Celebration of Sacred Scripture - All Are Welcome!

Sunday, April 6, 2014

12:30-4:30 pm (Noon Registration)

 Look for our brochure in your mailbox this week.

Our presenter, Dr. John Clabeaux, has been leading Bible studies online at CatholicTV.com for many

Dr. John Clabeaux

years. He is an accomplished scholar dedicated to bringing God's Word to everyday folks. He will lead us through a thorough description of how God comes to us in the Bible, a tricky topic that is indispensable for Christian faith today.

The public is welcome and invited. Bring a friend! Donation requested. Inspired by the upcoming 50th Anniversary of the Vatican II document Dei Verbum.

Advance registration required. To download a registration form click on this link: www.orehartford.org/2014/2014CSS.pdf

For more information contact Jill Costa or BJ Daly Horell in the Office of Religious Education and Evangelization (860-242-5573, ext. 2670 or catholic.biblical.school@aohct.org.

CBS 200 and 400 students (Years 2, 3 and 4) are required to attend and must submit a completed registration form!

The Power of Prayer

Dear friends,

We as Christians are committed to hold one another in prayer. We begin every Biblical School class with prayer, and part of our program of biblical education asks us to pray with God's Word in Scripture.

I take this to heart, praying for our community of faith in the Biblical School every day. I hope you also pray for one another, for your teachers, and for the OREE staff who supports us in our studies.

I've just learned that one of our students, Stephen Ward, Class of 2015, has been in Intensive Care since Monday. Please keep him, his wife Linda (also Class of 2015), and their family in prayer. Thank you, on behalf of the Ward family, for your prayers. Get well soon, Steve.

Many other Biblical School students may be in need of prayer. Remember always to pray for one another and to ask for prayers when you need.

Grace and peace, BJ

Is "Evangelizing Youth" Just for Youth Ministers and Parents?

... NOT ON YOUR LIFE!

Research shows that the involvement of youth and young adults in faith communities correlates directly with their connections to adults in faith communities.* This makes it the responsibility of every baptized Catholic to weave intergenerational webs of community relationships in their parishes.

Did you know that our youth are most likely to drift away from their faith if adults in their communities do not know them by name?

How many young people in your parish do you know by name? How many young people know your name?

I have called you by name, you are mine. (NRSV Is 43:1)

Register by January 31 to get huge discounts on the registration fee for the joint CBS and Youth Ministry program, "Evangelizing Youth." Click here for more details.

*Sticky Faith research from Fuller Seminary's Youth Institute.The first research study to point this out was in Merton Strommen's Five Cries of Youth from 1974 when he described the Cry of the Joyous - young people of vibrant faith who talked about being known by name by at least 5 adults in their church. 

Weekly Bible Study - 1 Corinthians 1:10-17

26 January 2014
3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time  

A charismatic cast of characters takes the stage in today’s second reading. Apollos is a captivating orator who appeals to the “intellectual types" of Corinth. Peter (Cephas) brings a compelling message of salvation to prospective Jewish converts. Paul wins the hearts of multitudes of Gentile believers. First century audiences are mesmerized by the giftedness of their respective preachers. But today's reading shows that too-human rivalries and divisions explode into a kind of competition among the followers of different early Christian teachers.

In Paul’s mind this begs the question: Whose message is it anyway? That of Apollos, Paul or Peter? Isn't it all about Christ?

Paul sets the Corinthians straight when he says: “I belong to Christ” and so do you! Don't confuse the messengers with the message! It is not human eloquence that touches our minds and wins our hearts. It is the message of the cross of Jesus Christ.

Our own liturgical celebrations can certainly be enhanced by the beauty of the sacred environment, uplifting music and dynamic homilists. But sometimes we need to step back and ask ourselves: Whose message is it anyway?

Essentially it is not about the trappings that surround the celebration. It is about the mystery itself. It is Christ's presence with us now and for all time that saves us and uplifts our spirits.

And when we leave our Eucharistic celebration we take with us not so much echoes of the exquisite harmonies or the funny stories injected into the homily. Such echoes do help us understand and embrace the central reality of our salvation through Jesus. But what nourishes and sustains our faith is Christ present in Word and Sacrament. We take with us the realization that together we are one in Christ, we belong to Him and we have today, once again, witnessed our salvation.

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.

CBS Grads and Friends Event in March

Biblical School students and grads know that living the Word of God means evangelizing. If we have in truth engaged Christ in Scripture, we have not the power to keep it to ourselves! Year after year, CBS grads feel this powerful need within them, but they are not always sure how they, themselves, can go about evangelizing.

