Carla Mae's Blog

Summer has come, and here in the North Temperate Zone, the summer coincides with the Green of Ordinary Time. The seed has been planted and the green shoots are springing up. So it is with our hearts. The big feasts are past…Advent and Christmas, Epiphany, Lent and Easter, Pentecost Trinity and Corpus Christi. Each of them have planted deep seeds of mysterious truths in our hearts, and now they need to grow. The scriptural texts of Ordinary Time bring the Son that is going to tease them up. Watch for this challenge of these truths in the weeks ahead. Holy Elder the Church is going to ‘water’ them Sunday by Sunday, and the Risen One will come personally as Gardener to make them grow. The Gospel verse will name them, and the middle reading will explain them. Then the first reading will show them as God planted them in the First Covenant. The Gospel will then reveal them as they grow in the New Covenant in Christ Jesus. Yes, this is how your heart-garden will grow…and its fruits wi...

We are into the second half of Ordinary Time…the time of ongoing formation for disciples. It is our yearly refresher course in the meaning of our baptism. We are becoming better disciples of the Word with each passing year. Day by day, with each Eucharist, the Risen Lord transforms us, little by little just as he transforms the bread and wine. He makes us more and more food for others and wine to delight our hearts, getting us through the tough times. So we are slowly moving toward Advent, but we have some important formation to go through yet. Notice that the structure of the Liturgy has just put us through the Bread of Life weeks…yes, the cycle of Mark was interrupted by a few weeks of again turning to John. This happens whenever that Church wants to take our formation into deep water. John’s gospel on the Bread of Life is featured. Why? Because we need to be reminded how our “change” takes place. As Godfrey Diekman, OSB said years ago: “What difference does it make that Jesus can ...

With this month of September, as if taking a clue from the glorious Feast of the Assumption, the Marian Feasts appear. September 8th, the Birthday of Mary; the 12 th , the Holy Name of Mary; the 15 th , the Sorrows of Mary; the 24 th , the ancient feast of Our Lady of Ransom. The Marian tribute flows into October with the Feast of the Rosary on October 7. Why does the Church do this? Ask this of the readings… Nestled in this Green Formation-in-DiscipleshipTime, what role does the Mother of Jesus play in the fostering of our own discipleship? In our own formation? In our own spirituality? In the life of the Church? Fear not that she will replace her Son in our lives. But don’t miss the fact that she is given to us as the model of our own formation in discipleship. We look to our mother to see what we shall be. We look to her to see how one becomes a true disciple. Yes, she was conceived without the sin of Adam. The blood her Son would shed would intercept it…the blood she gave Him...

We’ve just celebrated a significant Revival in honor of the presence of the risen Jesus in the Eucharist. The reason for this effort is a survey that revealed many Catholics are no longer believing that the consecrated host holds the real presence of the risen Jesus. They learned it when they studied their catechism, but now, as science has taken center stage on TV, how are they to explain it in conversation? What might we say to our families and friends when they ask us about this? How might this month’s readings help us with this? We might begin by saying that the mystery of the incarnation really has three steps…down. First, our wild loving God in the person of the Word, stepped down into the Virgin’s womb. The Word fused itself with our DNA…our double helix. If that is not amazing enough, he took a second step…down. The Word in the humanness of Christ Jesus chose to enter the worst level of human suffering, death by execution by your very own kin. But there is a third step. The t...

This beautiful time in glow of Easter brings us some of the greatest feasts of the Liturgical Year: the Ascension, Pentecost, and near the end of the month, The Trinity. We have learned that the Ascension is not just ‘Yay, Jesus!’ but the realization that our own humanness, our very DNA is now located in the very Heart of God. We have understood better that the coming of the Spirit into our lives can come in doses of small, medium, or large. But the Trinity?     Years ago, we learned it well: There are Three Persons in God, but there is only one God. That was it. We may have learned it, but why is it that when we are asked to explain it to a Jewish or Muslim friend, to our family, we are tongue-tied. We really don’t know what to say. Maybe it’s time for an update, for moving this most profound of Feasts from the language of doctrine to the language of meaning.  Why do we, of all the world religions, believe that there are three ‘somethings’ in God? Because Jesus told ...

