Weekly Winner

Announcing:

Saint Mary's Press winner for the week of September 17, 2012

Congratulations to Dominic Faciane

Dominic will receive a copy of Great People of the Bible Student Book and Catechist Guide, a $28.90 value.

Bring Salvation History to Life! Parish leaders have been requesting a Catholic Bible study curriculum for middle school students, created specifically to fit their parish schedules. Saint Mary's Press is pleased to respond to this need with the Great People of the Bible parish curriculum.

The Great People of the Bible curriculum offers:

- A student book that is found in conformity with the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a supplemental curriculum resource, and the only Bible curriculum for middle school students with this approval

- Twenty-five, one hour sessions designed to fit a typical parish calendar

- A catechist guide that offers easy-to-follow session outlines for the volunteer catechist

- Flexible options for the Catechist to complete student activities in class or use as family learning assignments in the home

- One student book that covers both the Old and New Testament and that supports the ABC's of biblical literacy

- Engaging student activities, now with expanded background content, based on the ever popular Student Activity Workbooks for Breakthrough! The Bible for Young Catholics

Great People of the Bible

ISBN: 978-0-88489-690-6, paper, 56 pages

Focus on Faith

Respect Life Month

The first Sunday in October is Respect Life Sunday, and it marks the beginning of October as Respect Life Month. Even though we are called to work throughout the year to promote the protection and dignity of all life, Respect Life Month affords us the opportunity to focus more intently our efforts to educate young people on issues of life and invite them to action. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has developed numerous resources in support of Respect Life Month. These resources include a liturgy guide as well as pamphlets and bulletin inserts addressing abortion, the death penalty, persons with disabilities, reproductive technologies, embryo research, love and marriage, the end of our days, and contraception. In a resource developed for Respect Life Month in 2010, titled The Measure of Love Is to Love without Measure, the United States Bishops provide the following concise explanation as to why we are called to action to protect life: Every human being, at every stage and condition, is willed and loved by God. For this reason, every human life is sacred. To deprive someone of life is a grave wrong and a grave dishonor to God. Because we are created in the image of God, who is Love, our identity and our vocation is to love. Resources for this year's Respect Life Month are available on the USCCB Web site.

When we acknowledge that our identity and our vocation is to love, we cannot do anything less than act to protect all human life. In our ministry with young people, we have a responsibility to share the truth that God loves and cherishes all of his children, no matter what age or life circumstance, and that we are indeed our brothers' and sisters' keepers. We can share this truth with young people through education, prayer, and action.

Education

We are called to cherish and respect life from conception to natural death, and this is the message we must convey to young people. Respecting the dignity of life is not a matter of addressing a single issue. In the world today, we are faced with a wide range of assaults on the sacredness of life. From abortion to euthanasia, from capital punishment to domestic violence, the dignity and sacredness of life is threatened. In educating young people on the issues, we can start with the statement, 'Because we are created in the image of God, who is Love, our identity and our vocation is to love.' How do we show our love for unborn children, for those who are elderly or disabled, for the criminal, and for victims of war? In educating young people on these and other life issues, we need to be clear on what the issues are and on what we as Catholics believe is the loving response. We can stress that although there are no easy answers to life issues, there are clear and certain answers that reflect and respect the sacredness of life. On the USCCB resource page linked above, you will find numerous resources to assist you in educating the youth with whom you are in ministry on life issues. You can also utilize online resources from the USCCB Pro-Life Activities page. Additionally, Saint Mary's Press has reflections available on assisted suicide, the death penalty, the Christian response to violence, and the ethics of cloning.

Prayer

Perhaps the greatest resource we have in promoting a respect for life from conception to natural death is prayer. In the prayer we invite young people into, and in our personal prayer, we can continually pray that all develop a respect for life. Interestingly, October is recognized by the Church as the month of the Rosary. Invite your young people to gather throughout October to pray the Rosary, offering intentions for those who are threatened by a disregard for the dignity and sanctity of life. Additionally, you can arrange for a Respect Life prayer service planned by your youth. The USCCB has a 2011-2012 Respect Life Liturgy Guide as one of the resources available in the 2011-2012 Respect Life Program; it has intercessions for life and a litany for life that can be used as part of the service.

Action

Inviting young people to action in relation to promoting a consistent ethic of life can be challenging. We have to be careful to provide action opportunities that are relevant and age-appropriate. One possibility is to have youth collect baby items to donate to local services that counsel and support women to carry to full term their unplanned or unwanted pregnancy and that offer support after the birth. You can also have young people collect Bibles to donate to local prison ministries. Additionally, young people can write letters to lawmakers encouraging their support for legislation that promotes the dignity of life. With any action you offer to your youth, it is important to also offer education about the relevant life issue and how their action is making a difference.

