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:

Sunday 13 / Pentecost 6 [June 30, 2024]

Sunday 14 / Pentecost 7 [July 7, 2024]
Sunday 15 [July 14, 2024]
Pentecost 8 [July 14, 2024]
Sunday 16 / Pentecost 9 [July 21, 2024]
Sunday 17 / Pentecost 10 [July 28, 2024]

Sunday 18 / Pentecost 11 [August 4, 2024]
Sunday 19 / Pentecost 12 [August 11, 2024]
Assumption of Mary [Thursday, August 15, 2024]
Sunday 20 / Pentecost 13 [August 18, 2024]
Sunday 21 / Pentecost 14 [August 25, 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!      

13th Sunday of the Year B / Sixth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 8B]

One of the synagogue officials, named Jairus, came forward.  Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him, saying, “My daughter is at the point of death.  Please, come lay your hands on her that she may get well and live.”

There was a woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years.  “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.”
Mark 5: 21-43

An altar boy comes home

When he was eight years old, he wanted to be an altar boy — he even harbored thoughts of becoming a priest.  It was the summer of 1958; he had just completed the third grade.  He memorized all the Latin responses; he practiced all the movements.  Finally, the morning came when he would serve Mass for the first time.

To his horror, the eighth-grader who was supposed to serve with him didn’t show.  One of the sisters in the parish sat behind the flag in the sanctuary prompting instructions.  But disaster struck.  It came time for him to pick up the heavy missal and bring it to the other side of the altar.  As he genuflected while trying to balance the book on its stand, his foot got caught in the hem of his cassock, and both he and the missal went sprawling to the floor.  The priest stopped the Mass and turned.  His face was red, his forehead clenched like a fist.  “What’s going on?” he barked.  “I want you to leave and never serve Mass for me again!”  The boy ran from the sanctuary.  He ripped off his cassock and surplice.  And he never went back to church again.  Ever.

Thirty years later, he was traveling through the Midwest on business.  He passed a cathedral he and his family had driven by many times when he was boy.  The cathedral’s design was inspired by the silos of the farm belt.  Both the church’s simple interior and exterior were nothing like the Gothic churches he knew growing up.  He went inside where he struck up a conversation with a priest he met.  As they talked about the beautiful simplicity and symbolism of the church, he told the priest the story of his literal “fall from grace” — a story he had never told before.

The priest listened compassionately.  Then he replied, “Priests don’t always do everything right.   Please . . . forgive us.”

Tears came to his eyes.  The priest embraced him. 

And so began a long and bumpy road home.

[From “’Please . . . forgive us’: the story of my return to the church” by Don Lambert, National Catholic Reporter, May 15, 2018.]

The “touch of Jesus’ cloak” can be experienced in a simple act of generosity or a kind word offering forgiveness.  The hurt and humiliation suffered by this one-time altar boy, like the illness suffered by the hemorrhaging woman, was “healed” by the simple “touch” of a priest’s compassion; the “power” of Jesus mercy is extended in the priest’s simple, heart-felt apology.  May the despairing and needy experience the power of Jesus’ compassion and peace in the “cloak” of our compassion and care.    

14th Sunday of the Year B / Seventh Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 9B]

Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.” 
Mark 6: 1-6a

The decision to hope

God knows, these days there are reasons enough for cynicism.  Many of us feel let down by the institutions we thought we could trust.  We have been betrayed, disappointed and outraged too many times to simply hope.

Jim Wallis is a theologian and founder of Sojourners, a Christian-based social justice advocacy group.  He writes in his best-selling book God’s Politics that the obstacle of faith is the fundamental choice between cynicism and hope.

“First, let’s be fair to the cynics.  Cynicism is the place of retreat for the smart, critical, dissenting, and formerly idealistic people who are now trying to protect themselves.  They are not naive.  They tend to see things as they are, they know what is wrong, and they are generally opposed to what they see . . . They know what is going on, and at one point, they might even have tried for a time to change it.  But they didn’t succeed; things got worse, and they got weary.  Their activism, and the commitments and hopes that implied, made them feel vulnerable.  So they retreated to cynicism as the refuge from commitment . . .

