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Exploring the word

18 Jan 2015 - Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Relationships often begin with an introduction. Sometimes it’s mediated, as when a mutual friend brings two strangers together and makes a connection. Or it could be direct: We might take the risk with a person unknown, say hello, and offer our name. Often we encounter strangers in the context of a role they play: bank tellers, bus drivers, our children’s teachers, medical personnel. In this thin sense we may know what they do, but not really who they are or what we may expect from them. Today’s scripture passages involve two fateful introductions: First Samuel, a future prophet, meets the one true God whom he will serve his whole life. And then two disciples of John the Baptist have their attention directed toward an obscure local teacher whom their own famed teacher terms “the Lamb of God.” Each encounter is mediated: The priest Eli encourages Samuel in how to respond to the voice seeking to communicate with him. The Baptist turns his disciples toward one destined to outshine his own celebrated ministry. Each mediated introduction has a note of humility in it. Poor Eli has never heard the voice speaking to his intern at the shrine, yet he knows enough to recognize that Samuel has been so favored. John stands to lose two valuable followers to Jesus, but makes the identification anyway. An introduction is not all there is to these encounters. Once an introduction is made, it’s up to the parties involved to follow through to real relationship. How often do parents, pastors, catechists, and religion teachers point us in the direction of Jesus, and we may not take the bait and forge a genuine connection! Happily, this wasn’t the case with Samuel or John’s disciples. Though just a boy, Samuel takes direction from the old priest thoughtfully. The voice is strange to him, yet he offers to listen, to pay attention—the technical word here is to obey. Because he’s so willing to attend to God the stranger, Samuel will foster a lifelong relationship with God who is Lord, guide, and companion. As a result, Samuel becomes the most effective judge who ever exercised leadership in Israel. The disciples who depart from John and approach Jesus make the same choice. They ask where this teacher is staying in a bid to join his school wherever it gathers. One of these two happens to be Simon Peter, a rock foundation for the future church. These fateful introductions remind us of the responsibility we have to forge connections for the next generation, in our families, among our friends and any seekers we meet along the way. We have an even greater responsibility to make this relationship real for ourselves.

Authors Alice Camille

john the baptist relationships

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Teens screen out relationships

07 Mar 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

"I must go over to look at this remarkable sight," Moses decided when an angel of the Lord appeared in fire flaming out of a bush. These days teens are more likely to be drawn to what they see on a screen. A new study suggests that the more time they spend in front of computer or television screens, the more problems they have relating to their parents or peers. Researchers looked at 3,043 New Zealand teens, aged 14 to 15, who provided details about how they spent their free time and how close they were with other people. The more time the teens spent watching TV or using a computer, the more likely they were to report having difficulty forming a relationship or an emotional bond with their parents. The likelihood of having what the researchers called "low attachment" to parents increased 4 percent for every hour spent watching TV and 5 percent for every hour spent using a computer. Teens who spent more time doing homework or reading had a higher level of attachment to their parents, the study authors noted in their report published in the March issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. There are a number of possible reasons why too much screen time may affect teens' relationships with family and peers, the study authors said. For example, teens who have TVs in their bedroom spend more time watching TV and may share fewer meals with their family. "Given the importance of attachment to parents and peers in adolescent health and development, concern about high levels of screen time among adolescents is warranted," the researchers concluded. "With the rapid advance of screen-based options for entertainment, communication, and education, ongoing research is needed to monitor the effect that these technologies have on social development and psychological and physical well-being among adolescents." Source: An article by Robert Preidt for HealthDay News

teenagers friends low attachment screens computers teens television adolescents parents relationships peers

