The Question of the Week

I am the proud owner of a new stove! I couldn’t count on my old stove to heat anything, much less cook.  Not being able to cook offered a good excuse to eat out more, often chowing down fast food.  But my new stove has inspired me to cook more, which means spending more time at home preparing, cooking, eating and digesting food.  As a result, I feel more rooted and grounded, more connected to myself and to the world around me.  And as I have discovered, food tastes much better.

The Church asks us to approach the Word of God in a similar way—as food that needs to be prepared well, chewed in small bites and slowly digested.  One of the ways we can do that is by discussing the scriptures we hear on Sundays.  This is one reason our parish offers a question of the week that is based on the gospel proclaimed on Sunday.

The question of the week comes from the parish staff who gathers, proclaims the gospel for an upcoming Sunday, shares the way the Gospel impacts their lives, and then creates a question meant to foster further discussion.  The staff goes to great lengths to come up with a question that can be discussed by people of all ages.  Along with being discussed in our faith formation classes, the question is posted in the bulletin, on the website, on the electronic bulletin boards, and announced at the end of each Mass.  This question can be utilized in many ways.  Families can discuss it on their way home from church, or at a family meal.  Parish ministries and groups are encouraged to discuss the question at the beginning of their meetings during the week, and so on.  In this way, the entire parish is discussing the gospel together.

The question of the week is meant to deepen our faith.  Discussing the scripture can help us to feel more rooted, more grounded, and more connected to God, to one another and to ourselves. 

The word for word in Hebrew is dabar, which also means talk and act.  The Word of God is meant not just to be heard, but to be talked about and acted upon. The question of the week can lead us to action, as this week’s question testifies:

As a disciple of Jesus, where am I being sent to serve, heal and free?