Faith in the Family

We had a wonderful homily from our parish priest a few weeks ago. I’m not suggesting that we don’t generally have good homilies – but this one stood out. I went to Fr Brian after Mass to thank him for what he’d said and laughing, he responded, “It wasn’t the homily I had prepared at all!”

One phrase in the first reading had grabbed Fr Brian’s attention – “the Lord takes delight in you” from the Prophet Isaiah (62:4). Together with the second reading, “there is a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit” (Corinthians 12:4). Fr Brian was knocked completely and wonderfully off course. The well prepared homily went out the window and instead we were asked, “the Lord delights in you! Do you believe it?”

Having posed the question Fr Brian had the wisdom to stop and give us pause to think. He encouraged us to reflect on that line and our own reaction to it. How often is there a moment of silence like that in a homily? How often are we invited to explore the connection between a piece of scripture and our own lives?

Having reflected on our own lives we were then invited to look around us, at the people with whom we share this sacred space every Sunday.

Do we recognise the richness and variety of the gifts here in our own parish? Do we realise that we have a responsibility to share that giftedness with each other and with others, beyond this place and this parish? It would be hard to describe the atmosphere in the church that day, other than to say that I felt the Holy Spirit was bouncing off the walls. It was a graced moment of connection between scripture, our lives and each other.

As Catholics, I feel we are often still reluctant to engage with scripture, to explore it or to expect it to have something important to say to our lives and our experience. We rely on others to mediate scripture to us and to tell us what it means.

That of course can be very useful and insightful but we are missing the point if we don’t allow scripture to speak to our own hearts and minds. We don’t need degrees in theology to do that. We do need a bit of time and space and an openness to the Holy Spirit who will be our guide.

Readings

The scripture readings for Lent are powerful. You could just pick one piece from the day’s readings and read it slowly a few times. Is there a theme, word or image that you find yourself coming back to? Sit with that. What is it saying to you, asking of you, calling you towards? How does it connect here and now with your own life?

Another possibility is free writing. Again simply read the piece of scripture a few times and then put it aside and, taking pen and paper, write whatever comes in to your mind and heart. Don’t analyse, don’t censor, just keep writing until you come to a natural stop. Take some time to read back over what you have written. Again, is there a theme, word or image that comes through strongly? If so, what is it saying to you? Always close your time of prayer with thanks to the Holy Spirit.

It is important that our children are familiar with scripture, more confident with it than we have been perhaps. There are wonderful Bibles and Gospel storybooks for children of all ages. Encourage children to listen to a Gospel story and then to draw a picture of it, as detailed as possible. Use that picture to talk about how people in the story may have been feeling, what they might have said or done. Children can have simple, wonderful, grace-filled insight. You might find they open your eyes to a piece of scripture in a whole new way!