So the Catholic Biblical School is committed to providing opportunities for our students and grads (and others too!) to find our feet on the path of witnessing to Christ's Word.

With this in mind urge you to attend what could be a life-changing workshop for anyone devoted to God's Word:

Evangelizing Youth
Engaging a New Generation of Disciples

March 21, 2014 St. Thomas Seminary, Bloomfield, CT
OR March 22, 2014 Holy Angels, Meriden, CT
9:00am – 3:00pm (registration begins at 8:30am)

There is a charge for this event. The earlier you sign up, the less you pay!

This one-day workshop is designed for all those who share their faith with--or who may be looking to share faith with--youth and their families.

Witnessing to God's Word is not a luxury. It is part and parcel of living our Christian baptism.

Click here to get more information and to register. Or contact BJ or Shawnee Baldwin in the OREE to find out more (shawnee.baldwin@aohct; 860-242-7753).

Living and Leading in God's Word - Connie Oligino, Class of 2013

"The Secret Messiah" a study in the Gospel of Mark. Don't you want to know more? You can, this Lent at at St. Thomas Becket Church in Cheshire.

Compelling titles are just the beginning, as we learn and grow in God's Word. Connie Oligino has begun creating her own Bible courses, drawn from skills and understanding she takes from her four years in the Catholic Biblical School.

She tells us that her Advent Bible study, "Messianic Promise," "came together nicely." Now she is planning two new programs. "This coming Lent beginning on March 14, I am presenting a study on the Gospel of Mark.... Beginning May 2, I am presenting ... a study on the first letter of Peter."

St. Thomas Becket, Cheshire

Registration is required so those interested should contact the Saint Thomas Becket Church of Cheshire office for the time, location, and additional dates for these programs. (Telephone: 203-272-3324; Email: stboffice1@cox.net)

"In the fall during October," Oligino says, "I hope to present a study on the Book of Esther and the tales in Daniel called 'Is God Hidden in Our Lives?'"

Devotion to God’s Word is contagious! Catch it now, and spread it in your faith community.

CBS Cancellations: Tueday Evening and Wednesday Morning

Tuesday, January 21, 2014: ALL CBS evening classes are cancelled tonight, due to the snow event that's begun and expected to continue through the morning tomorrow.

Class on Wednesday morning, January 22, 2014 (CBS 200 with Dr. Gray, only) is also cancelled at this time.

All students whose classes have been cancelled this week will be expected to prepare homework assignments for BOTH the lesson that is due this week AND the lesson due next week, to be handed in at next week's class (God willing!).

Students may, of course, visit a section of your class (CBS 100, 200 or 400) in another location, if you wish and weather permits later in the week. A schedule of classes can be found at www.orehartford.org. Be sure to ask the teacher of the class you're visiting to sign and date your homework, then turn it in to your home teacher when you return to your regular class.

If you have questions, please contact the Office of Religious Education and Evangelization at (860) 242-5573 extension 2670, or contact your instructors directly.

Stay safe and warm tonight!

Weekly Bible Study - John 1:29-34

19 January 2014
2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Breathtaking tapestries representing the communion of saints adorn the walls of Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral in Los Angeles. Numbering 135 in all, these magnificent oversized figures face forward in a reverent silent gaze upon the altar.

The tapestry that depicts Christ’s baptism is deeply moving and engaging. Located in the lower level baptistry, this rendering is forty-seven feet high and seven feet wide. It is overwhelming in size, but even more overwhelming in its impact on the observer. One is drawn deeply into the figure of Jesus kneeling in humble submission to the will of the Father. A simple dove hovers above the hidden face of our Savior. Words escape the beholder of this artistic rendering. For one is standing in the presence of divine mystery.

Today’s Gospel from the Evangelist John offers us not the detail of the Baptism of the Lord that we heard last Sunday, but the theological truth it reveals. John the Baptist has seen and testified that Jesus is the Son of God.

John the Baptist stood in the presence of divine mystery as he beheld the Lamb of God.

Today we invite you simply to gaze into the sublime mystery revealed in today's gospel. Let us allow our hearts to be immersed in the divine truths as we listen to the gospel: God's Incarnate Word humbly begins his mission to bring salvation to the world. And the world is forever changed.

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.

'Most Ancient' Inscription Describes Lousy Wine

Times of Israel: "An ancient eight-letter inscription — dating back to King Solomon’s reign in Jerusalem some 3,000 years ago — was deciphered by" Professor Gershon Galil, "shedding light on the Solomonic kingdom’s impressively sophisticated administrative system.... It is considered the most ancient Hebrew engraving to emerge from the archaeological digs in Jerusalem to date....

