Faith Feeds Life Epiphanies

Having a faith conversation with old and new friends is as easy as setting the table.

FAITH FEEDS GUIDE LIFE EPIPHANIES

The C21 Center Presents

The FAITH FEEDS program is designed for individuals who are hungry for opportunities to talk about their faith with others who share it. Participants gather over coffee, a potluck lunch or dinner, and a host facilitates conversation using the C21 Center’s biannual magazine, C21 Resources

The FAITH FEEDS GUIDE offers easy, step-by-step instructions for planning a gathering. As well as materials to guide the conversation including articles and questions. It’s as simple as deciding to host the gathering wherever your community is found and then spreading the word.

All selected articles have been taken from material produced by the C21 Center, including its biannual magazine, C21 Resources.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Who should host a FAITH FEEDS?

Anyone who has a heart for facilitating conversations about faith is perfect to host a FAITH FEEDS.

Where do I host a FAITH FEEDS?

You can host a FAITH FEEDS in-person or virtually through video conference software. FAITH FEEDS conversations are meant for small groups.

What is the host’s commitment?

The host is responsible for coordinating meeting times, sending out materials and video conference links, and facilitating conversation during the FAITH FEEDS.

What is the guest’s commitment?

Guests are asked to read the articles that will be discussed and be open to faith-filled conversation.

Still have more questions? No problem! Email church21bc.edu and we’ll help you get set up.

READY TO GET STARTED?

STEP ONE

Decide to host a FAITH FEEDS. Coordinate a date, time, location, and guest list. An hour is enough time to allocate for the virtual or in-person gathering.

STEP TWO

Interested participants are asked to RSVP directly to you, the host. Once you have your list of attendees, confirm with everyone via email. That would be the appropriate time to ask in-person guests to commit to bringing a potluck dish or drink to the gathering. For virtual FAITH FEEDS, send out your video conference link.

STEP THREE

Review the selected articles from your FAITH FEEDS GUIDE and the questions that will serve as a starter for your FAITH FEEDS discussion. Hosts should send their guests a link to the guide, which can be found on bc.edu/FAITHFEEDS.

STEP FOUR

Send out a confirmation email a week before the FAITH FEEDS gathering. Hosts should arrive early for in-person or virtual set up. Begin with the Gathering Prayer found on the last page of this guide. Hosts can open the discussion by using the suggested questions. The conversation should grow organically from there. Enjoy this gathering of new friends, knowing the Lord is with YOU!

STEP FIVE

Make plans for another FAITH FEEDS. We would love to hear about your FAITH FEEDS experience. You can find contact information on the last page of this guide.

CONVERSATION STARTERS

Here are three articles to guide your FAITH FEEDS conversation. In addition to the original article, you will find a relevant quotation, summary, and suggested questions for discussion. We offer these as tools for your use, but feel free to go wherever the Holy Spirit leads. Conversations should respect and ensure confidentiality between participants.

This guide’s theme is: Life Epiphanies

LIVING THE EPIPHANY

by Karen Kiefer

The doors of the Intensive Care Unit were as heavy as the worry that hung in the air. Beyond the next set of frosted glass doors, there were individuals, including a family member, fighting for their lives. They were God’s magnificient gift.

As we begin a new year and our Church celebrates the Feast of the Epiphany, it’s a wonderful time to reflect on the gift of time. It sounds so simple, so obvious; time is a gift. Yet, because we are human, we sometimes forget to honor time. Instead, we ignore it, wrestle with it, mismanage it, and take it for granted.

Now that the busyness of the Advent season has passed and the Christmas season draws to a close, let us take more time to praise God for his magnificent gifts and to hold on to the true meaning of the epiphany. This child born in Bethlehem, Jesus Christ, is the Son of God, and what a revelation to behold.

In Matthew’s gospel, the Christ Child is revealed to the Magi, who have come from the East to adore Him. They “were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”

If we take some time, we can live the epiphany and see the significance of the gifts of the Magi in our own lives.