On November 17, 2023, the Preaching Contact Persons from the USA Dominican Communities shared pointers they suggest make preaching events memorable…! We thought you would like to know what they said:      ·        Connect with history as appropriate; help us understand whatever is being celebrated (i.e. Translation of remains of Dominic, Triumph of the Cross). ·        Share just enough appropriate historical background. ·        Know your audience and remember that holidays are times of joy and sorrow; speak to both realities…!   ·        Know context: What is happening in the world? ·        Use a line from Scripture and repeat it appropriately for emphsis. ·        Just the right length - not too long and not too short…! ·        Never ram...

 We have experienced the shortest day of the year, and the light is growing stronger each day. Liturgically, we have just celebrated the season of lights. But as we listen to the evening news, we often feel anything but lightsome. What are we to make of this contrast? Often we sense that the Church lives in its own faith-world, while I live in the real world. But after a bit of thought, maybe what we really all live in, is the tension between light and darkness. There is a tug-of-war, and I have to decide daily what side I’m on…!  Interestingly, this is exactly what the Dominican shield captures. Whether viewed from the bottom up or the top down, the light is piercing the darkness. Maybe that is just the point: we live in the tension between light and darkness, between truth and lies, between peace and war, between the now and the not-yet.  The scriptures for this time right after Christmas assure us of one thing: the Light has come, and the darkness is not going to o...

Advent is a time of immense waiting. We wait for what we cannot yet see. It is growing…coming to be, but we wait in the darkness of unknowing. The liturgy gives us a woman during this season to teach us how to trust that something is going to emerge from the darkness. The darkness is going to give way to the light. We can learn much from Mary during this Advent time, especially because the present darkness around us is so intense. The woman is aware that her very being is shaping something, yet the design is being woven by an unseen hand. Her humanness is providing the ‘stuff,’ the DNA, the cells, the tissue, the bone, but she does not see what it is becoming. But SomeOne else has the plan. She assists the plan. She eats, sleeps, speaks, and waits. It sounds like us, the Church, doesn’t it. We so long for all the bickering to stop. We long for the corruption to end. We want the immigrants to find a home. We want the wars to cease for lack of interest. Yet all the while our longin...

November brings us into the close of the liturgical year and the end of Ordinary Time. The Church, in her wisdom, has been instructing us on how to be a disciple in light of the Paschal Mystery. Jesus’ dying and rising is ever before her eyes, and ours too. The rhythm of our lives flows from struggle and pain to joy and celebration. No one is excepted, be they believer or non-believer. The difference is that believers and disciples have a clue as to why life is that way. It was that way for the One who came to be with us and who loves us so. Our faith in him shows us how to ‘hang on.’ The ‘seat belt’ that keeps us secure in this roller coaster of life is his gift of Easter peace. He has us tight and safe…we need not fear, though the storm rages around us and in us. The readings explore this wild ride coming to an end. They reveal the final victory of his Kingship. He is the king who suffers with us and brings us through the storm.  Servant King, Your arms are stretched out ...

 Sometimes sung theology can be an example of Kerygmatic preaching. This earliest form of preaching, before theology was developed, was centered on a relationship with Christ Jesus, the Incarnate Word, as the core of Christian identity: In Christ alone my hope is found, He is my light, my strength, my song; This Cornerstone, this solid Ground, Firm through the fiercest drought and storm. What heights of love, what depths of peace, When fears are stilled, when strivings cease! My Comforter, my All in All, Here in the love of Christ I stand. In Christ alone! – who took on flesh, Fullness of God in helpless babe. This gift of love and righteousness, Scorned by the ones He came to save: Till on that cross as Jesus died, The wrath of God was satisfied -   For every sin on Him was laid; Here in the death of Christ I live. There in the ground His body lay, Light of the world by darkness slain: Then bursting forth in glorious day Up from the grave He rose a...

