CONGRATULATIONS CBS CLASS OF 2015

Thanks to Georgieanna Roy's good friend and photographer, we have a lovely collection of graduation photographs. I've included the best of them on the page "Graduation 2015 - Photos." Click on the link in the right-hand column, just below the Blog Archive. (You'll probably have to scroll down to see the link.)

May the blessings and peace of God our Father, Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit be poured out upon you all!

Back: BJ Daly Horell, Loretta Whiting, Bob Howard, Stephen Ward, Linda Ward, Barbara Kaminsky, Leslie Marconi, Maria Klimczak, Fr. Christopher Tiano; Middle: Marcia Franko, Janice Colandrea, Susan Howard, Rosemary Salerno, Dan Chouinard, Georgieanna Roy, Rosalie Puskar, Kathleen Congero, Amy Ekeh; Front: Fr. Jeremiah Murasso, Bob Cyr, Kathleen Bellemare, Janice Belfiore, Ivy Chan, Patti Cacciabaudo, Michelle McNulty.

Summer Assignments 2015

Summer assignments and textbooks are now updated online! Please click here (http://www.orehartford.org/joomla2/index.php/summer-assignments) to find the assignment for your year. Year 1, Year 2 or Advanced Year (combined Years 3 and 4).

Assignments are all due at your Opening Scripture Day, as follows:

Year One: September 12, 8:30*-3:00 

Year Two: August 29, 8:00*-2:30

Advanced Year: August 29, 8:30*-3:00

*Coffee And and Sign-In begins. Talks will begin PROMPTLY within the half hour.

Weekly Bible Study - Job 38: 1, 8-11 ▪ Mark 4: 35-41

21 June 2015
12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

For the people in ancient Israel, the sea held terror. They experienced it as a monstrous power that could threaten their very lives. At the very least, it set severe limits on their ability to control their lives. In mideastern mythology, the sea in storm symbolized chaos and disorder.

At the same time, the sea, with its teeming life, had the potential to feed them, give them life. And so in the first words of the Bible (in Genesis), it is God's spirit hovering over the waters of chaos that breeds all the living. God's creative power embraces chaos and makes of it a world of order, caring and goodness. For Israel, God's creativity establishes order in the midst of uncertainty and chaos.

 In the story of Job, Job is a bold hero, searching for answers amid the chaotic suffering of his life. He doesn't get the answers he's looking for, but in the end (in our reading) he finds that God's creation somehow requires chaos, as a kind of dance partner, so that God can be in the midst of life in abundance.

The brief passage from today’s Gospel casts a similar question in the context of a storm at sea: “Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?” These experienced seamen know well the potential danger of the violent squall. Jesus, asleep, seems to be unmoved by the storm’s intensity and the apostles’ fears. Does Jesus CARE that they are in peril? Jesus turns their question back on them, just as the LORD God turned Job's questions back on him. “Do you not yet have faith?”

What will it take for believers to trust in God, to know that God can use even the chaos to create life and order? Coming to faith will be a life-long process, for Job, for the apostles and for us.  In the midst of a storm is where we may all, in fact, find true faith and life to the full.

Br. Mickey McGrath, OFSF, At the Name of Jesus, (c) 2008

Weekly Bible Study - Ezekiel 17:22-24

14 June 201511^th Sunday in Ordinary Time  

The Scriptures weave together God's teaching through both testaments of the Bible.  In the words of Benedictine Michael Casey, the mystery of Jesus “shimmers through” many of the verses of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament).  Today’s brief reading from Ezekiel illuminates this truth.

This sixth century (BC) priest and prophet often painted his picture of a restored Jerusalem in allegorical and poetic terms. His people were in the throes of exile and could only cling to the hope of new life, renewed worship and a rebuilt temple. Ezekiel appealed to the depths of their pain-filled hearts and to the vision of restoration these hearts carried. If we listen carefully to today’s passage we can hear the deepest hopes of humankind, which find answers in the preaching of Jesus. We see glimmers of a new kingdom and the hope of a renewed people.  Like many of his fellow prophets, Ezekiel looked to the future with hope and faith; a faith which ultimately is fulfilled in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The prophet tells us in today's reading that the Lord will take a tender shoot from the topmost branches of the “crest of the cedar” (House of David). Do we not experience Jesus as the pinnacle of the line of David? Ezekiel continues this image of a shoot being planted by the Lord upon a high and lofty mountain, and elsewhere in Scripture the mountain of the Lord (Jerusalem) is envisioned as the highest mountain to which all nations would stream, in hopes of a community that worships God in truth. Ezekiel continues, noting that the tree planted upon this lofty mountain shall put forth abundant branches and fruit. Might Jesus’ reflections on the vine and branches given in the Gospel of John have sprouted from this Old Testament text? Finally, Ezekiel points out that the Lord will bring low the high tree and lift high the lowly tree. This sounds like Mary’s words in the Magnificat and reflects a favorite biblical theme, which culminates in Jesus, the “lowliest” criminal lifted high on the cross and raised from the dead?

Ezekiel, the priest-prophet, carefully crafted words that offered a vision of hope not only to a downtrodden nation in exile but to people of ages to come.

The author, Ms. Barbara Gawle, leads Bible studies at her parish, Incarnation Church of Wethersfield, CT. She is a CBS graduate and the 2012 recipient of the Biblical School's highest award, the Lawrence Boadt Memorial Medal.