Wednesday Morning Connection

For Sunday, February 21, 2010

1st Sunday of Lent
Deuteronomy 26:4-10
Romans 10:8-13
Luke 4:1-13

The second episode of the BBC comedy-drama “Skins” begins with the gang of 17-year-old classmates all asleep at Michelle’s house after a several-days-long party. Her mom was gone, so the house that was taken over by eight near-adults is a total disaster from the over-indulgent teens. Cassie (played by Hannah Murray) is one of the first to awaken, and begins to wander through the house examining the detritus of the bacchanalia. She walks into the kitchen where the counters are littered with the remains of half-eaten meals, empty cans and bottles, and stacks of unwashed dishes. She hears some chanting and looks out the kitchen window to see her classmate, Anwar (played by Dev Patel of “Slumdog Millionaire” fame), in the garden, kneeling on a prayer rug and performing Salaat, the Islamic ritual prayer.

Cassie walks out and interrupts Anwar because she wants to know the date, thinking that it is the day Michelle’s mom is coming home. After a brief conversation, a slightly irked Anwar says, “I’m trying to pray to my God here, Cass.”

In wonderment, Cassie responds, “Oh…wow!…Is he listening?”

Anwar replies, “I hope not. Otherwise he knows about all those pills I necked [swallowed] last night.”

After considering his response, Cassie tells Anwar, “Sing quietly,” and he agrees as he continues his prayers.

We’ve just begun Lent. What are we hoping to get out of it? Will the season have any effect on us? Or is our prayer like Anwar’s, hoping that God isn’t listening too hard?

In his letter to the Romans, Paul writes, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

When we call on God in sincerity and truth, then something happens inside us. G0d is at work in us with his Spirit, the same Spirit that filled Jesus as he was tempted by the devil in the desert.

Even though we activity participate in the traditional Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, Lent is less about our actions-and how God might react to them-that about God’s actions in us. We take time in this season to open ourselves to God’s presence, to acknowledge what God has done for us, much as the Hebrew people did in the rites described in the first reading from Deuteronomy. Moses instructed them that after they had presented their offerings to the Lord they should bow down in his presence.

In this season we bow down before the Lord as well, confessing our sins, and declaring the greatness of God. We want God to hear us, because we want the Lord to be at work in us for the next forty days. We want God to be with us, to help us overcome temptation and to become more like Christ.

In his immaturity, Anwar may have hoped that God wasn’t listening, that God wasn’t being attentive to his deeds. But for us, in this Lent, we call out to God with all our hearts, begging God to be with us to deliver us.

Paul Michaels

Prayer

Saving God,
you rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt.
Come now and rescue us from the power of sin.
Help us to be faithful to you.
May we return to you with all our hearts
and serve you through our love of others.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever.
Amen.

Notices

OPERATION RICE BOWL FROM CRS
Each week “Operation Rice Bowl” presents a country for consideration along with a recipe for a meatless meal. Some parishes even display the ingredients for the recipe at Sunday Mass. The country for the first week of Lent is Lesotho in Africa, and the recipe is a cornmeal dish with vegetables called Papa with Chakalaka. You’ll find information on the work of CRS in Lesotho, including links to a video and the recipe at: http://orb.crs.org/countries/lesotho/. Publicize the ORB Website in your church bulletin throughout Lent: http://orb.crs.org/ and invite parishioners to sign-up for the weekly e-mail reflection.

ONLINE LENTEN RESOURCES FROM THE USCCB
You’ll find a wealth of resources for Lent, including a daily video reflection, on the USCCB web site at: http://www.usccb.org/lent/.

INVITE A FRIEND FOR LENT
You can invite a friend to take a “reflection break” each week during Lent. Just forward your “Wednesday Morning Connection” e-mail or the blog Web page link, and encourage them to sign-up for themselves. Each week they’ll receive a reflection from Liturgical Publications Inc. (LPi) that connects the Scripture readings and current news headlines. The sign-up link is: http://www.4LPi.com/WMC.

For Sunday, February 22, 2009

7th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Isaiah  43:18-19, 21-22, 24b-25
2 Corinthians 1:18-22
Mark 2:1-12

While Matthew also has a story of a cure of a paralytic, this weekend’s selection from Mark is much more dramatic. It’s not just some folks bringing a paralyzed man on a stretcher to Jesus after he got out of the boat. In Mark, those who are carrying the man are so desperate for a cure that they remove the roof tiles from the house and lower the man down through the roof so that he is directly in front of Jesus. It’s pretty difficult to ignore someone that is right in front of you!

