Mark 3: 20-21
Jesus came with his disciples into the house and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.”
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Transformative Experiences
In my early years after college, I worked for four years in the Middle East. The whole experience was incredibly formative, transformative actually. Surprisingly, it was so much more difficult to return to the United States than going over initially. We had been prepared for a culture shock initially. But there was no similar preparation to return home. I recall giving deeply reflective answers to questions from family and friends, trying to share what, for me, was meaningful. Then their eyes would kind of glaze over and the next question was about the weather or some sports game on TV. I was confused and disappointed.
Over time, I realized that they could not possibly appreciate and understand these experiences because they were transformative interiorly. I had changed through these experiences, and they had not. This Gospel passage describes a similar sense: that Jesus’ family cannot understand or appreciate his own transformative experience and judged that he was “out of his mind.” A different Gospel passage narrates that Jesus said, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.”
I wonder whether a good sign of a deeply transformative experience is this sort of disconnect: such an experience is beyond words, beyond the ability to adequately explain. And that the real opportunity to share this with others are not the attempts to explain in words, but in the reality of one’s life: what interests you, what you talk about, what excites your imagination and hope.
—Fr. Glen Chun, SJ, a priest of the Midwest Province, is community minister of Bellarmine House of Studies in St. Louis.
Prayer
Falling in Love
Nothing is more practical than
finding God, than
falling in Love
in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination,
will affect everything.
It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read,
whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in Love,
stay in love,
and it will decide everything.
—Fr. Joseph Whelan, SJ, typically attributed to Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ
Pray with the Pope
Pray with the monthly prayer intentions of the pope.