September 2007 Meeting Notes

Guest Speaker: Jim Welter

Good Afternoon Everyone,

Thanks to all of those who made it out early (especially after a great Colts game) this morning for our Mass and meeting. We had a very nice turnout although some of us were rather blurry eyed and wouldn't you know Msgr. Schaedel was the first to notice. He had a great homily and asked if "we remembered where we were 10 years ago?" and talked about the funerals of Princess Diana and Mother Teresa and how they were both genuine and generous women. It really was a great way to start our first Friday devotion.

We were very fortunate to have local author Jim Welter with us today. Jim is the author of "When Winter Comes-Scripture Reflection for Daily Living" with the foreword written by Msgr. Schaedel and his newest book "Come Next Spring-Scripture Reflections of Promise and Hope."

Jim is the Pastoral Associate and Business Manager for St. Monica Parish and is responsible for establishing an email reflection that is sent to over 6000 people each day. Jim gave us many insightful suggestions in how to incorporate scripture into our daily lives. Some of these suggestions are:

Try to avoid:

-"Cutting the Bible" or opening the Bible and just pick the first verse you come to for meaning. He said this can lead to unintended consequences. Such as the time someone in need opened the bible and read that "Judas went and hanged himself" and then quickly read another verse that said, "do so quickly".
-"Proof Texting" or having already made up your mind in what you believe and reading your beliefs into that scripture verse.
- "Passages Out of Context", he said you can take something out of context to fit the meaning you want.

Some of the suggestions to do are:

-Personalize the readings and out "you" into the verses. Make it personal to yourself. Instead of "God so loved the world" it would read "God so loved me", or "For God so loved me that he sent his only Son that I will have everlasting life".

- Spend time reflecting on parables on the actual words of Jesus. Many parable may have embellishments by later writers such as the man who forgave his wicked servant that owed 10,000 talents when the tax for the entire country would have been less than this or one parable that talked about a man with 3 servants but a later version said the man had 10 servants.

-Listen for the question that is made to you. Such as, "In your opinion which one was the neighbor".

- Apply scripture to our daily life. Jesus said "be fruitful and multiply" and "bear fruit and become disciples". Jesus did not say "be productive". The world tells us to go forth and be productive but we are really called to be life giving to others. We should practice "Servant Leadership" or trying always to serve others just as Jesus did in the washing of his disciples feet. Who do we serve today? Is it our customers, our employees, our vendors or our families?

- We are reminded of the story of Martha and Mary in the Bible when Martha is busy preparing food for Jesus and his friends and Mary is intently listening to Jesus. When Martha complains and asks Jesus to tell Mary to help her, Jesus says, "Mary has chosen the better part"

- Jim tells of a story growing up on a farm in Northern Indiana when a "hobo" got off a slow moving train and came to their front door to ask for food. Jim's family had several mouths to feed but he remembers his Mother saying to the man, "We don't have much but we will share what we have with you". God knows our hunger and there will be enough for all of us in the end.

You can subscribe to the daily scripture reflection by going to:
http://www.stmonicaparishindy.org/