“Cynicism does protect you in many ways.  It protects you from seeming foolish to believe that things could and will change.  It protects you from disappointment.  It protects you from insecurity because now you are free to pursue your own security instead of sacrificing it for a social engagement that won’t work anyway.  Ultimately, cynicism protects you from commitment.  If things are not really going to change, why try so hard to make a difference?  Why become and stay so involved?  Why take the risks, make the sacrifices, open yourself to the vulnerabilities?  

“Perhaps the only people who view the world realistically are the cynics and the saints.  Everybody else may be living in some kind of denial about what is really going on and how things really are.  And the only difference between the cynics and the saints is the presence, power, and possibility of hope . . . 

“More than just a moral issue, hope is a spiritual and even religious choice.  Hope is not a feeling; it is a decision.  And the decision for hope is based on what you believe at the deepest levels — what your most basic convictions are about the world and what the future holds — all based on your faith.  You choose hope, not as a naive wish, but as a choice, with your eyes wide open to the reality of the world — just like the cynics who have not made the decision for hope.”

In today’s Gospel, Jesus’ hearers cannot believe that such “wisdom” can exist in their midst, that the justice and peace Jesus envisions are simply not possible.  They are isolated by their cynicism; hope is beyond their reach, and so they reject Jesus with scorn and ridicule.  Jesus calls us — dares us — to embrace “prophetic” hope: to change our perspective, our belief systems, and ourselves in order to realize the possibilities we have for creating God’s kingdom of peace and compassion for all his sons and daughters in this time and place of ours.  

15th Sunday of the Year B

Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits.  He instructed them to take nothing for their journey but a walking stick – no food, no sack, no money in their belts.
ROMAN LECTIONARY: Mark 6: 7-13

Walking sticks

She begins her program with Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.  Her fingers dance over the frets of her guitar with the quiet confidence of her years of practice and study.  She next plays into an Irish air, then a Bob Dylan folk song and finally a jazz improvisation of her own creation.  She plays for an audience of one: a 70-year-old woman dying of cancer.  The venue: the dying woman’s room at the local hospice.  Music is her ministry, providing a measure of peace and tranquility for those taking the last steps from this world into eternity. 

Most spring and summer nights, as soon as he gets home from the office, he heads to his small garden behind the garage.  This quarter-acre is his favorite place on earth.  He grows tomatoes, beans and corn.  He saves a few things for his own family; he shares the rest of the harvest of the good earth with needy families served by the local soup kitchen and pantry.

She suffered from bulimia as a teenager.  Thanks to her wise and caring family, she overcame this devastating disease.  Now a mother herself, she read about a support group for girls suffering from eating disorders.  Every week she is there.  She says very little; she is there to listen and to support, and when asked one-on-one by a girl who is terrified at what is happening to her, she offers the hope of her own story.

With their “walking sticks” — guitars, vegetable seeds, and their own stories and experiences — these three and so many others like them realize that Christ has sent them forth, like the Twelve in today’s Gospel, to be his prophets of peace, apostles of compassion, ministers of healing.  Aware of God’s love in our own lives, we are called to bring that love into the lives of others in a spirit of humility and gratitude.  As we make our own journey from this world to the next, may we heal the broken and help the stumbling we meet along our way in faithfulness to the God who heals us and helps us up when we stumble and fall.

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 10B]

. . . John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”  And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him.  But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him.
COMMON LECTIONARY:  Mark 6: 14-29

Partying with Herod and Herodias

We have all acted, at one time or another, as Herod acts: 

We let our anger back us into a corner. 

We let our impatience get the better of us.

In an unguarded moment, we let our bravado force us into making promises we are in no position to make. 

Like Herod, we’ve all said something we later regret: an unkind remark about someone said thoughtlessly at lunch, an assessment of someone’s competency or intent we later discover was incorrect, a promise we made too quickly before we realized we could not possibly keep it.  Sometimes it’s the heat of the moment or too much to drink that leads us to say something insensitive or cruel.  Later, we realize the hurt we have caused and wish we could walk back our angry, thoughtless words.