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Exploring the word

22 May 2016 - Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Cycle C

Scripture scholars have called this section of John’s gospel one of the clearest New Testament passages about God as Trinity in unity. If that’s true, it only goes to show how oblique the other passages are. Most of us feel a haze fall over our brains at the mere mention of the Trinity. In the gospels, Jesus never actually uses the term or anything like it. He is never quoted as saying he’s part of a triune existence that continually expresses itself as Father, Son, and Spirit, or Creator-Redeemer-Sanctifier, or Love-Beloved-and-Love-Itself, as theologians have variously described the vital community of the Divine. So what exactly is made clear in this discourse from John? The idea that Jesus is vitally connected to God and to the Spirit of truth, and that these relationships (or this relationship?) are/is very real to him. More real, I dare say, than my sense of connection with God, Jesus, or the Spirit on the average day. Or perhaps yours. Too often, these names are more like concepts to me than relationships. Relationships are what I have with my mom, sibs, friends, and coworkers. What I share with the triune nature of God is frequently an abstract litany of right answers I memorized back in school. The Trinity is more object than subject to many of us, in other words. We bow to the concept, but we rarely cozy up the Holy Presence behind it all. Rational thought may lead us to God the Almighty concept. Aquinas was convinced it could, until late in life when he celebrated the Eucharist, had a profound experience of Holy Presence, and didn’t want to write about it anymore. Learned as he was, words failed him. Relationship trumps reason, it seems, and only relationship will bring us into the intimacy that Jesus experiences in connection to the One he calls Father and Spirit. What does it mean to say that Jesus is essentially and profoundly united with a Vitality recognizable to him as Father and Spirit? “The Father and I are one,” Jesus says elsewhere in this discourse. Nothing could be clearer, or more mysterious, than this statement of what we call “consubstantial.” When we see Jesus we see the Father: in the crèche, on the cross, as the Risen One. When we sense the indwelling Spirit, we’re in touch with the life of God, the presence of Jesus who promised to be with us until the end of the age. So God is born and God suffers and dies. God is in the Eucharist, and God moves through our inspired thoughts and actions. If Trinity is more about relationship than concept, then we’re invited to embrace the reality (not the idea) that God-Savior-Spirit is truly Emmanuel, “with us.” If we feel like strangers, then it’s time to work on the relationship—not the theology. Related scripture links Growing in wisdom and grace: Luke 3 God and possibility: Matt. 19:26; Mark 10:27; Luke 1:37

Authors Alice Camille

relationships

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Homily stories

01 Aug 2010 - Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

I once knew a woman who prided herself on her disdain for worldly goods. She would echo today’s gospel and say, “Life doesn’t consist of possessions; it’s all about relationships.” And yet she treated her relationships like possessions. One wrong word from a friend and she played the aggrieved martyr. One wrong action and she cut people out of her life. She didn’t have friends, she took hostages. Those close to her were always guessing what would set her off next. The fact is that anything can be treated as a possession—even people. I know a few people who might not think it’s true of them but who treat their family as a possession, a sort of trophy to display to others. Their main concern is to look good in their own eyes and in the eyes of others. Their kids miss out on their real presence almost as much as the kids whose parents have abandoned them. Some people even treat God as a possession. They think they’ve got God in their hip pocket or on their dashboard or otherwise at their beck and call. They would rather control a false god than risk a relationship with the true and living God. But God is not a possession and neither are we. In fact, God continually invites us to enter into a real relationship with him. God will never treat us as objects. Shouldn’t we return the favor?

Authors Tom McGrath

possession relationships

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Homily stories

29 Mar 2009 - Fifth Sunday of Lent, Cycle B

Talk shows have become a staple of American daytime television, for better or worse. Some try to gear themselves toward helping people help themselves. At the other end of the spectrum are those shows that try to show people at their titillating worst. Many talk shows feature families being reunited. Sometimes it is a mother who was forced to give up her child and has not seen that child since birth. Others feature siblings who have been separated at an early age and raised apart from each other. They are brought together on television for what the producers hope will be an emotional and dramatic reunion. But it does not always turn out that way. Sometimes the children resent the parent’s intrusion into their lives. Often we witness a child become angry or confused when they’ve been told for the first time that they have siblings they did not know about. The saddest cases are the ones that after a tearful on-the-air reunion realize their lives are so different that there is no need to stay reattached or to develop a relationship. Lent reunites us with our loving God not in some artificial or forced way, but in a covenant that can bind us together forever. But that will happen only if we choose to accept that relationship with God and allow it to develop. Let us not risk straying too far away to be able to follow God and God’s plan for us.

Authors Father Dominic Grassi

Lent relationships god's plan talk show

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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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Homily stories

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

I‘ve been married dozens of times—all to the same woman. In any relationship you have to keep committing and recommitting as times and circumstances change and you come to know more about your partner and yourself. And so a marriage is not a wedding day but a series of decisions to be for and with the other person “for better or for worse.” Sometimes the internal recommitment comes when you notice your attention drifting away to competing interests. Sometimes it comes after a fight. Sometimes it takes the form of deciding to fight to deal with all those resentments you’ve both been storing up. And sometimes you look across the dinner table and recognize the person you fell in love with long ago, and that memory re-energizes your life together. Through the years there will be plenty of opportunities to let your relationships wither and die. Yet the invitation is not just to endure but to access the love that once called you, to enter again into the dreams of your younger days, and to let your loving commitment blossom and grow in the midst of today’s reality—however difficult that might be. This is the ideal. We all fall short, giving us yet more opportunities to renew those commitments to the best of our ability. The promise at the heart of marriage is the promise God makes to each of us: “Whenever it comes time to decide again, it’s a foregone conclusion that I will always and everywhere side with you.”