All of us know what it is like to be sick. Whether it has been the flu, or a broken bone, or a minor burn, we can identify with the experience of illness and being restored to health. Some of us have even experienced that restoration on a larger scale, having recovered from something much more serious than a broken finger or the common cold. The desire for health is strongest when we are ill. The old advertising maxim “When you have your health, you have everything,” resonates with us all.

When illness is grave, we want to pull out all the stops. Very often we expect doctors and health care workers to do everything in their power to restore health. We want to find cures to debilitating diseases. And we expect results that are sometimes unrealistic. We’ve all heard the stories of desperate sick people who go to extraordinary lengths to seek a cure, trying untested drugs, or even questionable treatments, in an effort to hang on to life.

Now, even more sinister attempts at healing have come to light. In a recent article in Newsweek magazine, the investigative anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes uncovered evidence of organ trafficking for transplantation around the world, including in the United States (http://www.newsweek.com/id/178873). And in Tuesday’s New York Times , there is a story from China about an investigation of 17 Japanese tourists who may have received illegal kidney and liver transplants (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/world/asia/18organs.html?ref=health). So-called “transplant tourism” has been condemned by the World Health Organization, especially when people with significant resources (cash) use their wealth to secure health through the exploitation of the poor.

While the causal relationship between sin and sickness that was a common understanding in biblical times is discounted today because of the modern science of germ-theory and the biological causes of disease, there still exists a relationship between sickness and sin. It is seen in the selfish attempt to seek a cure without concern for the other, justifying something like organ trafficking as of benefit to the patient and the person who is paid because they are poor.

While we may never find ourselves in the position of being greedy for physical health, we all know to what lengths we each go to so that we can be healthy. Some of it is preventative care: exercise, healthy eating, regular visits to the dentist or optometrist. Some is acute care, going to the doctor when we are ill or to the emergency room when we have had an accident. We want to be well.

We can do the same for our spiritual health. We can do some preventative care like worshipping on Sunday, reading the Bible, praying morning and evening. And we can attend to some acute care when we sin, making use of the sacrament of penance and taking seriously the disciplines of Lent.

The forty days that we start on Ash Wednesday are a time for us to get healthy again. We don’t need four strong men to lower us through the roof of church so that we can be healed, but we do need to show up this Lent and be greedy for spiritual health through our prayer, our fasting, and our almsgiving.

Paul Michaels

Prayer

God of love,
you heal us from sin and save us from death.
May we prepare wisely for the season of Lent.
Renew in us the spirit of our baptism,
and make us devoted in prayer,
fasting, and almsgiving.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever.
Amen.

Notices

OPERATION RICE BOWL FROM CRS-Online Community

Whether your parish participates in Operation Rice Bowl during Lent or not, you can still invite parish members to sign-up for the ORB online community. Each Monday members will receive an e-mail that offers suggestions for prayer and fasting. The online community reflections will be available in both English and Spanish. Send parish members to http://orb.crs.org/community/ to sign up today!
ORB begins next Wednesday, February 25. It’s not too late to involve your parish, your school, or any other community. Visit: http://orb.crs.org for details.

COLLECTION FOR THE CHURCH IN CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE
Many dioceses will take up this collection on Ash Wednesday, February 25th. For more information about this collection and resources to help promote it, visit: http://www.usccb.org/aee/.

FOCA BULLETIN INSERTS FROM USCCB
The Department for Pro-Life Activities of the USCCB has prepared flyers in opposition to the “Freedom of Choice Act.” LPi publishing partners can download them from the LPi Art & Media Portal. Others can get them through a complimentary time-limited Portal account. If you are not an LPi publishing partner, go to http://www.4lpi.com/new/church-leaders/bulletin-content to register for a free sample account.

REFLECTING ON RECONCILIATION DURING LENT
Liturgical Publications Inc is pleased to offer a resource on reconciliation and the sacrament of penance for adult faith formation. Info about Reconciliation: The Unfolding Mystery of God’s Mercy and Love is available at www.CatholicFaithSharing.com. Learn about the program, view sample pages, and order online, or call 1-800-950-9952, ext. 2469.

