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Exploring the word

05 Jul 2015 - Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Knowledge is power, according to Francis Bacon. This phrase is chiseled into the lintels of many a school to confirm that the pursuit of knowledge is worthwhile. Too often, however, we equate knowledge with the random acquisition of facts and figures. I personally recall memorizing the imports and exports of foreign countries as part of my homework. Olive oil and bananas, textiles and technology: What good did these frail and variable facts do us then, much less now? Without context and its attendant web of relationships, such charts of information remain quaint memorabilia of our school days, filed away and fairly useless. Scriptural knowing isn’t a matter of collecting facts but of intimate encounter. The phrase is applied narrowly to marital intimacy, but biblical knowledge concerns deep relationship. Knowing God, for example, doesn’t mean knowing about God, that God exists, what the divine attributes might be, or being able to define God in theological terms. We might know “God” in these ways, but this isn’t what the Bible means by knowledge of God. We need the personal encounter, the heart-to-heart connection, the deep understanding of God’s ways that covenant relationship involves. Until then, we might recite the catechism front to back, but without the context of vital relationship, such knowledge is vain. This is evident in the people of Nazareth who were quite convinced they knew Jesus. After all, he grew up in their town. They were acquainted with his family. They were aware of his background and his trade. Having assembled the facts about Jesus, they simply could not put them together with the man before them, teaching with such authority in their synagogue. That Jesus did not add up to this Jesus. They concluded he must be a poser, a phony. Jesus didn’t fit their facts! The great mistake of the citizens of Nazareth was trying to squeeze Jesus into their pre-established packet of facts. Instead of concluding that something’s not right about Jesus, they might have considered that the fault was in their selective and limited facts about him. When it came to having an intimate encounter with Jesus himself, they were not showing up for the invitation. In Mark’s Gospel these folks take their place along with the religious establishment, prepared to put Jesus to death on the basis of a few reports (3:6); and his family members, convinced he’d gone mad because they couldn’t make sense of his actions (3:20). Consider: No one healed by Jesus, forgiven by him, or who took his teachings deeply to heart enough to follow him ever questioned his origins. For them, genuinely knowing Jesus in the sacred encounter was enough! Related scripture links Calls to prophesy: Exod. 3:4-14; 1 Sam. 3:1-10; Isa. 6:1-10; Jer. 1:4-10; Jon. 1:1-3 Women prophets: Exod. 15:20-21; Judg. 4:1-5:31; 2 Kings 22:8-20; Isa. 8:3; Luke 2:36-38; Acts 21:8-9 Who’s responsible for the message: Ezek. 3:17-21 Nothing but Christ crucified: 1 Cor. 2:1-5 Great turnarounds: Luke 19:1-10; 23:39-43; Acts 9:1-19

Authors Alice Camille

Wisdom Encounter Connection Relationship

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The inner word

25 May 2014 - Sixth Sunday of Easter, Cycle A

Receive the Holy Spirit! Jesus did not abandon you but empowered you to heal and be healed. You are loved, you are in Christ and Christ is in you, and Jesus is in God the Father. What is the most connected relationship in your life? Do you hurt when they are hurting? Do you feel joy when their suffering is relieved? Sing praise rejoicing the relationship God has with God’s people. The Holy Spirit is with you!

Healing Connection Holy Spirit

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In other words

25 May 2014 - Sixth Sunday of Easter, Cycle A

If you love me, show it by doing what I’ve told you. I will talk to the Father, and he’ll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can’t take him in because it doesn’t have eyes to see him, doesn’t know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will even be in you. “I will not leave you orphaned. I’m coming back. In just a little while the world will no longer see me, but you’re going to see me because I am alive and you’re about to come alive. At that moment you will know absolutely that I’m in my Father, and you’re in me, and I’m in you. “The person who knows my commandments and keeps them, that’s who loves me. And the person who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and make myself plain to him” (from John 14). From New Message 4 Next Week (actapublications.com/newmessage4nextweek) based on The Message: Catholic/Ecumenical Edition by Eugene Peterson (ACTA Publications, 2014).

