Dr. Karla J. Bellinger

Jan 12 2025

Sowing Seed—Attentively

Farming has changed. Imagine, just for a moment, how Jesus might have told this parable differently today:

A sower went out to sow. The seed was the Word of God, precious and life-giving, too good to be scattered about without careful preparation. Therefore, the Sower paid careful attention to the soil: where it was rocky, he dug out the rocks; where it was too acidic or too alkaline, he adjusted the pH. Late in the autumn, he added three inches of manure and planted a cover crop, which he then turned under in early March. When planting season came, he set the seeds one by one in rows spaced six inches apart. Where the seeds dropped on the rocky path, he placed them back into the rich loam. He sent the sun to shine. He watered the seeds carefully. He asked the Holy Spirit to breathe on them each day. And before the weeds got too big, he hoed the soil, being careful not to damage the roots of the Word of God plants. With such personal care, the seeds grew tall and bore fruit, a hundred-fold to the glory of God.

What do you think? In Jesus’ original version, the message is that our receptivity to the Word of God is what matters. In the modern version, as God’s hands, we share in sowing the Word of God. Do we “scatter the Word of God” without attending to the soil? As much devotion needs to go into what is being received as to what we are saying. Sometimes we have to be willing to sacrifice our own assumptions to nurture the growth of others. More nourishment, a little less acidic, a bit of weeding . . . the care with which we plant the Word of God: it matters.

Consider/Discuss

We cannot make seeds grow; that is God’s job. But we can attend to the conditions within which growth is most likely to occur. What have you yourself seen? What “soil conditions” have most helped your faith to grow?
The reign of God is worth our best efforts. Yet throughout Christian history, because of this parable, “they’re not good soil” has excused ministry that has not borne fruit. (To be fair, some soil is so acidic that nothing will grow.) Rather than pointing a finger at others’ unreceptivity, how can we ourselves become more adept at preparing soil?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord, you give us rain from heaven to water the earth. Your showers keep the earth soft. You want your word to bear fruit; you want it to achieve what you sent it for. We, in turn, want to serve you and your Word. Teach us what we need to know so that the words that we say will be living and effective. Holy Spirit, come to the aid of our weakness so that we bear fruit that will last.

Jan 12 2025

Burdens Borne by Love

I lie in bed half awake and half asleep, thinking about “my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” In this blurred mental state, scenes flash through my head.

The burden is light? Ponderous chords from the musical Les Misérables say not. Prisoners sweat in the sun. Their backs are hopelessly bent. How can the yoke be easy? Oppression and misery and pain; there is so much bondage in the world.

In the darkness behind my eyelids, my mind zooms to yesterday. I see my friend. I recall the hospital bed in her living room: a time she will never forget. Her husband died in that bed while they were saying the rosary.

I see a young mother and her six-month-old son. Rocking and feeding, playing and interacting—all day and all night, she is yoked to that boy. Babies are hard work.

So why are some yokes easier to bear? There was a deep love between my friend and her dying husband. There was warmth in my daughter-in-law’s eyes yesterday when she looked into the eyes of my grandson. We will do difficult things for love. Love makes the burden light.

Sin makes the burden heavy. We cannot act as though everything is not so bad after all. Oppression is wrong. Misery harms. Prisoners matter. We carry the burdens of others—not nameless faces in a movie, but the needy folks who surround us. Yet the joy of discipleship is that we do not carry that weight alone.

Now I am ready to wake up. The love of this world is strong. The burden of the world is heavy. This is a paradox bigger than I can shoulder. I get out of bed, grateful that this world has a Savior, and more grateful that it is not me.

Consider/Discuss

God is the one who wants to save us, to carry our burdens, to set us free. How do we resist that? How do we burden ourselves down?
The joy of love makes life lighter. Who has helped you to carry your cross?

Living and Praying with the Word

Jesus, you ask us to be childlike, to trust you to carry our burdens. Love has lifted us up. Sin has torn us down. You know that we have experienced both. Lord, give us the strength this day to do all that we can today for whomever you put in our path. We are willing to work hard to make a difference in this world, but you are going to have to carry it, for we cannot. Come, Savior of the world, come!

Jan 12 2025

A Season of Generosity

It might seem to be a funny time to be talking about death. Right now, much of the northern temperate region is in full flower: roses are blooming, peach trees are setting fruit, and rivers are flowing. Thinking about death belongs to those dark and gloomy days in mid-January when it is so dreary.

But Jesus talks about losing our lives. And it is June: bright, happy, generous June. How are we to make sense of that paradox? Losing life, when we are surrounded by so much life?

Perhaps, though, life is made up of small deaths. To die to self, to make ourselves do what we don’t really want to do, actually seems easier in June. It is an almost playfully die-to-self time, time to take the hand of a child and go look at the grasshoppers when you know that the guests are about to pull into the driveway and the dishes are not washed; time to call an elderly friend when it will use up an hour of your life; time to say yes to an adult son or daughter even when it may cost a lot.

June is the time to strive for the greater, the more expansive, the honorable. The way that we choose to live is the way that we will die—with our hands wide open or with our fists tightly closed. Jesus’ call to generosity, to give ourselves away, can blossom because of the buoyancy breaking all around us. How can we not be more conscientious today when the bees are working so hard to make honey? Give a cup of water to a little one? Certainly. Take up the cross, Jesus? Surely. Die to sin, St. Paul? Indubitably. It is June. Lord, your glory and your grace are here. We can do that!

