Laura Stierman - SEAS Director of Evangelization

The actor who plays Jesus in The Chosen series, Jonathan Roumie, posted a Fr. Mike Schmitz video titled, “Praying in a state of mortal sin.” As Mr. Roumie is a Catholic man on fire for his faith and takes every opportunity to evangelize, he uses his personal Facebook page to further Catholicism. The Chosen - which paints with broad theological strokes and uses a variety of colors from the Jewish, Catholic, and non-denominational palettes - also has a Facebook page with a significant following. Most folks follow both entities. Mr. Roumie and his evangelical director, Dallas Jenkins, recently met with Pope Francis and photos were shared on these two pages.

The anti-Catholic rhetoric was astoundingly vitriolic. As a disciple of Christ, Mr. Jenkins refused to take part, often responding to ludicrous accusations with a laughing emoji or simply writing, “Stop. Now.” I was shocked. Running and working in Catholic circles, I’d never heard such things, not even in the Baptist church of my youth. The Chosen social media team spent hours deleting the darkest offenders.

Here’s the thing. The Israelites of Isaiah’s time and the early followers of Jesus in Paul’s era wouldn’t be surprised, but would nod in solidarity and show us their scars. They heard the words of derision and opposition, felt the sting of betrayal and shame, and knew the welts of beatings and buffets of bitter rebuke. Yet they persisted in doing the work of faith with joy in their eyes and love in their hearts. They fed the hungry, protected the orphans and widows, and treated all with dignity regardless of social status. They did not return an eye-for-an-eye or a tooth-for-a-tooth, knowing that adage would leave the entire world blind and hungry in a never-ending circle of cause-and-effect. No. They not only kept the faith, but showed the world was faith and following Jesus really meant, regardless of the consequences. They might have lost their lives in bearing that cross, but they saved their souls in the heavenly exchange of suffering for redemption.

Oh, that we would do the same. #bebold

“What is the point of all this religion stuff, anyway? Seriously… I see a lot of people who say they went to church and believe in God, but they sure don’t act like it. I can’t tell them apart from my atheist friends, and frankly, my friends who don’t go to church are a lot kinder than the ones who do.”

I hear this in my evangelization world, and it’s hard not to agree sometimes. When folks look around at Christians, sometimes it’s… well, disappointing. I wonder what Moses and James and Jesus might see if they were sipping coffee and people-watching in downtown Hastings on a Saturday morning? Or filing papers in a front office? Or cleaning lockers in the high school? Or trolling the internet? Would they recognize us Christians?

Do we stand out in the crowd for all the right reasons? Or all of the wrong ones?

Moses is urging the Israelites to look and act different than the polytheistic religions around them because YHWH is different. James is writing to the early Christians begging them to light a path of humility, kindness, and hope for others to follow, as he wants them to look different than the rest. And Jesus. Jesus goes deep, as He is wont to do: your actions must be deeply-felt and rightly-ordered, because you can’t give what you don’t have.

Which brings us back around to the question, “What’s the point of all this religion stuff?” If your Mass persona doesn’t reflect your daily personality, then there is no point. Just stay home. Stop giving Christianity a bad name. Stop making it easy for folks to point a finger and whisper, “Hypocrite in the front row...”

Because the point of “all this religion stuff” is to create a culture and a community where virtue flourishes and love of neighbor finds a home. Where sinners and saints are oftentimes the same person, because no one is perfect you know. Where Jesus resides, not only in our hearts but in our homes. Where the only difference between Monday and Sunday is a Sonrise. #takeSundayintoMonday

It’s just like a woman to cause chaos.

In all the epic dramas of the faith, a woman is always lurking just beyond the epicenter. Eve, Sarah, and Rebekah, the matriarchs of Genesis; Miriam and Deborah, the two pivotal prophetesses; Leah, Rachel, Jael, Ruth, Naomi, Susanna, and Esther, strong women who saved and paved the way for the great Jewish leaders; Zipporah, Tamar, and the woman with eight sons martyred before her eyes. These were women who drew a line in the sand and took a stand for justice. Then we have Jephthah’s daughter, Dinah, and Jemima, innocent casualties of the faith whose names are immortalized in Scripture though their sad stories you may not know. Women like these caused a stir and were relentless for the faith.

But don’t forget the women who gave their love and lives for Jesus: Mary of Magdala, Martha and Mary, Mary the wife of Clopas, Joanna, and many other women who cared for him during his ministry; and Chloe, Claudia, and Eunice, who came to believe in the resurrection and life of the Lord and changed their ways. We also have Junia, Julia, and Lydia, businesswomen and leaders in the early church, though their roles and stories have perhaps been downplayed through the years. There are so many women like these who challenged the status quo and were unyielding for the Lord.