Connection

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Religion rightly understood

Short essays about observed trends in Roman Catholic life - Pastoral trends

Religion is about connecting, not control. We know this intuitively, yet how often in history has religion been more about control or only the “shall nots” of faith? How often have we ourselves wanted to control people—our children, for example, teens and young adults, new immigrants—in making them go to church or be the kind of Catholic we want them to be? That attitude is not surprising and not altogether bad—a distortion of a basically good instinct. After all, it reflects our passion for church and our conviction about how life-giving church is for us. Yet perhaps as a result so many people today see church as a place that forces, controls, and fails to listen. Shame on us. Re-ligare means to “re-connect.” There are other ways of looking at the word religion, too. Re-legere means to “re-read”; re-lego refers to a “choice.” Religiens itself is merely the opposite of negligens, that is, “diligence” in place of “negligence.” Religion rightly understood is about our faithfulness, not the faithfulness of others. It is about connecting, not controlling. © 2011, Bryan Froehle.

Authors Bryan Froehle

Connection connecting

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Sonogram reveals touching image of twins

21 Feb 2016 - Preaching the News for Sunday

A family that was devastated to learn one of their twin fetuses is unlikely to survive has drawn comfort from knowing his sister is there for him. Incredibly, a recent sonogram shows the tiny siblings holding hands in the womb. Doctors told Ian and Brittani McIntire of Hutchinson, Kansas they don't think the boy, already named Mason, will survive. He has a hole in his heart and an abnormal brain. The family is nonetheless heartened by the sonogram image. "We know we have a piece of them together that will last forever and it's special to have," said Brittani. If Mason doesn't survive, the family said they are comforted to know his sister, who they've named Madilyn, is with him. "She's the only one who can actually be there and holding onto him through it," Brittani said. "So it's comforting to know that if he does pass, he won't be alone." Homily hint: The touching image of the unborn twins holding hands speaks volumes of the human need for touch and connection. Make sure you have healthy ways to meet this need in your own life. All of us need to feel connected. For more: Sonogram Shows Twin Holding Dying Brother's Hand Inside Womb

unborn Connection

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Homily stories

21 Mar 2010 - Fifth Sunday of Lent, Cycle C

Does this happen to you? You’re at work or at a party and somebody says something snide, and it’s only later—on the way home—that you think of a snappy comeback. Don’t you wish you were like Jesus, who was always so good with the one-liners? He always had a great comeback to those who tried to trap him. Just when it seemed there was nothing he could say, he came up with the perfect quip that reframed the situation and turned the tables on those who sought to trick him. How did he do that? A clue comes from the first line of today’s gospel, “Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.” Before he went into the temple to teach (and be cornered by those who sought to trap him) he had gone to the Mount of Olives to pray and to connect with the one he called Abba, Father. This is the same place he suffered in agony but said, “Not my will but thine be done.” With the clarity that came from union with God, Jesus didn’t get caught in traps. We don’t have to either. We don’t have to rely on our cleverness. We can rely on our connection to God.

Unity Connection uncertainty

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The inner word

04 Oct 2009 - Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

The original covenant of love was initiated by God. God made that covenant with our spiritual ancestors and commits to that covenant with each one of us today. Commitments and relationships and connections are at the heart of the questions posed in this week’s readings. What are the actions I use to shore up my own commitments to the community I serve and the significant people in my life? How can I keep my own commitments life-enhancing? What do I need to recommit so that God’s love keeps flowing in my relationships with others and in my relationship with God? How can I relate these personal insights to people of various life situations, including those who are divorced, never married, etc.? How do I relate to the children and other generational groups in my congregation? Who gets left out or separated in my community as the apostles tried to separate the children?

