Every month, Connections offers stories, images, reflections and meditations relating to the themes of each Sunday’s readings.  Material comes from the evening news and the every day, from the stage and screen, from the music world and the marketplace – all designed to help homilists “connect” the world of Monday through Saturday with the Gospel proclaimed on Sunday.

To give you an idea of what Connections is all about, we’ve assembled the following sampling of stories, meditations and 'connecting' reflections from recent issues of Connections:

Easter Sunday [March 31, 2024]
Second Sunday of Easter  [April 7, 2024]
Third Sunday of Easter  [April 14, 2024]
Fourth Sunday of Easter  [April 21, 2024]
Fifth Sunday of Easter  [April 28, 2024]

Sixth Sunday of Easter  [May 5, 2024]
Ascension of the Lord [May 12, 2024]
Seventh Sunday of Easter [May 12, 2024]
Pentecost  [May 19, 2024]
Most Holy Trinity [May 26, 2024]

Please note that, in every issue of Connections, we offer TWO stories/meditations for each Sunday’s Gospel.

After reviewing this “electronic sampler,” if you’d like information on subscribing – or receiving the next complete issue of Connections – CLICK HERE for subscription information and an order form.

Enjoy!      

  

Second Sunday of Easter [B]

[Jesus] said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”
John 20: 19-31

Scars that matter . . .

In an essay in The New York Times [November 6, 2020], writer Rebecca Bohanan tells the story of an ex-boyfriend she met at a New York restaurant. 

“He called himself a cook, which seemed like a casual title for someone staffed in the kitchen of a Michelin three-star restaurant.  But cooking was what he did, preparing another chef’s recipes as a steppingstone to his greater culinary dreams,” she recalls.

The two met in a bar and struck up a conversation just after the restaurant closed.  He asked for her number.  And a few days later, he called.  For their first date, he offered to come and cook dinner for her.  After the restaurant closed one night, he came with a bag full of groceries and went to work.

She watched and learned as he chopped, sliced, mixed and sauteed.  But she was taken aback by the abrasions on his arms – damage done by open flame, the greatest hazard of his job.  A particularly bad burn stretched all the way from his wrist to his elbow.

“You should put something on that,” she said.

“Nah.”

“But’s it’s going to scar.”

“Scars are good,” he said.  “They’re reminders of what you’ve done.”

“Yours are a little misleading,” she said.  “You look like you’ve seen hand-to-hand combat.”

“I have.  Every night in that kitchen, I fight for what really matters to me.”

“A job?” she asked.

“No,” he said.  Not a job.  I’m going to open my own restaurant.  Where I’ll do the menu.  It’s going to be my place, my hang.  I’ll stand in my own kitchen, tell some other . . . kid what to cook, then I’ll look at my scars and remember everything I did to get there.”

We all have scars that continue to teach us and define us: some “scars” remind us to be more careful and attentive, but many of our “scars” are the result of becoming more conscious of others, of growing in wisdom and understanding, of paying the price for creating and building what is good and valuable in our lives.  This Second Sunday of Easter celebrates the scars from our own Good Fridays that remain after our own experiences of resurrection.  Our “nailmarks” remind us that all pain and grief, all ridicule and suffering, all disappointments and anguish, are transformed into healing and peace in the love of God that we experience from others and that we extend to them.  Jesus says to Thomas and his brothers not to be afraid of the nailmarks and the scars and the fractured bones and the crushed spirit and the broken heart.  Compassion, forgiveness, justice — no matter how clumsily offered — can heal and mend.  In the light of unwavering hope, with the assurance of God’s unlimited grace, even the simplest act of kindness and understanding is the realization of Easter in our midst.    

Third Sunday of Easter [B]

“ . . . a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.”
Luke 24: 35-48

“Peace be with you.”  No, really . . .

Keep peace in the family — so better that she say nothing.  Over the years, whenever she would confront him about his drinking, he would laugh it off as her worrying, but, over time, he would get angry at her nagging.  So she’s found it easier to let him sleep it off, telling the kids that Daddy has a headache.  Daddy is having more and more headaches — but there’s peace in the house.