Sacredness of Life

One of the greatest things we can do in our ministries with young people is to help them develop an understanding of the dignity and sacredness of all life. This is not something that can be accomplished in a one-time talk, retreat, or service project. It is something that should permeate our ministries throughout the year. Respect Life Month is an ideal opportunity to renew our commitment to working with young people to promote the protection of life from conception to natural death. As always, I pray that God will continue to bless you and your ministry.

Peace, Steven McGlau

Make it Happen

Horizons: A Senior High Parish Religion

The Catholic Youth Bible

Leader Guide

Choose Life: Deuteronomy, chapter 30

From The Catholic Youth Bible Leader Guide

This activity suggests that Moses' challenge to choose life has meaning to the teenager who at times also faces life-and-death choices.

1. Ask one student to read Deut 30:15-20 to the class. Point out the following items, in your own words:

- Moses offers the people a choice between life, prosperity, and blessing, and death, adversity, and curse. He basically puts forth two kinds of future: happy and unhappy.

- Moses' offer deals with more than physical life and death. He challenges people to make choices that lead to a full life with God and others, rather than decisions that stifle the human spirit and lead to isolation from God and others.

- Most people want happiness, yet many make deadly choices to obtain happiness. Those choices may threaten the physical, emotional, or spiritual health of oneself, others, or the natural world.

2. Form several small groups and pass out several popular magazines or newspapers to the groups. Ask the groups to look for mention of five 'death' (ultimately self-destructive) choices and to write a brief description of each. Direct them to discuss what kind of happiness the people involved in those decisions were actually seeking, and to propose an alternative, life-giving choice that really would have led to the desired happiness. Note that lifegiving choices often require more effort or self-discipline than do other choices.

3. Invite the groups to share their insights with the class. Identify any common characteristics of the different choices. Because life-giving choices are at times demanding, note that God's guidance and support was a key element of Moses' offer in the Bible passage read earlier.

Break Open the Word

Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

23-Sep-12

Mark 9:30-37

Opening Prayer

Jesus, while we share your word today, we ask you to send your Holy Spirit among us in a special way. Help us more clearly understand your challenge to be servants of all. You tell us that to serve others is the way to welcome you, Jesus, and the one who sent you, the Father. Come, be with us today and help us gain insight into your wisdom. Amen.

Context Connection

This week's Scripture has three parts. In the first part, Jesus finds time to be alone with his disciples and tells them that he will be betrayed and killed, and that in three days he will rise again. Then Jesus intercedes in an argument the disciples are having about who is the greatest among them. In the third part, Jesus tells the disciples that to follow him they must be servant[s] of all (9:35).

Jesus's prediction in 9:31 of his Passion, death, and Resurrection is the second of three such accounts in the Gospel of Mark. The other two are in 8:31 and 10:33-34. Though Jesus accurately predicted his death, the disciples did not understand at the time what Jesus was telling them. According to Mark, the disciples were afraid to ask Jesus what he meant.

It should not surprise us then that these same disciples did not stay by Jesus's side when he was arrested and crucified in Jerusalem. Fear still controlled their actions. Preoccupied with arguing among themselves about who in their group was the greatest, the disciples failed to understand what Jesus had shared with them about his fate.

Jesus's definition of true greatness had an impact on the disciples, and it has the same effect on us today. Jesus defined true greatness as being in humble service to others: Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all (9:35). A proud or puffed-up person has no place in Jesus's schema of importance.

To make his point, Jesus pointed to a child. In Jesus's day, a child had the same low status as a slave. Young people became free only when they reached maturity. Does this sound like modern America? No, indeed, the culture in Jesus's day was far different from our Western culture today.

Therefore, as a way of challenging the disciples' and our desire to be the most important, Jesus says, Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me (9:37). In other words, by serving the lowest people in society, one serves God.

Tradition Connection

In the Christian context, the word servant changed from meaning a state of being inferior or diminished to meaning a privileged way of helping others. A servant in a Christian setting, then, is someone who fully surrenders to God; the Christian way of life means helping others respond to the word of God. In the Christian economy of fellowship, no one is greater than the next person--we are all servants of God.