Mary, the Mother of God, stands beneath and before, above and alongside these women. She is in a category unto herself. Strong. Innocent. Faithful. Poised. Seasoned. Incorrupt. Timeless. She is a woman whom men hold in awe and women admire. She pays close attention to the poor, tends to the simple-minded, and the children of the world have a special place in her heart. She is an enigma shrouded in mystery, yet she touches the hearts and souls of mankind in a very real and tangible way. She has the power to alter and amend the course of history. Every move she makes in the world points to her Son. She is a woman who causes chaos in the best possible way. #belikeMary

Yeast and I are not friends. I desperately want to have a growing relationship with the leaven for wheat, but every time I reach out in friendship, my hopes are dashed. We get together over coffee, and I tell her how lovely her work in the world is, how necessary she is for the rising of the dough, and we make great plans together; dreams involving warm whole-grain bread just dripping with butter. I happily sigh and ponder God’s bounty in the Word and on the table. Alas, when the timer dings and the oven door opens, it’s more like… well, that The Ten Commandments film and those bricks that the Israelites made out of straw and water in the mud pits? Yep.

The readings this weekend are all over bread. The Israelites complain that they are starving – when they still have cattle to butcher. The crowds of Jesus’ time are looking for bread – when there’s wheat in the fields. So, what gives?

All these folks are feeling unfulfilled and disoriented, just like us sometimes. We want something other than what we have in front of us. We want something new and exciting to tempt the palate. It’s found, and we indulge. But eventually that gets old, so again we want something new and exciting… and an endless loop of longing forms.

We also find ourselves wandering through the market, looking at the many packages that claim to have Truth as the main ingredient. Even in the Catholic section, there seems to be a variety of options to choose from. It’s turning us into a confused and divided people with deceitful desires when that was never Jesus’ intent. We should be the leaven of life, the “holiness of truth,” as Paul writes. What we can say for absolute certainty is that Jesus IS the recipe for a very full and satisfying life, and that the altar bread becomes the host for His body through the mystery of the Holy Spirit. This is Truth. This is the foundation of the Mass - and the reason we come hungry each Sunday. #feedothers

We are burying my younger brother this weekend.

This sentence has sat at the top of this column, all by its lonesome, for days. I don’t know where to take it. I found it ironic that the Responsorial Psalm today is, ‘The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want,’ because I’m struggling here. You see, I still want my baby brother hanging around with his college-age daughters and being there for me when I have a tech question or need some advice. I miss his presence too. I can’t tell you how many times my remaining brother, Rick, and I painfully joke, “Where’s Ron when you need him? Just like him to abandon us when times get tough. We need the tiebreaker opinion.”

Yes, Rick and I joke about Ron, because if we didn’t laugh we’d cry. He did abandon us in a way, committing suicide last November. He was a man who thrived by living on the edge in every aspect of his life – literally riding his bike up mountainsides for fun. But each peak had to get bigger and be better. More complicated. Inherently technical. Push to the limit. You know how it goes. Life is all fun and games until… it’s not. After re-reading Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, I think my brother was looking for the kind of peace that Paul wrote about. He thought he could find it high on a mountaintop or in his own amazing accomplishments. It was always just up ahead, around the bend, or in the next big move. Yet it was elusive. I’m pretty sure we all know a lot of folks like that, who are looking for peace in all the wrong places.

There were lots of folks like that in Jesus’ time too. As Jesus steps off the boat and reads the souls of the crowd before him in today’s Gospel, he is moved with pity. He knows that they are looking for something, but what they really need is some One. One who will give them a peace that the world cannot give. #stoplookingelsewhere

For the past seven years or so, I’ve been teaching a Women’s Bible class at a couple of different parishes. My academic training is in Sacred Scripture, and I have a penchant for the Old Testament. One fall session, we were looking at the OT prophets. There’s a lovely book by Abraham Heschel simply titled, The Prophets, and it’s a gem. I never tire of reading through it and I glean some new insight every time.

Heshel is a man of deep faith who had seen a lot in his sixty-five years on this earth. As a Jewish scholar during the dark history of Germany, he lost his mother and three sisters to a variety of horrendous anti-Jewish campaigns. And yet he refused to dismiss the presence of a powerful and loving God who is intimately involved in the affairs of the world, and thus lived out a literary and personal campaign for peace and justice. His daughter writes, “My father did not tell his audience what they wanted to hear, but told them what they needed to improve.”

Today’s three readings do the same. Ezekiel reveals God’s anger to the idolatrous Israelites, while Paul reveals Jesus as the God who removes our sins to give a new and exciting life in Christ. And Jesus… well, we know Jesus as priest, prophet, and king of this world and the next. Not everyone believed Jesus, just as not everyone bought into Paul’s message or listened to Ezekiel.

And not everyone is going to listen to you and me. In our prophetic role (evangelization) given to us by virtue of our baptism, we are going to experience a few rebellious souls, a couple of thorns in the flesh, and more than our share of folks who will take offense at our attempts to share the faith and/or bring up the past to diminish our future. But if it didn’t stop Jesus, Paul, Ezekiel, and Heschel from speaking up, why should it stop us? #channelyourfavoriteevangelist

We’re at the Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time, and what do the readings reflect? Simple sermons about fig trees and mustard seeds? Sharing meals with friends and frenemies? Relaxing in the shade of olive trees? Sorry. We get storms, waves on high, and violent squalls. Is that what comes to your mind when pondering ‘ordinary time’? Those aren’t the first thoughts that come to my mind. Ordinary time is when the day-to-day tasks of life take on a simple rhythm of their own. Routines have a little more margin for error and life feels a bit more weighted with calm.