Quiet has been restored in the neighborhood — at least for now.  The police were called when the kids’ taunting escalated into an ugly brawl.  They were called again when obscene graffiti was spray-painted on one family’s garage door.  Families of color have endured all kinds of verbal and physical abuse; in these difficult days of the pandemic, an Asian family one street over has been a constant target.  Right now, everyone is keeping pretty much to themselves, avoiding any more conflict.  So there’s peace for now – but a very tense and unstable peace.

Business as usual — kind of.  The folks on the line carry on with their usual skill and professionalism to produce a good product; the sales team hustles to keep the orders coming in.  But at the corporate level, it’s another story.  The company is in the process of being sold.  Attorneys are in and out of the building; mountains of sales and expense data are being generated and analyzed.  And rumors are flying through the building, but, of course, no one is saying anything.  Anxiety and fear hang over every aspect of the company — and not just at the conference table in the corporate suite but at the family tables of their employees, as well.   Business as usual?  Hardly.

In the Easter Gospels, the Risen Jesus appears, greeting the disciples with “peace” — but the “peace” of Easter is nothing like our understanding of “peace.”  We often settle for peace that’s merely the absence of conflict, peace that settles for nothing bad happening, peace that is equated with the status quo — but too often fear and tension lie just below the surface of such “peace.”  True peace is rooted in the Gospel of justice and mercy; lasting peace is possible only when the reasons for fear and doubt are confronted.  Peace — Christ’s peace — is realized when all are respected and honored as sisters and brothers in the light of the Risen One.  Thomas Merton wrote that “instead of loving what you think is peace, love other[s] and love God above all.  And instead of hating the people you think are warmongers, hate the appetites and the disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war.  If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed — but hate these things in yourself, not in another.”  May we become “witnesses” of Christ’s peace in our families and communities, our churches and workplaces — and may the work of peace begin within ourselves. 


Fourth Sunday of Easter [B]
 
“A hired man, who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own, sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away, and the wolf catches and scatters them . . .
“I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me . . . I will lay down my life for the sheep.”
John 10:11-18
  
Negotiating the rocky terrain
 
A rabbi who has prepared many couples for marriage shares the wisdom of his years of experience:
 
“Think of two married couples.  One couple insists that they have never had a serious quarrel in all the years they have been married.  They have never spoken a harsh word to each other.  Each considers the other his or his best friend in the world.  The other couple has lost count of the number of angry, screaming, ashtray-throwing fights they have had.  Time and again, they have found themselves wondering if their relationship had a future.  But every time they pondered the option of separation, they would peer into the abyss and step back from it.  They would remember how much they had shared and realize how much they cared for each other.  Which relationship would you think to be stronger, more able to survive an unanticipated downturn or sudden tragedy?  I would have more confidence in the second couple, who have been taught by experience how strong the bond between them is.”
 
[Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, Overcoming Life's Disappointments.]
 
In the work of “shepherding,” sometimes we are the shepherd who reaches out to the one lost or in trouble and, at other times, we are the one in distress in need of a shepherd’s saving hand.  In Christ, we belong to one another; in imitating Christ, our lives are at the service of one another.  “Good shepherding” is not dominating or patronizing nor is it for the weak and self-absorbed; "good shepherding" is selfless and generous work that realizes with gratitude that we are sometimes the shepherd and sometimes the struggling and lost.  Christ calls each one of us to take on the work of “good shepherding”: to bring compassion and healing to the sick, the troubled and abused; to bring back the lost, the scattered and the forgotten; to enable people to move beyond their fears and doubts to embrace the mercy and love of God. 
 


Fifth Sunday of Easter [B]
 
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower . . . you are the branches.”
John 15: 1-8
 
“Why I Make Sam Go To Church”
 
Sam is the only kid he knows that goes to church.  But Mom insists.
 