Like Herod, we’ve been confronted by someone who saw right through us.  They didn’t threaten to expose us or embarrass us — they may have just asked a question that made it clear what we wanted to do was less than wise or ethical, or they conveyed by their silence their disapproval of the action we planned to take.  So we had their heads.  Well, maybe not their heads — but we kept our distance from them.  We avoided them from then on.  But, looking back, we realize the unsettling truth: they were right.

All very Herod-like.

Then there is something of Herodias in all of us:

We hold grudges.  We keep score.  We remember who slights us and we wait for the right moment to get back at them.  The grudges we keep seldom have the tragic consequences of Herodias, who manipulates her own daughter’s charms and her husband’s braggadocio to destroy John the Baptist — but we’ve let our anger divide our families, we’ve refused to surrender our need for vengeance for the sake of reconciliation, we’ve held on to our resentments until we got our satisfaction.

But there are, too, moments of grace in our lives, when we manage to act as John does: when we find a way to put aside our disappointments and let go of our anger (however justified) in order to make reconciliation possible, to speak God’s Word of justice, to be the means of peace in our homes and communities.

John’s martyrdom is, after Jesus’ crucifixion, the most horrifying episode in all of the Gospels.  As we hear the appalling story of John the Baptist’s execution and the events that led to it, consider the times when we have lost control of our ego, our arrogance, our self-righteousness, resulting in someone’s destruction.   May we seek the grace to stop when we are angry, to realize when we are acting selfishly, to see how our behavior is hurting others, and retreat to the peace of God’s grace. 

16th Sunday of the Year B / Eighth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 11B]

“Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.”
Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for the vast crowd, for they were like sheep without a shepherd.
Mark 6: 30-34 (53-56)

Shepherd-less

Working at your desk one morning, you stumble upon confidential information that a small electronics firm is about to be bought up by a Fortune 500 company.  You could make a major financial score by buying up shares of the small company.  And you’d easily get away with it, even though such trading would be considered insider trading — and illegal.  And shepherd-less.

You’re meeting with a potential client to close a sale you’ve been working on for some time.  The client is pretty much on board — except one of your competitors has made a last-minute proposal that provides better follow-up service.  So you go into offense, assuring the client that you’ll provide the same service, as well.  Good.  But then you add that you feel “obligated” to mention stories you have “heard” about problems your competitor has had with its service department.  You “confide” with the client that the word on the street is that the competing company may not be around much longer.  You have no real basis for your claims.  Your deception is shepherd-less.

You’re filling out the application for your first-choice college or revising your resume for your dream job.  Obviously you want to present yourself in the best possible light — but you overstate your experience “a little,” take “a bit” more credit for achievements than you’re entitled to, “pad” your credentials “just a smidge.”  You gotta sell yourself, you rationalize.  And nobody’s going to check.  And everybody does it.  Even though you don’t see it as lying, it is lying.  And worse — it’s shepherd-less.

In too many spheres of our lives, we have accepted misconduct, cheating and lying as the norm, as the “cost of doing business.”  We are the “shepherd-less” for whom Jesus’ heart breaks.  In his Christ, God has raised up for us a shepherd to guide us in our search, not for the empty riches of consumerism, but for the priceless treasures of compassion and reconciliation; a shepherd to help us negotiate life’s rough crags and dangerous drop-offs to make our way to God’s eternal pasture of peace and fulfillment; a shepherd who journeys with us and helps us to clear the obstacles and hurdles of fear and self-interest in order to live lives centered in what is right and just.  

17th Sunday of the Year / Ninth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 12B]

. . . Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those reclining, and also as much fish as they wanted.
John 6: 1-15

The holiness of table

If a home has a center, it’s the table.  As families, we gather every day at a table, be it a beautifully crafted table in a reserved room of the house, a granite countertop on one side of an island in the kitchen, a folding table in the backyard for those summer nights when we grill.