"Galil estimated that the carving was written in the middle of the tenth century BCE [aka BC], after King Solomon built the First Temple, his palaces, and the surrounding walls.... These tremendous infrastructural projects contributed, Galil said, to the sudden need for copious quantities of poor-quality wine.

“This wine was not served on the table of King Solomon nor in the Temple,” Galil wrote. “Rather it was probably used by the many forced laborers in the building projects and the soldiers that guarded them.

"Beyond that, Galil emphasized..., 'The ability to write and store the wine in a large vessel designated for this purpose, while noting the type of wine, the date it was received, and the place it was sent from, attests to the existence of an organized administration that collected taxes, recruited laborers, brought them to Jerusalem, and took care to give them food and water.

“'Scribes that could write administrative texts could also write literary and historiographic texts, and this has very important implications for the study of the Bible and understanding the history of Israel in the biblical period.'”

By Marissa Newman, December 31, 2013
Read more: Decoded: Jerusalem's oldest Hebrew engraving refers to lousy wine | The Times of Israel

Weekly Bible Study - Isaiah 42:1-7

12 January 14
The Baptism of the Lord

The Baptism of Jesus is a glorious occasion. Crowds witness unexpectedly the manifestation of God.

It is a moment of powerful awareness of the divine. In the midst of these bleak winter days the sacred liturgy gives us joyous reminders of God’s made manifest in the world. But there is also an overshadowing, an ominous feeling that suffering, too, is present as part of the divine mystery. We see this theme unfold in today’s reading from Second Isaiah (chapters 40-55), chapters that include one of four oracles that speak of a "Suffering Servant."

Scripture scholars continue to ponder the identity of the Suffering Servant. Was the author of this part of Isaiah, probably a sixth century disciple of the eighth century prophet named Isaiah, speaking about his own spiritual suffering (or that of his mentor)?  The Book of Isaiah describes the anguish of the prophets as they considered the great abyss between God’s holiness and humanity’s sinfulness.  Or was Second Isaiah speaking about the suffering of Judah, God's "chosen" people? Surrounded by powerful enemies, the spiritual center, Jerusalem, was destroyed and its people cast into the darkness of exile. Or was he speaking of some future time encompassing every age of a suffering humanity? We hear daily the cries of the oppressed scattered throughout our broken world.

The mission of the Suffering Servant points to the identity of Jesus, the one with whom God is "well pleased." Here is the one who comes for the weak and despairing (perhaps symbolized by the “bruised reed" and the "smoldering wick.”). He will come for the “coastlands,” for Jews and Gentiles alike, for us and future generations. He will come gently, not as one who dominates. His mission will bring sight to the blind, freedom to the captive and light to those in darkness. He will bring comfort and hope to a broken people. He will come for us, and he will suffer as one of us.

The Suffering Servant will please God in the fulfillment of the divine will.  And in him we will find our hope and our salvation.

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.

America Magazine's Series, The Living Word

 

Grounding the "new evangelization" in the Word of God just makes sense. That's why I'm delighted to learn of a new major project that aims to help our faith communities understand the Bible.

America magazine announces a two-year, multi-platform project in collaboration with the American Bible Society aimed at promoting deeper engagement with the Bible.

According to America's editors, this series of articles celebrates the fiftieth anniversary (in 2015) of "Dei Verbum" [the Vatican Document, "The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation]. The series will be "organized around five themes drawn from 'Dei Verbum': Conversion through Scripture; Praying with Scripture; Worshipping with Scripture; The Aesthetics of Scripture; and The Theology of Scripture."

Dianne Bergant (2012 speaker for our annual Celebration of Sacred Scripture) contributes the first article, "The Bible Reborn: Rediscovering the Riches of Scripture" which appears in the January 20-27 issue of America. You can read the article--and access complementary articles and tools--online by clicking here: http://www.americamagazine.org/issue/bible-reborn.

I recommend this article for Bible lovers of all kinds, and particularly for anyone considering enrolling in the Biblical School in 2014.

A Post-Christmas Reflection as We Move into "Ordinary Time"

"The Work of Christmas" by Howard Thurman

When the song of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and the princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flock,

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,

To heal the broken,

To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among [sisters and] brothers,

To make music in the heart.

IMPORTANT NOTICE on Class Notifications

All CBS students are reminded that it is their personal responsibility to check the STS Registrar system each week before class to get any notifications relating to their classes. Whether or not you think the weather is doubtful, you should ALWAYS check the notices each week.

