Holy Trinity Student Parish

Summer hours

The summer hours (June, July, and August) for the John XXIII Campus Center and parish offices

8:30 am - 5:00 pm  Monday-Thursday

8:30 am - 3:30 pm Friday

Extended evening hours for the John XXIII Campus Center will resume in September.

Congratulations to the graduates of Eastern Michigan University!

May God continue to guide and lead you giving you insight, wisdom, and love for the journey ahead.

To all the returning students:

May God bless your summers and bring you back to us in the fall.

Solemnity of the Resurrection of the Lord

Christ is Risen! Alleluia, Alleluia!

Indeed He is Risen!  Alleluia, Alleluia!

8:30 am, Holy Trinity Chapel

11:00 am, Holy Trinity Chapel

no 5:00 pm liturgy

The Paschal Triduum

Holy Thursday        Good Friday        Easter

 We prepare to celebrate the most sacred and holy moment of our year- the celebration of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection- the Paschal Triduum.  Lent has led us here to the Cross but not just to it.  No, we are led through the Cross to the joy and new life of Easter, to the Resurrection.  These three days mark the triumph of life over death.

These three days are reckon as the Jewish people record a day, from sundown to sundown, so that the Triduum begins with sundown on Holy Thursday and continues to sundown on Easter Sunday.  But in many ways these days stand outside of time and should feel like one.  We enter the mystery on Thursday evening and emerge somehow changed on Easter Sunday.

Holy Thursday

Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper, 7:00pm, Holy Trinity Chapel 

We begin the Paschal Triduum with the celebration of the evening mass of the Lord's Supper where we remember in a profound way where we are called, our mission.  In the sharing of Eucharist and in the ritual of washing feet, we are reminded that to follow Christ is to follow a humble path of service.  We are asked to wash each other's feet, to give our lives away, to work for and proclaim justice and mercy, and to not be so full of pride that we fail to recognize our own need to be washed and our dependence on others.

At the end of the liturgy, we strip the altar bare and remove the Eucharist to a special altar of reservation.  Here, our focus is on Jesus Christ alone as we wait with our Lord for the confrontation with death.

Good Friday

Stations of the Cross, 12:15 pm, Holy Trinity Chapel

simple meal of soup and bread, 12:35 pm, Social Hall

Good Friday of the Lord's Passion, 7:00 pm, Holy Trinity Chapel

At this liturgy we remember the Lord's Passion.  There will be no Eucharist consecrated  but rather we share the Eucharist from the evening mass of the Lord's Supper; it is that Eucharist that continues to sustain us.  We will enter this liturgy in silence.  We have been waiting and all are focus is on Christ's final act of love.

We venerate the Cross this day as a sign and symbol of our embrace of Christ.  We bring ourselves to the wood and touch it, kneel before it, kiss it, and hold it knowing that by it we are transformed and redeemed.

Holy Saturday

no liturgy celebrated

This is not an extra day in the Triduum but a part of the second day.  Jesus has died and is laid in the tomb; we wait there and grieve.

Easter Vigil

Saturday, 9:00 pm, Holy Trinity Chapel

Tonight, the beginning of the third day, we light the Easter fire and dispel the darkness.  In darkness we begin but in light we emerge proclaiming the joy of Christ our light.

This night is a wonderful night of telling stories, our stories.  We will hear nine readings (seven from the Old Testament and two from the New Testament).  They will carry us into the mystery of our faith and bring us exultant into the joy and love of Christ.

Lent

We adore you and we bless you, Lord  Jesus Christ, here and in all churches in the whole world, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. (St. Francis of Assisi)

The liturgical season of Lent has its origins in the ancient Church's preparation of the catechumenate for baptism at the Easter Vigil.  Since Vatican II and the renewal of the catechumenate, the Church has reemphasized Lent's ancient connection to baptism and new life. 

In baptism, we go down into the waters with Christ in order to rise again with Christ, to come out of the water cleansed, re-born, redeemed, changed.  We die with Christ in order to live with Christ.  These forty day of Lent (We don't count Sundays because Sunday is always a little Easter, a celebration of the resurrection.) are an opportunity each year to live in a more intentional way our baptismal call to conversion and to profoundly experience the possibility of redemption.  It is an opportunity to be born again.

Perhaps if we remember that the word Lent means springtime, we can better understand and experience Lent's connection to baptism and new life.  Spring is a season of hope and anticipation, the passing of the dreariness of winter.  With the first warm day, we throw off our winter coats and walk the campus free and unburdened.  By living Lent with baptism in mind, by practicing the three pillars of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we make our way to the springtime and joy of Easter. 

Ash Wednesday

Though not a holy day of obligation, most Catholics will make their way to church this day to be marked with a cross of ashes.  The ashes remind us of our own mortality and the need for repentance but they also in a profound way illustrate that our conversion is worked out here in the messiness of this world.

The three pillars of Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving

prayer

Prayer at its basic level is the paying attention to the movement of God in our hearts and in our world.  It is recognizing the love of God stirring within us the desire to move beyond ourselves to a loving communion with God and others.  Lent is an excellent opportunity to recommit yourself to prayer.  Here our some ways Holy Trinity can help you pray this Lent:

• Attend daily Mass: We gather for liturgy Monday-Thursday at 12:15pm.

• Pray the other prayer of the Church- Liturgy of the Hours:  We pray morning prayer, the office of readings, and evening prayer.  Check this website and the bulletin for our Lenten schedule.

• Join MOCHA for faith-sharing:  Every Tuesday at 8:00pm, we pray and reflect upon the upcoming Sunday's readings. 

• Reflect upon the Paschal Mystery: The community will pray the Stations of the Cross each Friday at 7:00pm during Lent.