 Last month we reflected on the fact that the Liturgy is the source of our ongoing formation as disciples. This month we will focus on the very heart of the Gospel, what is called the kerygma. What is the central truth that is at the core of our lives as people of the Word? Pope Francis describes the kerygma in this way: “Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you.” ( The Joy of the Gospel, 164). For many Christians, this is just something about Jesus. They have been catechized, but they have not really been evangelized. To be evangelized is to have a personal relationship with Jesus. It is a form of friendship. This is when we become a disciple. We follow him and he becomes our teacher. For example, on the 24 th Sunday in Ordinary Time, we learned how we need to forgive. We are presented with the God of unbelievable mercy, and are called to the same kind of bigness in our forgiving. ...

 Once we Dominicans realize our distinct approach to preaching as contemplative, incarnational, communal, and sacramental , we can zero in on what is known as Kerigmatic preaching. This is the way we fuse these elements together: We gaze in wonder at this Word-in-our-flesh, in the humanity of the entire human family, as he daily transforms us, just as he transforms the bread into his living presence. This is the kerygma. The early Christians worded it simply by saying, “Jesus is Lord.” Pope Francis describes the kerygma in this way: “Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you.” ( The Joy of the Gospel, 164) How is it that throughout our catechesis no one ever proposed these most basic truths to us? Or if they did, the truths were ‘out there’ not ‘in here’ finding a home in my deepest heart? This is the basis for a personal relationship with Christ Jesus. Kerigmatic preaching leads the l...

The liturgy has only one thing in mind…shaping us up as disciples. The Church has a ‘one track mind’…to bring her children closer and closer to her Bridegroom. So September continues the mystagogy. We are being instructed on how to deepen the relationship begun in our baptism. As we enter the first signs of autumn, we are first reminded that it’s all about choices. No, not wishful thinking…like “I wish I could lose ten pounds…” It’s about a firm act of the will. No ‘if’s’ or ‘buts.’ This is what I choose, even if I mess up now and then. I choose to follow Jesus. Then we are reminded of the greatest challenge of all…not to wound love. By the way I think, by the way I speak, by the way I’m silent. Love is that fragile little flower…not to bruise it. Then our texts remind us that this pilgrim walk is not all about ‘me.’ Growing up is all about getting out of the ‘me’ bubble, and prayer extends me to the most important ‘Other.’ Then there is this ‘flesh’ thing. Keep in mind that the...

In August, we asked a question, and offered the beginning of an answer: What is distinctive about the Dominican approach to preaching? We identified four characteristics, all of which apply to praising -proclamation, blessing - proclamation, and preaching - proclamation: ·        It flows from a contemplative gaze at the Word–made-flesh in our historic times. ·        It is incarnational rather than abstract. ·        It is communal rather than individualistic. ·        It is liturgical-sacramental rather than merely humanistic. This month, we will tease out a bit more meaning to each of these characteristics. First, we will set the pattern: Experience-the Word-Experience. From what is happening, to the Word, and back to what is happening, in light of the Word. We begin with loving wonder, with awe.   The Contemplative Gaze: We begin with a long, l...

August in Ordinary Time brings four clear points in the formation of a disciple…so we listen up…! First, during this month, our Mother-Church puts puts before us a man and a woman who show us where it is all heading: Transfiguration of our humble humanness in Jesus, and its glorification when we set eyes on God. We will shine as does the assumed Mother of God.  This is what the Word tells us. It is no abstract pie-in-the-sky.   It is God’s promise and our hope. With this before us, the other three Sundays of the month have clear pointers to keep us maturing in our baptismal discipleship identity. The second Sunday instructs us where to keep our eyes. If we take our eyes off the Word, we sink into the troubles of our time. Next, we are reminded that our mission, like that of Jesus, is two-fold: to proclaim the Word, and to heal…always and everywhere, and to anyone and everyone. Finally, we are faced with our constant tendency to sin and be selfish in Peter. We are reminde...