The Power of Peer Pressure
The other day at Mass a woman in the front pew stood at the wrong time. The two women next to her joined her. Soon everyone in the church was standing. I stood too, even though I knew it was a mistake! I could hear my mother’s words echoing in my head, “If everyone jumps in Lake Erie, are you going to jump too?” We humans are so closely bound that we exert a powerful influence on one another. If a group of people are standing together and one person folds his or her arms, soon the others do too. Our emotions are also contagious. Someone in a good mood puts others in a good mood. Likewise a gloomy person soon soon has others downcast. There must be some stray lemming cells in us! (more…)
Perseverance and Determination
The world was awed last week when 64-year-old Diana Nyad swam 110 miles from Cuba to Florida. What awed me was that this woman never gave up. This swim was her fifth attempt. A person with less gumption would have said after the fourth try, Why bother? or It’s impossible. Now Diana serves as a model in perseverance. She shows that human beings are capable of performing remarkable feats if they only keep at it. Discouragement and lack of self-confidence can extinguish our dreams if we let them. (more…)
A Personal Bible Verse
One day our novice director told us that the Scripture readings for the Mass on our birthday hold a gift for us: a special message from God. My heart sank. My birthday is the feast of St. Martha, so I assumed that each year God would scold, “Stop working so hard, Kathleen, and pay more attention to me.” Only later at Mass on my birthday did I discover that the first reading was “When I found your words, I devoured them. They became my joy and the happiness of my heart.” (Jeremiah) A nice surprise! This is the verse I always used to begin my talks on Scripture. In addition it sums up my life as I speak and write on the word of God. (more…)
The Bible by Heart
Did you ever hear a reader proclaim Scripture by heart? Or an actor present a whole Gospel? We may not be capable of such a feat, but we can always memorize a Scripture verse or two. Janaan Manternach calls this “banking prayers.” The verses will surface when we need them. For example, St. Teresa of Avila got through months of pain by continually praying, “We receive good from God’s hand, should we not also receive evil?” (Job 2:9) When a heart attack put my dad in the hospital, repeating “The Lord is my shepherd” (Psalm 23:1) gave me comfort. Jesus knew Scripture by heart, for he quoted it and prayed it. We recite slogans and sing jingles from commercials even when we don’t want to. Mastering a few Bible verses then shouldn’t be that difficult. (more…)
The Bible: God’s Living Word
As a result of working on the only complete Bible for children (St. Mary’s Press), I’ll be speaking on Scripture in Chicago this year. Some thoughts . . . What is the Bible? The Word of God in the words of human beings. In Genesis, God said, “Let it be,” and the entire universe came into being. In the Gospels, Jesus spoke and people are healed, storms cease, and a dead man walks out of a tomb. That same God speaks to us in Sacred Scripture. The Bible is powerful. As it says of itself, “The Word of God is living and effective, sharper than a two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12). God said to Jeremiah, “My word is like fire, like a hammer shattering rocks (Jeremiah 23:29).” Sadly, for many Catholics, the Bible remains an unopened treasure. (more…)