But tables are never just about food.  At our tables we experience the goodness of creation in the bounty of the harvest blessed and shared.  At our tables we encounter a staggering history of needs felt, met or denied; of stammered confessions; of hands groping for the last crust of bread; of glasses glowing, lifted and clinked in joy and determination; of accusations and reprieves. 

Tables are the places where we learn who we are, where we are loved and welcomed no matter what.  At our family table we sit neither at the last place nor the first place but at our place — and learn over time that we are not the center of the table but make up its heart.  The holiness of new loves, of life’s milestone celebrations, of consolation at times of loss and pain is found at our tables, where God is the unseen but always present Guest.

[Suggested by Eucharist as Sacrament of Initiation by Nathan D. Mitchell.]

In the miracle of the loaves and fish, Jesus transforms a crowd of all ages, talents, abilities and backgrounds into a community of generosity.  That vision of being a Eucharistic community is re-created each time we gather at this parish table and at our own family tables.  That is the challenge of the Gospel and the mandate of the Eucharist that is foreshadowed in this miracle story: to take up the hard work of reconciliation and compassion begun by God, who dwells in our midst; to bring the peace of God’s dwelling place humbly and lovingly into our own homes; to become the body and blood of Jesus that we receive at his table where all — saints and sinners — are welcomed.    

18th Sunday of the Year B / 11th Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 13B]

“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and who ever believes in me will never thirst.”
John 6: 24-35

Missing the sign

Sometimes something good happens to us — and we don’t care why or how.  Why ruin our good fortune by over-thinking it?  Chill — it was meant to be.

We get a good deal — but we never stop to consider who’s paying for it.  All we care about is whether we got a beautiful shirt or a fashionable dress or a pair of great jeans at a bargain.  We don’t make the connection between what we saved and the subsistence wages paid to the poor factory worker who made it.

We avoid a difficult situation and are relieved we don’t have to deal with it — but we ignore the fact that someone else will have to pick up the pieces or clean up the mess.  We move on, happy that the problem will be dealt with for now — and, better still, by someone else. 

In other words, we fill ourselves with the “loaves,” but we totally miss the “sign.”

In today’s reading from John’s Gospel, Jesus has just fed the five thousand with a few pieces of fish and scraps of bread.  The next day the crowds are looking for Jesus because they want more such “signs,” but Jesus tries to explain to them that the signs themselves are not the point — the point is the compassion and mercy of God revealed in those signs.  Jesus feeds the five thousand not to show that he can do it but to bring to light the compassion and mercy of God that are at the heart of the sign.  That’s the work of God, Jesus says: to embrace the spirit of God’s forgiveness, love and justice — the “signs” of God in our midst that enables us to work similar wonders. 

19th Sunday of the Year B / 12th Sunday after Pentecost  [Proper 14B]

“Stop murmuring among yourselves.  No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him up on the last day . . . Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me . . .
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
John 6: 41-51

Don’t expect a thank-you card just yet . . .

In her new book Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving, Diane Butler Bass recalls her first college teaching job.  It was not a happy experience.  Her credentials were strong but the college — a small, Christian School in California — turned out to be a poor match of her talents with the school’s expectations.  After four years at the school, she was let go.  The president of the school told her, “Your work is wonderful.  You are an excellent teacher.  But you just don’t fit in here.”  He looked at her and added, “One day you will thank me for this.”

“Thank him?” Bass writes.  “I wanted to throttle him.  In less than two months, I would be without a job and a paycheck, with few prospects for the work in a weak academic job market.  Being grateful to the person who put me in this position was the last thing on my mind.”

A week later, Bass was telling a friend of the exchange at that final meeting:  “Can you imagine the nerve of him?  That one day I will thank him?  What kind of nonsense is that?”

She expected her friend to rush to her defense.  Instead, he leaned back in his chair and said, “You know, he’s right.”

What?

“Years ago,” he continued, “I lost a job.  It was painful, and I was angry.  It didn’t seem a favor. 
But, eventually, it was the event that made me understand that I was an alcoholic.  And that led me to get sober.  Eventually, I understood that it was what I needed for my life to change.  Not that it was easy.”