Our time on this earth is gold. It is so priceless. Once it passes, we can’t get time back. Yet, God gives us memories in time’s place. So what memories are you going to make with your time today? How will you spend and share your gold?

Our time is a precious and desired commodity like frankincense and myrrh. These aromatic resins were used to inspire the senses as well as comfort and heal. Time anoints us with love, comfort, struggle, growth, healing, discovery, and the chance to experience hope and joy in our daily lives. So how are you using your time to love and grow? How are you using your time to heal physically or emotionally? What will you discover today? What brings you joy? What gives you hope? How will you offer your precious time to comfort others?

Time is God’s magnificent gift.

As I walked out of the Intensive Care Unit, I knew the gifts of the Magi lived within, offering some, including my family member, the gift of more time through healing, and others the peace of Christ as they are called to rest with Him.

Karen Kiefer is the Director of the Church in the 21st Century Center at Boston College and the mother of four daughters.

Her article was originally published in C21 Engage.

Photo by Jordan Wozniak on Unsplash

LIVING THE EPIPHANY

“After the magi had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped Him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”

—Matthew 2:9–11

Summary

Karen Kiefer calls us to remember the grace of time: how every moment of life is an undeserved and tremendous gift from the Lord. Just as the magi bring gifts to God, we are reminded of the value of time and the call to use it well. How are we using this gift for the sake of healing, love, and hope?

Questions for Conversation

1. Reflect on the honor shown by the Magi to Jesus, especially their reverence and generosity. How can you express this reverence and generosity with the gifts God is giving you?

2. Have you ever had an epiphany regarding the brevity of life and the preciousness of time? How did such an epiphany inspire you to change?

3. What are the gifts that you bring in this season of life? What gifts are you receving? What gifts are you seeking at this time?

EVERYDAY EPIPHANIES: ASHES INTO PODCASTS

By Kerry Campbell

I’ve always written to process my life. I kind of know what I believe after I’ve written it. When my kids were small, I was actually going through a process of renewing my own faith and trying to discern whether what I had been taught was something I wanted to pass on to my kids. It was a real time of renewal for me.

My mother had written me a letter then—she thought I was putting a lot of pressure on myself—to say that in understanding God, the best way to do it is by understanding yourself as a parent because God is the perfect parent. Anything that you would see in your children and worry over or praise, you could also extrapolate that to a larger God who loves you and wants to be with you in every moment. So, a lot of the little things I found my kids doing, even picking up a stick and running with it or making a mess out of something that I had made, I was then thinking of it in terms of how God sees me in my own messes or in my own walk.

I was writing a lot in that time of ways that I saw God in the actions and reactions of my children. It turned into finding metaphors in everyday life: finding God in grocery store situations, at the beach in sand pails, and in many things in nature. My Little Epiphanies [Cambell’s blog] became a place to put all of those kinds of reflections and musings together of finding God in everyday life, symbols, and metaphors.

That eventually led to my podcast, Raised Catholic, but the idea actually came earlier, from the fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral. That day I wrote a poem, which I rarely do, but it just seemed to me a perfect picture of what the Church is undergoing these days. The Church is beautiful, and the Church is broken, damaged. What do we do in response to the fire that we’re experiencing in the Church?

We’re digging in the ashes, we’re finding what’s valuable and we’re looking up for light to find how to rebuild the Church in a way that is safe and helpful for people—to be a welcoming place for people who are outside of the Church to come in. This long, difficult process of restoring Notre Dame is how I see lay Catholics addressing this fire that’s in the Church and finding how we can make it into something better.

I had been thinking in terms of a lot of the Catholics that I know who were struggling in the Church, Catholics on the margins. Catholics who went to Mass a couple of times a year. A lot of them were wondering, “Is there more than what I’m hearing from some of the national discourse of Catholic leadership? Why is it that this God that I’m hearing from my pastor doesn’t sound like the Jesus that I know personally?” I’d been writing for that audience for a time and then I really felt that pull from the Holy Spirit.