covenant Love Commitment relationships Connection

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A healthy balance, part II

Short essays about observed trends in Roman Catholic life - Pastoral trends

Is Catholicism really more communal than other faith traditions within Christianity? Let’s not rest on our laurels or count on what we often tell ourselves. The fact is that Catholicism’s rich sacramental tradition is deeply communal, as are the stories we tell and values we share. But the actual experience of parish life is not. Quite typically it can be quite the opposite. Parishes are often quite large and have bureaucratic processes that replicate the bureaucracy of centralized church structures. If we want people to experience a sacramental church that is truly communal, we need to intentionally create parish experiences that foster such understandings. We need to identify existing practices that create community—such as an annual festival, for example—and build on what works. We need to build connections among smaller groups within parish life that are of a communal nature. We need to preach and teach about community. Community does not come naturally and is not a magic outcome of a sacramental system. In the past, it flowed as much from Catholic immigrant communities and ethnic traditions that were often close to forms of peasant communalism in a European past. It seemed to be natural to the Catholic tradition, but in reality it was a product of wider cultural forces, ones that were intentionally embraced by the parish. Today the parish needs to find new ways to embrace communalism wherever it can find it. The future of the church is not something that will arise accidentally. It will come about as we work for what we want. © 2007, Bryan Froehle.

Authors Bryan Froehle

Community building connections

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New brain research on vision loss provides insights

26 Mar 2017 - Preaching the News for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

Jesus heals a man born blind in this Sunday’s gospel, but many of those around him with good vision were unwilling to see the miracle in front of them. While modern science has yet to find a cure for blindness, promising studies are under way as researchers are gaining a new appreciation of how the brain of a person blind from an early age makes new connections that enhance hearing, smell, and touch, as well as memory and language. Researchers used MRIs to scan the brains of 12 people who were born blind or lost their sight by age 3. The scans showed a number of changes in the brains of the people who were blind that weren’t present in scans from people who could still see. Changes caused by early blindness “may be more widespread than initially thought,” lead author Corinna Bauer, a scientist at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, said in a hospital news release. “We observed significant changes not only in the occipital cortex [where vision is processed], but also areas implicated in memory, language processing, and sensory motor functions,” said Bauer. Learning more about these connections could lead to more effective rehabilitation programs to help blind people, the researchers suggested. According to senior study author Lotfi Merabet, O.D., Ph.D., director of the Laboratory for Visual Neuroplasticity at the Schepens Eye Research Institute of Massachusetts Eye and Ear and an associate professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School, “Even in the case of being profoundly blind, the brain rewires itself in a manner to use the information at its disposal so that it can interact with the environment in a more effective manner. If the brain can rewire itself—perhaps through training and enhancing the use of other modalities like hearing and touch and language tasks such as Braille reading—there is tremendous potential for the brain to adapt.” Bauer said the connections that appear to be unique in those with profound blindness suggest that the brain "rewires" itself in the absence of visual information to boost other senses. She said this is possible through the process of neuroplasticity, or the ability of our brains to naturally adapt to our experiences. The researchers hope that increased understanding will lead to more effective rehabilitation efforts that will enable blind people to better compensate for the absence of visual information. The study was published online March 22 in the journal PLOS ONE. Lessons drawn from the readings “Man sees the appearance but the Lord looks into the heart,” the first reading this Sunday reminds us. In the case of blindness, researchers are learning to look into the brain, and in doing so, devising new therapies to enhance compensating abilities to lost vision. At the same time, advances in gene therapy are beginning to offer hope that certain kinds of blindness at present untreatable may soon be reversible. Final thought in light of the news While the advances of modern science are extremely valuable and carry the potential to alleviate much suffering, it is good to remember that much suffering comes about when those of us with good vision choose a sort of voluntary blindness by ignoring the call to compassion that is at the core of the gospel message. Jesus healed because his heart was moved by the suffering he saw. Can we say the same?

blindness vision neuroplasticity brain connections

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