But “I’m not an alcoholic,” Bass shot back.  “That’s not the problem here.”

“I get that,” he said.  “But we all need to look at ourselves more honestly.  To figure out who we are and where we are really heading.  To correct course.  Sometimes that only happens in circumstances like this.  One day, I bet you will thank him.”

“Did you?  Thank the guy that fired you?”

“Yes,” he replied. “I did.  But not at first.  Mostly I wanted to throw him off a cliff.  And yes.  I did thank him.  Years later.  After I learned gratitude.”

The challenge facing Prof. Bass, as well as Jesus’ listeners in today’s Gospel, is to move beyond “murmuring” about the rejections and disasters that have struck us in order to stop to listen and see the presence of God in what has happened.  Eventually, it leads us from the “murmuring” of anger and despair to the “manna” of awareness and gratitude for the joy and meaning of life in God.  The late Maya Angelou said: “If you must look back, do so forgivingly.  If you must look forward, do so prayerfully.  However, the wisest thing you can do is be present in the present . . . gratefully.”   

Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
Luke 1: 39-56

Visitations

Every Monday morning for 16 weeks they leave their house before dawn for their 8 A.M. appointment at the hospital.  For the four hours that her 12-year-old daughter undergoes chemotherapy, Mom will be right there.  During their time together, they will read, play games, watch videos, talk.  Their Monday mornings are anxious times – but precious.  For this mother and daughter, the Spirit of Mary’s Child is with them.

Every Tuesday afternoon, after a full day of her own classes, Kristen, a high school senior, heads to the community center.  For two hours, she tutors kids from city grammar schools in the mysteries of math and the secrets of English grammar and vocabulary.  In her patient explanations and words of encouragement, the Spirit of God is revealed.

It is the first time the brothers have spoken in years.  They’ve been estranged over a family matter, the details of which are long forgotten but the hurt and mistrust linger.  But for the good of the family, they seek to repair their broken relationship.  In every awkward moment, in every attempt to move on, in every admission of hurt and anger between the two brothers, God is re-born.

In Mary and Elizabeth’s visit and in our own similar “visitations,” the Spirit of God is present in the healing, comfort and support we can extend to one another in such moments.  In the stirring of the infant in Elizabeth's womb, God calls to humanity in every time and place:  I am with you every step of the way.  I am with you in every storm.  I am with you when the night seems unending.  In Mary’s Child, the inexplicable love of God becomes real to us, the peace and justice of God become possible.  Mary of Nazareth, the “first disciple” of her son, is a model for all of us of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus: as she welcomed the Christ child, we are called to welcome the Christ of compassion and peace into our midst; as she journeyed to be with her cousin Elizabeth, may our own “visitations” reveal the love of God in our midst; as she traveled to be with her son to Jerusalem, we are called to journey with him and take up our crosses; as she held the broken body of her son, we are called to hold and support and heal one another despite our own brokenness and pain.  Today we celebrate the fulfillment of the Easter promise in Mary’s life.  May we take up her song of faith and hope; may we make our homes dwelling places for God’s Christ; may Mary’s persevering love and care inspire us to be mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers to one another, so that her Son’s promise of resurrection may one day be fulfilled in our lives, as well.

20th Sunday of the Year B / 13th Sunday after Pentecost  [Proper 15B]

“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
John 6: 51-58

Something to talk about . . .

As two people newly in love, they talked and talked.  They talked about their childhoods, about school, about their jobs.  They talked about their favorite foods, their favorite movies, their favorite songs.  Before long, they were talking about their dreams, their fears, their happiest times, their most embarrassing moments.  They talked about the places they would like to visit and the goals they would like to realize.  And they talked about one another: what they admired about each other, what made the other such a joy to be with, how they were falling in love.

Then they talked about their wedding.  They talked about their new house.  They talked about furnishings and landscaping and cars.  They talked about money.

And they talked about kids.

