Beloved

Last Sunday we celebrated the last feast of the Christmas season, the Baptism of the Lord. We hear about this baptism every year as we close the season, whether we are reading from the gospel of Matthew, Mark or Luke, and each of these gospels closes with the same line: "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased." It's amazing to me, then, that in all of my years of listening, I have never appreciated what John Shea (The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers) has pointed out, that these very words are said to each of us at our baptism as well! This is God's sacramental affirmation of us, conveyed in such words as 'welcomes, anoints, clothes, Christian dignity' etc. We know, from our very inception, that we are beloved, but as with every other sacrament, the words are precious and priceless. Even with faith, though, we sometimes fall into disbelief of our belovedness. We fail to be able to forgive ourselves for certan actions or faults, and live as less - less aware of who we are in God's eyes, less grateful for God's amazing gifts to us, less aware of our ability to respond by releasing ourselves from this self-centered paralysis. May you today experience yourself as the beloved of God, and be as gentle with yourself as God is. And if this is a struggle, may you fall on your knees and pray as we read in Mark 9: "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief."

Nurturing Faith

So a new year begins, and one of my responsibilities in my parish job is adult faith formation. Wow...we've tried a lot of things: we have had scores of speakers over the years, we've had dinners, we've had hands-on experiences, we've had full catechetical courses. But my focus right now is on forming small faith groups, and we're calling this process, Faith Talk. Most of these groups meet in homes and cover a wide variety of topics: some study the Sunday readings, some are doing bible studies, some are studying the US Catholic Catechism for Adults, one is doing a book study, one is studying the sacraments. But no matter the direction, they have this in common: they are good Catholic folks getting comfortable with sharing faith. Did they all know each other before they began? -definitely not! But this faith sharing has bonded them in deeper ways than they would have imagined. They are able to grapple with the deeper issues of life, in a safe environment and are finding that theirs are common questions. Faith is becoming a lived, shared experience; it is becoming very real indeed. I encourage anyone who is serious about letting faith get into your bones and inform your everyday decisions to get into a Faith Talk group. If you don't know how, call your local parish for help in finding one.