For Sunday, February 8, 2009

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Job 7:1-4, 6-7
1 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23
Mark 1:29-39

The ongoing fiscal crisis is taking a toll - and not just on housing prices (http://www.forextv.com/Forex/News/ShowStory.jsp?seq=221798&category=Us+Economic+News,FED) or retirement funds (http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/feb/01/bz-average-401k-balance-dropped-27/.) It’s also having an impact on the American psyche.

Last weekend, The New York Times visited a clinic in suburban New York City where a growing number of clients are successful Wall Street employees. The financial mess is causing their world to implode. More and more high profile executives are struggling with stress disorders.

As the Times reported it:

“While the condition is not in the official Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, it is familiar to therapists, those who run suicide hotlines and fancy facilities like the Haven, which added staff members this month as its average daily count rose to 14, up from 5 in August and 10 through the fall.

“‘There’s been a tremendous surge because of the economic climate and impact on certain high-profile individuals,’ said Dr. Nabil Kotbi, the psychiatrist who runs the Haven. ‘On Wall Street, we’ve seen people doing more than they can possibly humanly do so that they are not part of the list being fired. When they come to us, they are so far gone they need acute psychiatric treatment.’” (You can read more of the account at this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/nyregion/31psych.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=the%20haven&st=cse )

It’s no surprise that the world can overwhelm us with its worries and problems.

And, as this Sunday’s gospel reminds us, even the Messiah needed to take a break.

Jesus, swamped by the needs of the people, and endless hours performing his mission, decides to go off to a deserted place. But even then, he can’t get away. His disciples find him, and draw him back to his ministry. How can he refuse them?

Christ understood his own human limitations - despite his divinity, he couldn’t be everywhere - and strove to achieve some balance in his life. It’s a balance more of us need to seek, during a time of chronic imbalance.

St. Benedict understood as much when he established his famous rule for monastics 1500 years ago, and chose as his guiding principle “Ora et labora” - work and prayer. (http://www.osb.org/rb/) Life needs both. But it is prayer, in our busy and frenetic lives, that often gets short shrift.

Prayer helps to give a center to our lives. (Indeed, one popular form is even called Centering Prayer - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centering_Prayer.) Directing our thoughts toward the next life, and the Creator and Designer of all life, can’t help but make things bearable in this life.

Jesus understood as much. He took time to get away, to pray, to pull his life together. And there are more resources out there trying to help the rest of us, too. (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/123439.php ). A little time apart, and a little perspective, along with a daily diet of prayer, can often transform despair into hope.

Maybe during these challenging times, it can’t hurt to ask ourselves that age-old question: “What would Jesus do?”

This Sunday’s gospel offers one valuable answer.

Greg Kandra

Prayer

Almighty God,
during times of challenge and stress,
we seek your solace and support.
We ask you to watch over us in our confusion;
to be with us in our loneliness;
to comfort us in our fear;
to soothe us in our anxieties.
Help us to find moments when we can go, like Jesus,
apart,
to spend time with you
and dwell in your eternal hope.
We ask this through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen.

Notices

OPERATION RICE BOWL FROM CRS-Online Community
Whether your parish participates in Operation Rice Bowl during Lent or not, you can still invite parish members to sign-up for the ORB online community. Each Monday members will receive an e-mail that offers suggestions for prayer and fasting. The online community reflections will be available in both English and Spanish. Send parish members to http://orb.crs.org/community/ to sign up today!

CARDINAL GEORGE ON HOLOCAUST DENIAL
There’s been a lot of discussion in the press this past week after Pope Benedict listed the excommunication of four bishops from the Society of St. Pius X. One of those bishops made news after an interview in which he denied the holocaust. Cardinal George, President of the USCCB, issued a statement on Tuesday describing those remarks as “deeply offensive and utterly false.” You can read the full statement at: http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2009/09-031.shtml.

REFLECTING ON RECONCILIATION DURING LENT
Liturgical Publications Inc is pleased to offer a resource on reconciliation and the sacrament of penance for adult faith formation. Info about Reconciliation: The Unfolding Mystery of God’s Mercy and Love is available at www.CatholicFaithSharing.com. Learn about the program, view sample pages, and order online, or call 1-800-950-9952, ext. 2469.