Year of Faith Resources (more!)

I just got back from the second session of a monthly downtown Scripture program organized by Chicago attorney Linda Weaver. (The first session was so successful that Linda got a grateful phone call from the Cardinal!) This evening's program was on the Gospel of Mark, with a presentation by the most enthusiastic Scripture scholar you ever will meet, Father James McIlhone. I filled my handout sheet with notes in all the blank space and even in between the lines of type on the page.

If you're in the Chicago area, it behooves you to schedule in a monthly trip to the Loop for this ongoing series that combines networking, nibbles and solid food for reflection. All the more since the December 11 presenter (on the Gospel of Matthew) will be Father Donald Senior,  a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission. As the date gets closer, you'll find the details and registration info here. (I was delighted to learn that one of the people who attended this evening learned about it from my radio broadcast on Friday!)

If you can't make it to Chicago, you can still follow an online program by Father McIlhone; in fact, you can follow more than one. I suggest his current series, "The Biblical Roots of the Mass," which just started in October. (It is the Archdiocesan "Year of Sunday Mass," which when you think about it, is another way of saying "Year of Faith.") Once you catch up on the first talks, you can just keep up as the nine-part series continues.  (He also offers a program on the Gospel of Luke and one on the Gospel of Mark--of which we got the tantalizing one-hour summary this evening.)

What other helpful online adult faith resources have you found worth recommending?

Teachable moments

A cheerful woman came in our book center the other day, looking for the Spanish-language hymnal, "Flor y Canto." She didn't want the complete version (with the musical notation): "For a second language person like me, it's very hard to follow the lyrics that way." Although we couldn't provide her with a fresh copy of the hymnal (all we had was the singer's edition, with those confounding notes!), I gave her some hints on reattaching the hard cover to the now-paperback book.
Turns out that this woman, whose background is a typical Chicago Czech and Polish, saw the new, Spanish speaking arrivals in her neighborhood as bringing her an opportunity for enrichment. When the local grocery store put up bi-lingual shelf signs, she set herself to learn a new language. Milk: leche; oranges: naranjas; bread: pan.
Then she took it another step. "I figured that when my parents' and grandparents' generation came to Chicago from Poland and Bohemia, they learned English through the Church. So when my parish started having Mass in Spanish, I figured I could learn Spanish through the Church." She's been going to the Spanish Mass for so long, her hymnal fell out of its binding from overuse!
Blessed Alberione used to talk a lot about a virtue he called "studiosita." The Dominicans call it by its Latin name, "studiositas." Even if he took the name from the Order of Preachers, Alberione didn't really follow the Dominican definition to the letter. For him "studiosita" was the commitment to "learn from everything." That's what impressed me about our visitor this week. She could have taken any number of attitudes about the changes in her neighborhood. She chose the approach of "studiosita": as she said when she turned toward the door, "You never stop learning. You can always learn something new."