In one of the podcasts I listen to, they frequently ask, “What does it sound like when God speaks to you?” I think that could be a whole book. I just think that topic is so fascinating. For me it’s not an audible voice, but it does feel like something in me that I can recognize in my heart-center that I know is the voice of God and not just myself.

When my kids were small, we had some school budget issues in town and I became a voice in the fight never having thought I’d ever stand up at a town meeting or anything like that. The podcast felt like that too, like I was meeting a moment that I was called for.

So, I was not afraid, but I also had no expectations of what it might be, what it could turn into, and I still don’t. I’d never done a podcast. It was never something I intended to do, but during COVID I was teaching far less, and that’s when I felt the pull of the Holy Spirit to start small and do what I could to make a space for those wandering or struggling Catholics— and I count myself among them. We’re all in it together.

So especially with podcasting, because I would never have chosen to do this, I’ve come to Raised Catholic very much trying to be obedient to a call from the Holy Spirit. I’m very open to any door that God would have for me to walk through, but for right now I’m trying to make quality content for people and be a curator of a community for a group of Catholics that need a place to be.

I knew [from the beginning of Raised Catholic] that what I wanted to do was just offer a small reflection, a

suggestion of how people can engage with their own relationship with God in and outside the church walls, and then to encourage people that they can own their own faith lives. It does not have to be directed by someone else—it is their responsibility and their right to cultivate this relationship on their own.

For example, my kids are now 23 and 21. They were raised in the front pew of our church because we were music ministers. So that’s where they sat from the time they could sit until the time they went to college. I see their generation engaging with faith in different ways than how I was raised. But I do see that they are wildly generous. They are justice-minded. They have strong moral centers and they reflect a relationship with God in a way that we might not expect, but which will serve the world and serve them.

I think it’s up to us as a Church to find a way to help them to hear the Gospel in a new way that’s different from what they might hear from a pastor or from a national Catholic Church leader or Church media. I think some of that has been really destructive for them, but I don’t worry about this generation. They remind me of a line from Catherine of Siena: “Be who you were meant to be and you will set the world on fire.” I see this generation doing that in ways that are different from my generation.

Even now, Raised Catholic is still very much week to week. I don’t know what the topic will be as the week begins. Usually by Wednesday or Thursday I’ll try to go out on a run and get some inspiration and then start writing. I have my hands in it a little bit every day: I’m writing some, editing, and then recording. So, it’s very imperfect, but I’m trying very much to be Spirit-led in my topics and what I’m saying.

At this time, I’m teaching more, and I have less time for the project. So finding time is a challenge, but I feel strongly about it. Until I don’t, I’ll do it. Now, it still feels like something God has for me to do.

Kerry Campbell is a Catholic writer, podcaster, preschool music teacher, and music minister. She has published over 100 episodes of Raised Catholic since it debuted in 2020.

This article is adapted from a C21 GodPods episode, published in September 2021. The full episode can be found on C21 Engage

ASHES INTO PODCASTS: EVERYDAY EPIPHANIES

“Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”

—St. Catherine of Siena

Summary

Kerry Campbell details her experiences serving others through several different ministries. Amidst the many moments of her life and the challenges of the world, Campbell describes how she has followed the Spirit in order to serve Catholics who are seeking a space to belong. In the many little, and big, moments of our life, Campbell invites us to consider how God might be encountering us in daily epiphanies.

Questions for Conversation

1. Campbell describes a number of moments in her life in which she discerned a calling and followed it without fully knowing where God was leading her. Have you had any experiences like this? Are you able to recognize them in the moment?

2. The author describes the process of Church renewal through the metaphor of the Cathedral of Notre Dame’s burning and reconstruction. How have unexpected or even difficult events led to realizations and growth in your life? What does this metaphor call you to in your relationship with God?

3. What are the daily epiphanies that you have experienced in your life? How have/do they affect the way that you live your life?

OUR CHILDREN’S WISDOM

by Brian Doyle

Whereas traditional sources of conscience formation in the Catholic Tradition include Scripture, church teachings, and moral exemplars like saints, sometimes it is those whose character we are charged with helping to develop, like our own children, who alert us to the demands of conscience.