Mom is writer Anne Lamott, who has chronicled her own search for God in her troubled life in her bestselling books, including Grace Eventually and Plan B.  In Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, Mom explains why she wants her poor little Presbyterian church to be part of her son's life:
 
“I want to give him what I found in the world, a path and a little light to see by.  Most of the people I know who have what I want – which is to say, purpose, heart, balance, gratitude, joy – are people with a deep sense of spirituality.  They are people in community, who pray, or practice their faith . . . They follow a brighter light than the glimmer of their own candle.
 
“When I was at the end of my rope, the people of St. Andrew tied a knot in it for me and helped me to hold on.  The church became my home - that it's where, when you show up, they have to let you in.  They let me in.  They even said, You come back now.
 
“Sam was welcomed and prayed for at St. Andrew's seven months before he was born.  When I announced during worship that I was pregnant, people cheered.  All these old people, raised in Bible-thumping homes in the Deep South, clapped.  Even the women whose grown-up boys had been or were doing time in jails or prisons rejoiced for me . . . Women [who] live pretty close to the bone financially on small Social Security checks . . . routinely sidled up to me and stuffed bills in my pockets – tens and twenties . . . And then almost immediately they set about providing for us.  They brought clothes, they brought me casseroles to keep in the freezer, they brought me assurance that this baby was going to be part of the family.
 
“I was usually filled with a sense of something like shame until I'd remember that wonderful line of Blake's – that we are here to learn to endure the beams of love – and I would take a long breath and force these words out of my strangled throat:  Thank you.”
 
Today’s Gospel calls us to realize the connections between Christ and us and between us and one another.  On the night before he died (the setting of today's Gospel) Jesus reminds his disciples of every time and place that, in his love, we are “grafted” to one another in ways we do not completely realize or understand.  As branches of Christ the vine, we are part of something greater than ourselves, something which transforms and transcends the fragileness of our lives.  May our families, communities and parishes become extended branches for all of us who struggle to realize our own harvests of joy and discovery, of grace and faithfulness.  

Sixth Sunday of Easter [B]

“This is my commandment:  Love one another as I have loved you . . .”
John 15: 9-17

A cherished raspberry

In Boston’s Quincy Market there is a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust.  The memorial is made up of six pillars of plexiglass.  On a background of the millions of prisoner numbers assigned by the Nazis to those who perished, each pillar contains stories that speak of the cruelty and suffering in the camps.

But one of the pillars tells a different story.  It is about a little girl named Ilse, a childhood friend of Gerda Weissman Klein, who recounts the tale.  Gerda remembers the morning when Ilse, who was about six years old at the time of her internment at Auschwitz, found a single raspberry somewhere in the camp.  Ilse carried the raspberry all day long in a protected fold of her pocket.  That evening, her eyes shining with happiness, Ilse presented the raspberry on a leaf to her friend Gerda.

“Imagine a world,” writes Gerda, “in which your entire possession is one raspberry, and you give it to your friend.”

In the midst of the horror of the Holocaust, little Ilse manages to discover the joy that only comes from bringing that same joy to another.  That is the commandment of Jesus to us who would be his Church: to love one another as Christ, God made human, has loved us.  As Christ gives his life for others, he commands us to do the same; as Christ brings healing and peace into the lives of those he meets, he commands us to find our life’s purpose in bringing his healing and peace into the lives we touch; as Christ reveals to the world a God who loves as a father loves his children, he commands us to love one another as brothers and sisters.  Such love can be overwhelmingly demanding – but such love can be the source of incredible joy and fulfillment, no less than an experience of Easter resurrection.  

Ascension of the Lord [B]

Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.” 
Mark 16: 15-20

The master chair maker

There is an African parable about two villages separated by a river.  In each village, there lived a woodworker who knew how to make chairs.  Both knew the secret of making strong, durable and beautiful chairs.

