Anticipating Sunday

During his transition from the position of Editor of America Magazine, the great weekly published by the American Jesuits, Father Tom Reese spent a year at Santa Clara while I was a student there.  While our personal run-ins were brief but pleasant, I did have the wonderful opportunity to hear him speak at length on one occasion.   That evening, he spoke on “A Survival Guide for Thinking Catholics”–a subject that instantly caught my attention, as you might guess! 

While I gleaned numerous insights from the evening’s lecture (it is summarized on SCU’s Web site, by the way), one of Fr. Reese’s overarching summons stuck out to me: We need to take personal responsibility for our faith–for our beliefs, our doubts, and our membership in the larger Catholic and Christian community.  At one point, Fr. Reese provided a simple means for doing this. How many of you get angry about what the priest says–or doesn’t say–during the homily on Sunday?, he asked. Many heads nodded, including my own. Well, how many of you actually read the readings that the homily is based on before Mass every week?  How many of you think about it on your own before the priest tells you what it is about?  

Essentially, I heard from Fr. Reese that there are circumstances in which we will, justifiably, struggle with a priest’s views on Sunday–but instead of just disregarding his message, we must engage it with our own thoughts and prayerful reflection.  If our faiths are going to survive, we must be proactive rather than simply dismissive. 

After much thought about Fr. Reese’s message, I have decided to try out this type of pro-active engagement online. For the next couple weeks, I will include one entry a week rooted in my reflections on the week’s Sunday readings.  Whether you are Catholic or not, I hope that this weekly, guided walk through scripture will bring about thoughts, questions, and comments!If you’d like to follow along, check out Saint Louis University’s Liturgy Web Site for each week’s Sunday readings. 

Please let me know what you think about this exercise as it progresses… 

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