It was a child who changed me forever as a man and a writer. Sure it was. This was a week after September 11, 2001. I remember that date very well indeed because three of my friends had been murdered on September 11. They were brokers in the towers and they were roasted and crushed to death by a man hiding in a cave in Afghanistan. Tommy and Farrell and Sean, men I had known as boys in our village. Tommy, a terrific basketball player; the Lynch brothers, burly cheerful guys who were bar bouncers before becoming brokers. Roasted by a man who cackled in his cave when he heard that thousands of men and women and children had been roasted and crushed and dismembered. Cackled. I don’t forget that cackle. Sometimes I forget it for a day or two but then I remember it again and I work harder at the thing I am supposed to do in this life.

That evening, a week after the murders, I was standing in our kitchen and telling my wife Mary about how a magazine had called me that day and asked me to contribute to a special issue about September 11 and I said, “No, Mary.” I said, “No, because what is there to say? I am not adding to the ocean of witness commentary and vengeful rant. The only thing to do is pray in whatever language and to whatever coherent mercy you pray to, ideally silently, because if ever silence was eloquent, now is the time.”

I said all this with a certain arrogance and fatuity. I did. I was proud of myself and I wanted everyone to know how cool I was in making such a decision.

“But, Dad,” said our daughter, eight years old, “what are you going to do if you don’t write anything?”

What?

“Dad, no offense, but you are always lecturing us about how if God gives you a tool, and if you don’t

use that tool, that’s a sin, and Dad, no offense, but you only have the one tool. You say this yourself all the time. You say that you stink at everything else except catching and sharing stories, so if you are not going to catch and share stories, isn’t that a sin? Actually isn’t that three sins, because three of your friends were murdered? Isn’t that right?”

And I stood there in our kitchen, staring down at my daughter’s face, her utterly open earnest face, her unfathomabe green eyes, her questions piercing me down in places I did not know existed, and I was proud of her, and annoyed, and rattled, and moved, and speechless, and even though that was many years ago now I remember that my wife reached over and put her hand on my hand where my hand was clutching the handle of the battered old dishwasher.

I think sometimes now that for me there was my life before that moment, when I was a writer intent on writing well and being published and selling books and earning a little extra cash so we could almost break even as a family, and there was after that moment, when I saw that my real work was to tell bigger better stories than the thugs and liars of the world. The right story at the right time in the right ear in the right heart shivers things, bends lives and countries and maybe species in a different direction. Can we outwit violence? Can we tell stories that make violence scuttle back into the ancient darkness from which it came? Can we use humor and imagination as the most astounding weapons ever? Can I, can we, catch and share stories of defiant grace and unthinkable courage and unimaginable forgiveness, and flush away the old stories of thugs like bin Laden, the old stories of blood and fear and ash and smoke and children screaming? I think maybe so. I think maybe so. And I think maybe so because one evening in my kitchen a child looked up at me and called me out of my old self and into a new one.

Brian Doyle was the editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland. He was the author of many books, notably the novels Mink River and Chicago.

Article reprinted with permission of author, originally titled “After.”

OUR CHILDREN’S WISDOM

“Let the children come to me; do not hinder them for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not recieve the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

—Mark 10:13-16

Summary

Brian Doyle shares the story of a transformation he underwent after the attacks on September 11th. After he initially refused to submit his reflections to media outlets following the tragedy because he did not wish to add to “the ocean of witness commentary and vengeful rant,” Doyle’s daughter challenged his silence, reminding him of the reality of radical conversion and the world’s need for truth-telling.

Questions for Conversation

1. What kind of epiphany does Brian Doyle experience in this article? How does this epiphany relate to “The Epiphany”?

2. How does Doyle’s reflection help us enter into complex situations in our world today? What do can his story teach us about sharing our gifts in various times of need?

3. How have children’s wisdom or simple everyday experiences inspired you to change your life?

Lord God of heaven and earth, You revealed your only-begotten Son to every nation by the guidance of a star. Bless this house and all who inhabit it. Fill us with the light of Christ, that our concern for others may reflect your love. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.