Consider/Discuss

God’s bounty is all around us. What can we do today to be more generous?
When was the last time that you looked at the grasshoppers? The clouds? The birds in a tree? Take a moment and do something “unimportant” with someone you love.

Living and Praying with the Word

Creator God, sometimes we forget how buoyant your salvation is. Grace us today with time to savor all that you have given us. Sometimes we walk on by something that is so beautiful. Thank you for the stars. Thank you for babies’ toenails. Thank you for the smile on my friend’s face. Thank you, most of all, for being our lavish God.

Jan 12 2025

Ordinary Time, Extraordinary Courage

The prophet Jeremiah captures my imagination. He is called to speak the word of the Lord at a tender age: “I am too young,” he objects. Repeatedly he resists his call to preach: “I try to hold it in, but it burns like fire in my heart, imprisoned in my bones.” He is brutally honest before God. He is also starkly straightforward with kings. His forthrightness gets him into trouble: he’s thrown into the muck of a cistern, imprisoned in the stocks, mocked and made fun of, and ultimately hauled off to Egypt to end his life where he doesn’t want to be.

Do you ever wonder if Jeremiah wished that he could simply be an ordinary guy? God’s call was sometimes just too challenging. “You duped me, Lord,” he says, “and I let myself be duped.” He may have prayed today’s psalm: “Rescue me from the mire, and do not let me sink . . . for it is on your account that I bear insult.” Though he is smacked down over and over, Jeremiah keeps popping back up again.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus warns the disciples of that same kind of opposition. He knows that the muck is real. But he says time after time, “Do not be afraid . . . Even the hairs of your head are counted.” What are we to be afraid of? Not physical death, but spiritual cowardice.

Fortitude is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. There may be times when life calls for swashbuckling bravado. But more often, the Divine Nudge encourages us to roll out of bed with an “it doesn’t matter how you feel today, just get up and keep going” kind of everyday courage. Sainthood is in the small things. Heroic virtue grows through giving God one obedient yes at a time.

Consider/Discuss

Fear is part of life. We get burned and we grow cautious. Yet Jesus says repeatedly, “Do not be afraid.” In what part of our lives do we need Holy Spirit fortitude so that we can keep rising back up to do what we are called to do, in spite of our fear or weakness?
The saints and prophets were brutally honest in their relationship with God. Are you willing to yell at God, to pour out your heart in prayer and be forthright with the Creator of the universe? Why or why not? What does that look like?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord, sometimes I’d rather stay in bed and take life easy. Yet Jeremiah and the saints and you yourself show me another way—to keep giving and loving and preaching even when it is personally challenging. Guide my discernment in the balance between self-care and self-gift. I seek you. I offer myself to you. Help me to trust you to use me according to your best lights, for you watch over even the hairs of my head. Cast out my fear and keep me close to you.

Jan 10 2025

Tastes of Beauty in the Body of Christ

She was young. But she remembers that dry day like it was yesterday. “This is ridiculous. How can he give us his flesh to eat?” She listens to the shouting. She sits outside the synagogue. As a woman, she’s not permitted to enter. But she can hear them clearly. This is Jesus of Nazareth they are yelling at; Jesus, whose love has transformed her; Jesus, whose words burn like a fire inside of her. Can they not see what he is offering? “Bread of Life—who does he think he is? We know his father from Nazareth. He’s a carpenter’s son.” The door opens and the leaders stomp their feet into the dust of the dry ground and walk away.

She wants to shout after them in the distance, “You never really heard him,” but again she hears voices at the doorway, not so loud, but irritated: “This saying is hard; who can accept it? The Bread of Life! How can he say he is the Bread of Life?” Those who had walked closely with him began to walk away also. She knew these ones. She had eaten with them. They were his own. “We will no longer go with him . . . I am going home.” She is grief-stricken. She shouts, “How can you leave him? His words are Spirit and life!” “Ah, woman, you are young. Go home also.”

The door opens a third time and he comes out, full of sorrow. “Will you also leave me?” Peter says the words she will remember all her life. She has told them to her children and her children’s children. Now as her community is struggling with betrayal and desertion, she shares what Peter said: “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

Rain began to fall on the dry soil, watering the earth.

Consider/Discuss

Is this teaching of Jesus too hard? Doubt tastes like dust in the mouth. Faith refreshes like the rain. As many walk away, how can we express what Jesus in the Eucharist means to us? How can we describe the taste of glory that comes as we open our hands to receive him?
We believe that the Eucharist is the sacrament of unity in the Church. Yet like this unnamed young woman of the first century, some sit at the peripheries, some voices are not heard, some are rendered invisible. How can we be more conscientious in our sharing, our koinonia, in bringing in those at the edges, to solidify the Body of Christ?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord, you are the Bread of Life. We have tasted your manna. We have been touched by your presence. You unite us so that together we can abide in you. At the same time, we grieve for those who walk away. We love them. How can they go? Even the angels weep.

Holy Spirit, bubble up within us so that we bring your life to the world in which we live.