The concept of the Church as servant is found throughout the documents of the Second Vatican Council, particularly in The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. This document speaks of how Christ came into the world not to be served but to serve. We as Church carry out the mission of Christ to serve the world by fostering fellowship of all people. The Church best models itself as servant when, as a community dedicated to the care of others, it binds up wounds, heals the sick, mediates reconciliation; therefore, the Church should be or needs to become the focus of Christ's energy to love in the world today. (These ideas are from The Church as Servant, in Models of the Church, expanded edition, by Avery Dulles [New York: Doubleday Image Book, 1987], chapter 4.)

Jesus through his death and Resurrection made himself the servant of all. Therefore those who choose to follow Jesus must serve him by serving others. They are called to a vocation of service with Christ.

Finally, the People of God shares in the royal office of Christ. He exercises his kingship by drawing all men to himself through his death and Resurrection.1 Christ, King and Lord of the universe, made himself the servant of all, for he came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.2 For the Christian, to reign is to serve him, particularly when serving the poor and the suffering, in whom the Church recognizes the image of her poor and suffering founder.3 The People of God fulfills its royal dignity by a life in keeping with its vocation to serve with Christ. The sign of the cross makes kings of all those reborn in Christ and the anointing of the Holy Spirit consecrates them as priests, so that, apart from the particular service of our ministry, all spiritual and rational Christians are recognized as members of this royal race and sharers in Christ's priestly office. What, indeed, is as royal for a soul as to govern the body in obedience to God' And what is as priestly as to dedicate a pure conscience to the Lord and to offer the spotless offerings of devotion on the altar of the heart?4 (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 786)

Wisdom Connection

In chapter 9 of Mark's Gospel, Jesus gives the disciples three warnings. Mark also directs these warnings to his community. In 9:33-37, the warning is about the disciples' ambitions to rise to the top, to be the greatest. In 9:38-41, Jesus cautions his followers about envy and intolerance. In 9:42-48, we read about the scandalizing of others. In summary, the Gospel for this Sunday warns of the evils of ambition and advises that the best way to avoid the evils of ambition is to serve God and others.

When we become servants to all, we come to know Jesus and live as his disciples

Acknowledgments

The scriptural quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition. Copyright ' 1993 and 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

The quotations labeled Catechism are from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America, second edition. Copyright ' 1994 by the United States Catholic Conference, Inc.--Libreria Editrice Vaticana. English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Modifications from the Editio Typica copyright ' 1997 by the United States Catholic Conference, Inc.--Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Used with permission.

The Lord's Prayer is taken from Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers. Copyright ' 1988 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Inc., Washington, DC. All rights reserved.

Endnotes Cited in Quotations from the Catechism of the Catholic Church

1. Cf. John 12:32.

2. Matthew 20:28.

3. Lumen gentium 8; cf. 36.

4. Saint Leo the Great, Sermo 4, 1: J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina (Paris: 1841-1855), 54, 149

Break Open the Word

The Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

30-Sep-12

Mark 9:38-43,45,47-48

Opening Prayer

Jesus, your word today causes us to stop and take inventory of our own attitudes and actions. You ask us to act in ways that build up the Church community rather than diminish the communion that binds us together. Send your Spirit among us as we share our reflections, based on your word. We pray that our understanding of your message will help us become more effective members of your mystical Body, the Church. Amen.

Context Connection

This Sunday's Gospel builds upon last week's truth that evil can result from misdirected ambition. This week Mark speaks not about the evils of ambition but about the evils of pettiness, arrogance, envy, and other conduct that contributes to moral lapses in others.

Mark begins with the story of an anonymous person who drove out demons in Jesus's name. Jesus's disciples tried to stop the person because he was not a member of their group. You might be thinking, what's the big deal if a nonmember drove out some demons? It was a big deal in the first-century Jewish culture of Jesus's and the disciples' day, because at that time and in that setting, the culture was highly group-centered. The disciples, therefore, had deep loyalties to their group--especially to their group's leader, Jesus.

When the disciples saw this man casting out demons in Jesus's name--a man who had not pledged his loyalty to Jesus and his disciples--they tried to stop him. The disciples thought that if this man wanted to use Jesus's name to drive out demons, he should join their group, and if he did not want to join their group, he should not use Jesus's name.

But Jesus said, Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me (9:39). In other words, the fact that this man was able to drive out demons in Jesus's name meant that he could not have been disloyal to Jesus and would not have spoken against him. Whoever is not against us is for us (9:40).

Jesus corrected the disciples' narrow definition of what it meant to belong to the community of his disciples. The disciples should not have been so arrogant as to exclude an individual from their group; they should have first considered inviting the nonmember into their community.