Authors Tom McGrath

Commitment relationships Marriage Love promise

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Exploring the word

23 Nov 2008 - Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, Cycle A

IF, AS A SHEPHERD OF SOULS, you could change one thing about the minds and hearts of your parishioners, what would it be? After listening to people pour out their stories for 30 years, I know what I would choose: to wipe out the spirit of judgment that festers in all of us. The care of souls often seems like attending to one long litany of broken family relationships that centers on one person’s immutable condemnation of another. Whether you are the one passing judgment or the one excoriated makes no difference to the amount of damage suffered. The decision to pass judgment inflicts harm like a double-edged sword, and the entire community is affected by the results. You don’t have to be in this business very long to hear the confessions of spouses who have hardened their hearts against each other. Parents defend their decision to cut off their disappointing children, and children refuse to forgive their parents for what they did or failed to do. Brothers and sisters don’t speak for years because of some offense in the distant past. Each group in society also finds another it can saddle with the blame for the problems faced by the whole. Meanwhile, the Bible is very clear about the sole proprietor of the authority to judge. Ezekiel tells us that God alone distinguishes between victims and perpetrators, using weakness and strength as the criteria for assessing innocence or blame. We who live in a powerful land ought to meditate on that idea for a while. The psalms and the prophets are constant in their claim that divine judgment will come to the nations and God reserves the right to separate sheep from goats. Paul neatly summarizes the teachings of Israel with the oracle: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay” (Romans 12:19). Those who lament that forgiveness lets the guilty off the hook should find consolation here. The church affirms scripture’s guarantee that human culpability has the most excellent Judge as its final administrator of justice. On the last day the guilty will get what’s coming to them, just as the innocent will get their promised reward. On that we can rely. Yet the gospels are equally adamant that we ourselves are forbidden to take judgment into our hearts, much less into our own hands. “Stop judging, that you may not be judged,” Jesus warns (Matthew 7:1). “Stop condemning and you will not be condemned,” he repeats more emphatically in Luke (6:37). If we dare to infringe on divine sovereignty by taking the spirit of judgment into our hearts and passing judgment over others, we are endangering our own salvation. It’s that serious. “Forgive,” Jesus further declares, “and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37). God will surely judge. We must forgive. Related scripture links Human freedom: Gen. 1:26 Making choices: Deut. 11:26–28; 30:15-19 Judgment: Matt. 10:11–15; 10:40-42; 12:36-37 Awareness of end times: Rom. 13:11-14 Catechism links Love Command: 782, 1822-1829, 1970, 2822, 2842 Corporal works of mercy: 2447-2449 Theological virtues: 1812-1832

Authors Alice Camille

judgment soul relationships condemnation blame reward

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God has no grandchildren

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

As children of God, we either have a personal, direct relationship with God or not. We can never get such a relationship merely be inheriting it from parents who were children of God! Every person, every generation must make a choice to respond to God’s grace, or not. This observation comes from a theologian, David Bosch, but it really goes right back to the scriptures. Just because one was part of God’s Chosen People was no guarantee that one would not become faithless or worse. Don’t we make the same mistake today? Aren’t we somehow surprised when our children are not “grandchildren” of God merely because we live as “children” of God? Inserting children into an institution, even a church school or other church programs, is never enough. It cannot “make” them children of God! It might even lead them to reject what they find there, particularly if they sniff hypocrisy or manipulation along the way. What is helpful is something else: remembering that being a “child” of God is first and foremost a relationship. To what degree do we model such a relationship with our children? To what degree do we help them see that it is God’s love that they are experiencing? To what degree are they able to connect with a community of disciples sharing what it means to be a child of God? Everything else is merely an adventure in missing the point.

Authors Bryan Froehle

relationships children of God inheritance Community

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Marriage prep: More important than ever

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

What are the biggest challenges Catholics experience in the first few years of marriage? Balancing job, family, sex, and finances. These are the conclusions of a comprehensive study in 2000 by the Center for Marriage and Family at Creighton University. Sociologically, expectations for the marital relationship are higher than ever and failure is therefore all the easier. Spouses are simultaneously best friends, contributors to the household’s short- and long-term economic health, and the focus of romance and sexual pleasure. As Catholic couples get married later in life, come from smaller families, enjoy relatively higher levels of educational attainment, and aspire to levels of economic success, older models that sustained marriage preparation become less effective for those all-important first few years of marriage. These trends are often particularly pronounced for non-Hispanic Catholics. Young couples particularly lack a lived experience of effective models of marriage that relate to their own lives and the new types of pressure on their marital relationship. This means that Catholic marriage preparation programs, still among the most important such programs within American religion in general, are in need of a rethinking. The most essential preparation for Catholic couples today is to learn how to balance their expectation of job, family, sex, and finances before they marry, and to know that these concerns will be central to whether their marriage succeeds or fails. And it is within the context of marriage preparation that they will see how their faith relates to their marital relationship and their expectations and aspirations. © 2004, Bryan Froehle.

Authors Bryan Froehle

marriage preparation marital relationships

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