover and obey that plan is to pray, pleading with Jesus to make His will known to us and to give us the grace to obey it. Though we face many challenges, our God's power acting in us can still do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine! Let us trust Him and walk with Him in joy!