But the chair maker in the first village was afraid to teach others because he thought they would not make the chairs correctly — and worse, if they did, they could cut into his business.  So he jealously guarded his work.  He became suspicious of anyone with wood, worried that they may have discovered his secret.  He would ridicule them and warn them not to try and make a chair themselves.  So he made all the chairs in the village, but no one wanted to go near him.  The young men of the village interested in woodworking left the village rather than ask to learn from him.  The chair maker eventually died alone — and his secret with him.

But the chair maker in the second village did not keep his knowledge to himself.  He helped anyone who asked what wood to use, how to plane and cut the pieces, how to mix the glue to assemble the pieces.  Over the years, many of the young men of the village served as his apprentices.  Sometimes one of them would discover a way to improve the chair.  The master chair maker would encourage the apprentice to show what he discovered to others.  As a result, the chairs in the village kept getting better and better.  People from other villages would come and buy their excellent chairs — and soon tables and benches he and his apprentices began to make. 

When people praised the master chair maker’s work, he would laugh and say, “I did not build these chairs alone.  These young men have improved my chairs.  I am getting old, but these young men will continue building better and better chairs.  I have given my skills and knowledge to them and they have given their love and friendship to me.  Together we have done far more than if I had worked alone.”

[Adapted from Once Upon a Time in Africa: Stories of Wisdom and Joy, compiled by Joseph G. Healey.]

This old African story of the generous chair maker mirrors the meaning of today’s celebration of the Lord’s Ascension.  Today, Jesus the master “chair maker,” who has taught his disciples the “secrets” of “making” God’s kingdom of reconciliation and peace, now turns the work over to us.  On this day, Jesus calls us to continue his work — work that has been vindicated and perfected in the Father’s raising him from the dead.  We who have seen and heard the story of Jesus are now called to bring that hope into the lives of others and into the life we share as families, as the Church, as the human community.  In every kindness we offer, in every word of encouragement and comfort we utter, in every moment we spend listening and supporting, we proclaim the Gospel of the Risen Jesus; every good work — however small or hidden — is a sign of Christ in our midst.  

Seventh Sunday of Easter [B]

“Consecrate them in the truth.”
John 17: 11b-19

Applied psychology

As the college student rang the doorbell and delivered the pizza, the man who answered growled, “What’s the usual tip?”

“Well, sir,” the student replied, “this is my first delivery, but the other guys said that if I got a dollar out of you, I’d be doing great.”

“That so?” grunted the customer.  “Well, in that case, here’s ten bucks.”

“Thank you, sir,” the grateful student said, taking the bill.  “This will be a big help at school.”

“By the way,” the customer asked, “what are you studying?”

“Applied psychology.”

This psychology student has learned not just to see what people do but why they do it — and what will make them act differently.  Jesus, in today’s Gospel, prays that we will do the same.  He calls us to see the truth in its totality — not just to recognize a series of facts but to understand how those facts connect to reveal reality and truth.  Truth can be very difficult to face and accept: resorting to obfuscation, rationalization and denial are much easier than facing the truth about our beliefs, our attitudes, our values, our dreams.  The Risen Christ challenges us not to approach truth in terms of wins and losses or of power or of the comfort of convention, but to approach truth as where and how God is present in our lives and our world.   To be a person of authentic faith means to face and seek out the truth — regardless of our doubts and cynicism and fear.  To be “consecrated in the truth” begins with embracing the Spirit of God: the wisdom, the wholeness, the love of God who is the first and last and constant reality.  

Pentecost [ABC]

”Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans?  Then how does each of us hear them in his native language . . . ?  We hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God.”
Acts 2: 1-11

God in a lightning strike

In his memoir Love Is the Way, Bishop Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, writes of his ministry as rector of Saint James Church in Baltimore in the 1990s. 

On a June night in 1993, lightning struck the church, setting off a fire that destroyed the landmark building.  It was the time when many other churches and residents left “the city” — “the city” meaning every intractable problem in America.  A reporter came up to Father Curry:  “You’re going to get insurance money undoubtedly.  Will the church consider leaving the city?”  As the reporter asked his question, Father Curry noticed a neighborhood kid named Robbie looking straight at him.  Robbie was listening for the rector’s answer. 