Seven years into their marriage, they stopped talking.  After a day of work, of getting the kids to school and the doctor’s and their games, of putting dinner on the table, of the machinations of getting to sleep and ready for the next day, they would sit side by side in bed with their laptops.  They were not sleeping; they were not talking.  They were so close physically and yet so far apart.

They still talked, but a different kind of talk.  They talked about their children: what they wanted for lunch, who would pick them up, the plans for the weekend.  They talked about bills and laundry and meals.

They realized that they were too tired to really “talk.”

So they decided to ship the kids to the grandparents for a weekend, lock their phones in the glove compartment, and return to the kind of place where they first really talked: on a mountain in the woods.  They hiked and breathed.  They listened to the beautiful silence of nature.  They stopped to watch the birds glide through the sunset.

And before long they were talking again.  They told each other stories they had forgotten to tell each other, funny exchanges at work.  They bantered and flirted.  And they reminisced, too, about their early days, an entirely new kind of talking that comes from having known someone for a long time.

Now several times a year they leave the children for a day or weekend and go off and hike.  And talk.  And fall in love again.

[Suggested by the essay “How the ‘Dining Dead’ Got Talking Again” by Molly Pascal, The New York Times, June 24, 2016.]

This couple, like so many married couples, get so caught up with demands of parenthood and career that even simple conversation becomes a rarity.  But, when the “bread” that is Jesus’ compassion and the “wine” that is his generosity sustains us, we constantly rediscover the presence of God in our midst in the love of family and friends — love that keeps us “talking,” often in ways more powerful and affecting than mere words.  Jesus’ words about his “flesh” and blood as “real food” challenge us to consider what sustains us as human beings, as loving parents and sons and daughters and brothers and sisters, as children of God, as brothers and sisters of all with whom we share this good earth.  To possess the life of God is to be open to and make possible moments of grace: moments when we become especially aware of the great love of God in our lives.  God’s grace is manifested in so many ways: in prayer and sacrament, especially the Eucharist; in the many gifts of creation, from the food that sustains us to the light of the sun that warms us; in the kindness and love of those who are the very love of God in our lives; in acts of generosity and forgiveness, though small and unheralded, that embrace us in God’s peace.  

21st Sunday of the Year B / 14th Sunday after Pentecost  [Proper 16B]

Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”
Simon Peter answered Jesus, “Master, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.”
John 6: 60-69

Walking the labyrinth

A group of pilgrims were visiting Chartres Cathedral and its great labyrinth: the circular walkway outlined on the church floor that pilgrims and penitents have prayerfully “walked” for centuries. 

An older man and woman stood near the entrance watching visitors slowly and walk the labyrinth.  Then the woman took off her shoes and handed them, with her purse, to her husband.  As he watched, she began to walk the intricate path.  She cried as she walked; he cried watching her.  When they pulled themselves together, they explained to a concerned onlooker that they had come to Chartres to celebrate the end of the woman’s treatment from breast cancer.  They had never heard of a labyrinth before they walked into the cathedral that day.  She could not explain why she was drawn to walk it, but when she did her husband decided to hold down the center, giving thanks for her life while she made her way out of the labyrinth.

“I began to feel at peace with my body again after being very angry that it had let me down,” the woman explained.  As she walked, she found herself remembering all the people who had walked with her through her surgery and treatment. 
“I now know why we came.”

[From An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor.]

After all the fear and pain and anguish this couple experienced, they re-discover, as they walk the labyrinth, that God is the ultimate source of everything that is good and that that good will, eventually, rise up over evil and sin and death.  Despite our own doubts, fears and misgivings, we know in the depth of our hearts that, in the end, the words of Jesus will prevail.  Though God seems absent in times of pain, change and despair, we trust that we can rediscover God in acts of love, support and healing extended to us by others.  Peter’s conviction in God’s mercy and compassion resonates with all of us who have experienced, in times of crisis and catastrophe, that compassion in the love and support of family and friends.  Let Jesus’ “words of eternal life” be the light that illuminates our own daily “labyrinth” walk; may they be the wisdom that guides us on our journey — sometimes lonely and dangerous — to the dwelling place of God.