The second part of this week's Gospel is challenging. Is Jesus asking us to cut off our hands or feet or pluck out our eyes? Jesus's main concern was the scandal that certain persons brought to the community of believers when they acted in ways inconsistent with his teachings. The conduct of these individuals could cause others to lose faith. Jesus considered this a serious matter. Using harsh words, he warned, It would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea (9:42).

How can we avoid personal behavior that could scandalize the Church community and beyond? Jesus said that when we become aware of what causes us to act in ways contrary to his teachings, we can then eliminate that action.

When the author of Mark writes, If your hand [or foot] causes you to stumble, cut it off (9:43) and If your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out (9:47), it helps to examine his message in the context of the times. Hands and feet symbolized people's actions or activities. Jesus was asking individuals to review their actions and to cease (cut off) those that were scandalous, hurtful, or harmed others. The eyes were considered the access to the heart, a person's inner world. What one saw and internalized developed that person's attitude or character, the way that person behaved toward others. If a person saw things that caused him or her to develop a negative attitude, then that person should cut off those things that generated the negative attitude. Jesus says in Mark that we are not only responsible for our actions and attitudes but also for those outside influences that have shaped them. When we permit ourselves to be negatively influenced, we become responsible for the actions we take because of those influences.

Tradition Connection

In the first part of Mark's Gospel today, the disciples exclude an anonymous individual who is driving out demons in Jesus's name from their community. How do we understand inclusivity in our Church community? The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives us three inseparable meanings for Church: the People that God gathers in the whole world; the particular or local church (diocese); and the liturgical (above all Eucharistic) assembly (page 871).

Often we use the term mystical Body of Christ to describe the Church community. Paul said the mystical Body of Christ is like a human body that needs all the various parts in good, working condition for the whole to properly function (see 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 and Romans 12:1-8). Paul emphasized our need to appreciate the gifts others bring to the Body of Christ. The Christian community is not about being envious of others' gifts. Instead, the Christian community stands on its openness to all and invites that gift to be used to build up the community, the Church.

The Body of Christ image for the Church has a long history. In the fourth century, Saint Augustine used it to emphasize the invisible communion that binds its members together. In a more contemporary setting, Pope Pius XII, writing in his encyclical On the Mystical Body of Christ (Mystici Corporis Christi) in 1943, defined the Church of Jesus Christ as the mystical Body of Christ. This image provides an understanding of both the Church's unity and diversity.

An ideal outcome of this kind of Church community would be that its members would act in ways that build up the Body of Christ. This is not always true, however. Mark wants us to be aware of conduct that causes scandal and diminishes the communion that binds us together. The Catechism defines scandal as an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil (page 899). The Catechism further explains, The person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor's tempter (paragraph 2284). This is what the Gospel means when it tells us that if our hands or feet (actions) lead us to sin, then cut them off, or if our eyes (attitude) lead us to sin, then pluck them out.

As members of the Church, the mystical Body of Christ, we are called to welcome all members and to appreciate their unique gifts. We also must conduct ourselves in ways that do not bring scandal to the community.

Wisdom Connection

Mark challenges the followers of Jesus for all time to be tolerant of one another and open to anyone of good will. In other words, the community should never exclude a nonmember for doing good in the name of Jesus. As disciples of Jesus, we should be able to see the grace of God active in others as evidenced by their good works. These actions of good will build up the community and give witness to Jesus. On the other hand, Mark warns that those members of the community who, through bad example, bring scandal upon the community and cause others to lose their faith will face serious consequences for their actions and attitudes.

Next week's Scripture passage will be Mark 10:2-16

Acknowledgments

The scriptural quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition. Copyright ' 1993 and 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

The quotations labeled Catechism are from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America, second edition. Copyright ' 1994 by the United States Catholic Conference, Inc.--Libreria Editrice Vaticana. English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Modifications from the Editio Typica copyright ' 1997 by the United States Catholic Conference, Inc.--Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Used with permission.

The Lord's Prayer is taken from Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers. Copyright ' 1988 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Inc., Washington, DC. All rights reserved.

Copyright ' 2009 by Saint Mary's Press, 702 Terrace Heights, Winona, MN 55987-1318, www.smp.org. All rights reserved. No part of this newsletter may be reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher. Thank you.

Saint Spotlight

Blessed Jan Beyzym

October 2 is the memorial for Blessed Jan Beyzym.

Blessed Jan Beyzym was a Jesuit priest and teacher who was called to minister to lepers in Madagascar. He displayed his commitment to the dignity of life through his care for those isolated from society due to leprosy.

For more information about Blessed Jan Beyzym, go to http://saints.sqpn.com/blessed-jan-beyzym/.