Why would the Church, in her infinite wisdom, conjure up images of thick darkness, waves breaking over boats, and perishing under the weight of distress as we enter the long gentle season of ordinary time? It’s true that having Jesus in your lifeboat brings a sense of safety to your adventure. It’s also true that Jesus has-your-back and will quiet the storms of your life. It’s even true that Jesus has the power to work miracles in his authority over nature, having been its Creator. Yes, Jesus is there in the middle of our squalls. It’s absolutely true that storms arise without warning. All are authentic pondering points of the readings today. But let’s look a bit deeper here and veer off course a bit.

The disciples sitting in the boat have been following Jesus around for a little while now. They’ve seen him heal Simon’s mother-in-law, heal a leper or two, cure a paralytic, and tell some great parable about a sower and seeds. There’s something about Jesus, but they can’t quite put their finger on it. He’s different, for sure, but they aren’t sure how different. Until the quieting of the raging sea and then saving them from imminent death. Now they are in awe. Now they get it.

Jesus is not only a preacher and a healer, he’s a Savior. He saved them from drowning, in both a literal and spiritual sense. And the course of their life is forever changed. I wonder if ours can be too. #clearingapath

My dear friend posted a Facebook photo of transplanted daisies that belonged to her mom, and memories of summers spent on her parents’ farm floated before my eyes. I spent many childhood summers on that farm under Eleanor’s care, while my mom worked two jobs to support me and my two brothers. I remember the scent of homemade apple butter, the pale look of thick potato soup, and eating eggs every which way. I learned how to get chickens from the coop to the plate, when to walk the beans, and the delicate art of peeling apples with a paring knife. I found it interesting that the first thing I thought of when I saw the daisy photo was food. When I think about it, food is the first thing that comes to mind at special events, yes? We all have something in our culinary history that makes us close our eyes and smile.

Jesus did too, I imagine. As a Jewish boy, he grew up with the scent of homemade bread, the sound of the presses turning olives into oil, and the sight of lambs led to the slaughter. And that Passover meal, full of memory and aroma: zeroah, a lamb's shankbone; beitzah, a roasted egg; haroset, a paste of fruit and nuts; mar'or, a bitter herb; and last, but not least, the unleavened bread called matzah and the four cups of wine, called arba kosot. It is here, amongst the scent of childhood and the smell of familiarity that Jesus chooses to change the meaning of bread and wine.

Because we don’t need what Jesus did as an example for us, we need who Jesus is to abide within us. We need to be sustained and nourished by the Lord himself. Yes, we are earthly creatures who need the fruit of the earth, but we also need the angel’s bread of sweetest grace, the bread and wine we hallow, the heavenly feast of living bread. It is here we receive the strength to follow the Lord wherever he leads, to be disciples of the Lord. #tasteandsee

One of the things you’ll learn about me is that, like Fr. Dave, I’m a fan of The Chosen series. I love how it blends the theological imagination of the Scriptures and the historical realities at the time of Jesus. As I’m praying my way through the readings lately, I hear the voices of the disciples in disagreement with each other, then asking the answer of the Master. Sometimes Jesus is pretty straight-forward, “Come and see.” Sometimes his answer is a question, “How many loaves do you have?” And every once in a while his silence means, “We’ll talk about that later,” and something exciting is about to happen.

This week’s Pentecost readings marks the end of Eastertide. We’ve been walking alongside Peter, James, and John, and all the other disciples who have been hanging on Jesus every word, watching miracles, healing the sick, sidestepping Sadducees and challenging Pharisees. We saw the disciples go two-by-two to teach and preach and heal on their own. We heard Jesus’ talk of vines and branches, sheep and Shepherds, narrow gates and open hearts, and how to love each other as he has loved us. We watched the unfolding of betrayal, abandonment, cruelty, and certain death. Then we heard the amazing news from Mary Magdalene, and listened incredulously to the men who recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread. He. Is. Risen! Alleluia!

So where do we find our intrepid disciples in today’s reading? Rejoicing on the streets? Shouting from the rooftops? Winning folks for the Lord? Nope. Not yet. You see, they still need something else. They need the presence and peace of the Lord, the grace of confession, and the strength of the Holy Spirit to rock their soul and challenge their world. That’s what we need too. We need the Spirit to take hold and take charge, so that we can change this world for the better, each in our own way and using our own gifts. That’s what a “Director of Evangelization” helps with.

How might that look here? Well, we can chat about that when I arrive. #adventures

Laura Stierman started as our Director of Evangelization on June 28. She brings a lot of experience from parish life and has a great zeal for evangelization. Laura will help us develop and implement an overall evangelization plan which corresponds to our mission and vision. She will be part of a team that will develop and implement the curriculum for all our adult and youth formation so that it is missionary and evangelical. Welcome to SEAS, Laura!