• Use the Little Black Book: The Little Black Book is an excellent resource to help you incorporate prayer into your daily routine.  It asks you to find just six minutes of quiet reflection a day and it gives you scripture readings and meditations to help focus your prayer.  You can pick one up in the atrium of the John XXIII Campus Center at Holy Trinity.

• Make a retreat:  Our undergraduate student retreat is April 3-6.

• Discernment of Spirits with Fr. Phil:  Fr. Phil will once again lead the community in reflecting upon Ignatian spirituality.

• Taize prayer: Join us April 1^st for this unique service of candlelight prayer, meditation, and song.

fasting

Fasting is a spiritual discipline where we traditionally forgo food for a proscribed period of time.  We make ourselves hungry so that rather than reaching for food to feed that hunger we allow God to feed us.  Fasting is never an end in itself but should always lead us towards God. 

What do you normally reach for when you are bored or lonely or distracted from God?  It might not be food but something else.  This is what you can fast from this Lent. 

Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are the only days that adult Catholics (18-60) are obligated to fast and abstain.  This means we only eat one full meal and two smaller snacks plus abstain from all meat.  Those who are sick, pregnant women, and the elderly are not obligated to fast.  Though we are only obligated to abstain from meat during the Fridays of Lent, the Church encourages us to practice this spiritual discipline throughout the year.

Here are some other suggestions for fasting this Lent:

• Skip one meal a day or week and spend that time praying or doing an act of service.

• Fast from one meal a day or week.  The money you would have spent on that meal can be given to an organization fighting poverty and hunger like Catholic Relief Service's Operation Rice Bowl.

• Fast from food, using electricity or gas, and/or using water to shower for a day to be in solidarity with those who go without these necessities and to care for God's creation.

almsgiving

The Church has always encouraged us to practice the corporal works of mercy (feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned, visiting the sick, sheltering the homeless, and burying the dead) as a way to proclaim God's kingdom of love, justice, and peace.  By giving alms, we pay attention to God and our reminded of our dependence on God's goodness.  But almsgiving must move beyond the act of writing a check or dropping a dollar bill in the collection basket and lead us to being in relationship with those who are suffering.

Here are some suggestions for almsgiving this Lent:

• Educate yourself about a justice issue and discover ways you can make a difference.  The Faith and Action page of our website has excellent resources to help you do this.
• Participate in our Day of Service March 21^st.  We are organizing a number of different service opportunities that day.
• Visit a nursing home or an elderly neighbor.  Invite them to share a meal with you.
• Help with the Hunger coalition food pantry at Holy Trinity or some other social service agency
• Contribute something to the weekly offering at Holy Trinity
• Practice forgiveness
• Write an actual letter to a friend or relative.

Lenten on-line resources

Benedict XVI's Lenten message

Lenten resources from the American bishops

Creighton University: Creighton's On-line Ministries are an excellent source of prayers, reflections, and readings to help you make a meaningful Lent.

American Catholic:  St. Anthony Messenger Press provides many resources to help you celebrate the season of Lent.

Busted Halo: They have a relevant and inspiring Fast, Pray, Give Calendar to help you practice the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.  Visit it each day for helpful suggestions in how to be renewed this Lent.

Hunger Banquet

Wednesday, February 18

6:30pm-8:30pm

social hall, John XXIII Campus Center at Holy Trinity

Catholics on Campus and S.A.H.A.H. (Students against hunger and homelessness) are sponsoring a hunger banquet to raise awareness about global hunger and poverty.  We live in a precarious world where so many people struggle to survive in the face of crushing poverty.  Over 10 million people starve to death every year.  More people die each year from hunger than they die from AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined.  The world is in a global food crises with 1 billion people experiencing chronic hunger each day.  In the United States, modern agri-business disconnects us from the source of our food, hurts family farmers, violates the human rights of farm workers, and exposes all of us to deadly diseases (ie. Peanut Corporation of America and the salmonella scare).  What can you do?

The Hunger Banquet will surprise you but also encourage you to make a difference.  There will be an interactive dinner that will illustrate the inequities in our global food system, speakers to give you knowledge and perspective about the crises, and action alerts about what you can do to fight hunger and poverty.

Contact Carol Plas at cplas@emich.edu for more information.  To learn more about global poverty and hunger and ways you can help, check out the work of Oxfam America.

Mass on Campus

Monday, February 16

6:00pm-8:00pm

Room 302, EMU Student Center

We will be bringing word and song and the Eucharist to campus as we celebrate liturgy in the EMU Student Center.  Come celebrate with us and stay afterwards for free food and fellowship.

Sunday Supper with Hillel at EMU

Sunday, February 15

6:00-7:00pm

social hall, John XXIII Campus Center at Holy Trinity

In our mutual efforts to promote interfaith dialogue and understanding, Catholics on Campus has invited the students of Hillel to join us for our monthly Sunday Supper.  Come and share a free meal and your religious faith.

Valentine's Day Dinner Dance

Saturday, February 14

John XXIII Campus Center

Holy Trinity Day of Service

Food Gatherers exists to alleviate hunger and eliminate its causes in our community by: reducing food waste through the rescue and distribution of perishable and non-perishable food, coordinating with other hunger relief providers, educating the public about hunger, and developing new food resources.

Saturday, February 14

9:20am-12:30pm

food gatherers

Valentine's Day is about love. What better way to show your love for the community and your neighbor than to VOLUNTEER and SERVE?

We will be working with Food Gatherers in their warehouse so dress in layers. We will meet at Holy Trinity and then carpool to their warehouse in Ann Arbor.  If you can drive, please let us know.  We should return by 12:30pm

If you have any questions please feel free to contact Kristin Catenacci via facebook message or at kcatenac@emich.edu.