“The city was where crime was skyrocketing.  Where drugs were festering.  Where schools were struggling,” Curry writes.  “Leave the city and you could leave all those problems behind . . . [but] if the church left the city, we’d be leaving [Robbie] behind.  Worse, we’d be taking hope with us.  Standing there in the light of the that fire, I knew there was no choice.  The church is the only society that exists primarily for those who are not its members.  We are part of something much greater than ourselves, and we wouldn’t and couldn’t leave anyone behind.  The problems here were our problems and we would not look away.”

The rebuilding took two years — the best years of his time at Saint James, Curry remembers.  The congregation worshipped in the parish hall. “Just four walls, the prayer books and us,” Curry recalls.

“All our work in the past years had been to strip the church back to its essence, and in some strange way, the fire had finished that work.  Maybe it was an act of God.  We no longer needed the dramatic lighting.  The room was lit up because we were connected to the primal source, to the God the Bible says is love.  Everyone could feel it, and everyone was in awe . . .

“The lightning strike had been an act of nature.  The community that was emerging was an act of God, creating in our midst, if just for a while, something resembling the beloved community intended by God for the whole human family and all of creation.”

It’s not the four walls and beautiful artwork that make a church a church — it’s the spirit of God’s love that forms those souls gathered there into a community of faith, a congregation of disparate souls who are able to see beyond their individual selves to create a community of peace and compassion that includes the vulnerable and powerless like Robbie.  It’s that Spirit of God we celebrate today: the Spirit, the “ruah” or breath of God that “ignites” the ministry of Peter and company in Jerusalem and enables a church in Baltimore to find its way after a devastating fire.  That same Spirit continues to “blow” through today’s Church – our church – to give life and direction to our mission and ministry to preach the Gospel to all and for all, to proclaim forgiveness and reconciliation in God’s name, to immerse all of humanity into the life and love of God manifested in Jesus’ resurrection.   

The Most Holy Trinity [B]

“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Matthew 28: 16-20

“ . . . when God is in it.”

A Quaker pastor remembers the insight he learned from a woman who was part of the meeting he once pastored:

“[This] elderly woman had committed herself to works of mercy.  As I got to know her better, I was astounded at the many ways in which she had blessed hurting people.  Though her income was modest, she lived simply so she could give generously.  Though her many commitments kept her calendar full, she still found time to be present for those who needed comfort.  The longer I knew her, the more I marveled at her charity, given the scarcity of her resources.  Because of her humility, she was reluctant to talk with others about her own accomplishments.  But one day she let slip the principle that guided her life, when she said to me, ‘Little is much when God is in it.’

“I have thought of that many times since, appreciating its truth more and more as the years pass.  Little does become much when love is present.  Love does magnify our works.  Jesus knew this.  He knew even the smallest gesture of love could transform the darkest situation and so fully committed himself to divine love that we are still awed by his life.  Believe me when I tell you this:  We can be like him, and like all the other God-bearers our world has known . . . We can be like him when we say yes to the Divine Presence that is also in us, as thoroughly as we are able.  As we do that, our lives, and the lives of others, will be transformed.  God’s joy will be in us, and our joy will be full.”

[From The Evolution of Faith: How God Is Creating a Better Christianity by Philip Gulley.]

Today’s solemnity of the Holy Trinity celebrates the many ways God makes his presence known in our lives, in the manifestations of his love in our lives and our world.  This Sunday of the Trinity invites us to look with a new awareness to behold God in our midst: God is the Father and Creator of all life, including our very selves, who fashions every molecule and atom that nurtures and sustains our lives; God is the Son and the Brother, the Redeemer who teaches us the unfathomable love of the God we seek; God is the Spirit of that love that creates and enables us to break out of the isolation that entraps us and become family and community.  May this Solemnity of the Trinity reawaken our senses and our consciousness to behold God’s love in our lives, making even the “little” into “much” that is holy and sacred.