You may get an email from your teacher if class is cancelled, but that particular system is slow to operate. Sometimes students don't receive those emails in a timely manner, even though the email messages are sent hours before class is scheduled.

So please keep this link attached to your web browser as a bookmark, so you can click on it and sign in (with your individual password) to easily check each week whether there are notifications affecting your class: http://www.stsregistrar.org/cgi-bin/CBS/cbsstudentlogin.pl

For password instructions, click here: http://bjdhorehartford.blogspot.com/2013/10/reminder-weather-related-cancellation.html

Remember: We have 150 students and 12 classes to manage. We cannot call each of you individually to alert you to class cancellations! Thank you for your understanding.

If you do not have access to the internet, you will need to call into the Office of Religious Education and Evangelization between 8:30 and 4:30 to get any notifications.  That number has changed to: 860-242-5573. Ask for Extension 2670.

Thank you all most sincerely for your cooperation in becoming familiar with this notification system.

CBS Classes Cancelled Monday Night 1/6/14

Update for Monday, January 6, 2014: due to the slippery road conditions expected this evening, ALL CBS Classes are cancelled tonight, . All students will be expected to prepare homework assignments for BOTH Lesson 2.4 and 2.5, to be handed in at next week's class.

Classes on Monday, January 13, 2014 will be extended to three hours in length to allow teachers to make up for the missed content. Here is the schedule:

CBS 100 (Year One) West Hartford (Fr. Tiano): Monday evening, January 13, 2014, 6:00-9:00 pm (note the time change)

CBS 400 (Advanced Year) Bloomfield (Ms. Pucci): Monday evening, January 13, 2014, 6:00-9:00 pm (note the time change)

If you have questions, please contact the Office of Religious Education and Evangelization at (860) 243-9465, or contact your instructors directly.

Happy New Year, and stay safe and warm tonight!

Walter Brueggemann on the Prophetic Imagination

Reprinted from CL Weekly for Monday, December 23, 2013:

Just before Christmas, the radio show On Being with Krista Tippett featured an interview with Walter Brueggemann who says that prophetic imaginations are poetic imaginations whom "you cannot silence."

But how do these prophets' metaphors transform this chaotic moment of history? Krista talks with him about the prophets who both anchor the Hebrew Bible and have transcended it in many places across history — a figure like Isaiah, whose words also echo throughout the New Testament as it's read at Christmastime — and how they're just as essential in our own chaotic times:

"What the church does with its creeds and its doctrinal tradition, it flattens out all the images and metaphors to make it fit into a nice little formulation and then it's deathly. So we have to communicate to people, if you want a God that is healthier than that, you're going to have to take time to sit with these images and relish them and let them become a part of your prayer life and your vocabulary and your conceptual frame.

Which, again, is why the poetry is so important because the poetry just keeps opening and opening and opening whereas the doctrinal practice of the church is always to close and close and close until you’re left with nothing that has any transformative power."

To listen to the entire interview, click here.

Weekly Bible Study - Isaiah 60:1-6

5 January 2013     
Epiphany of the Lord

We are the exiled people rising up in splendor in today’s reading from Isaiah. Joy is renewed in us because God is with us (Hebrew "Emmanuel").  The darkness of our sin and hostility is overcome by the light of God's glory. The Lord is born not only in history but today, in our hearts. We bask in a kind of “afterglow” of the Christmas experience. And Isaiah paints an illuminating and glorious picture.

But are we a radiant people? The very word “radiance” suggests more than reflected light. We often speak of a radiant bride, whose love is captured in the very words of Isaiah as he describes the heart that throbs and overflows. We also speak of the radiant woman with child whose new life pulsates within her. This unborn life gives new meaning to the parents' existence and has the power to fill us with hope and promise. As people who celebrate Christmas, do our hearts overflow with the joy of love and life reborn?

And when Isaiah proclaims that “nations shall walk by your light,” to whom is he referring? A cursory read might point us to Christ, light of the world, one of the beautiful images of the Christmas season. But in this Bible passage it is Jerusalem that is filled with light: We, as church, are Jerusalem made glorious.

So, if nations and neighborhoods are to walk by our light, what kind of radiance do they see? Do others see deep joy in our countenance? Do others experience the hope and promise our faith embodies? Our radiance must come from within, from loving hearts and joy-filled spirits.  Our radiance must be powered by that very Source of incarnational love and life, unleashed within us through Baptism. 

Epiphany: Christ is made known to the nations. This is our radiance: Christ lives in us so we can be a light in our troubled world.

How do we, as  individuals and faith communities, radiate the love of God in our world this very day?

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.