2008 Parish Lenten Mission

Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Wadsworth, OH is proud to present Fr. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy.  Fr. Emmanuel’s truly Gospel-based presentations on the subject of nonviolence address the hard issues that all of us as followers of Christ struggle with in our hearts and minds.  Fr. Emmanuel will be joined by John Carmody.  From his background in neurobiology and from his study of the theology and spirituality of Christian nonviolence, John has fashioned a program titled the "The Nonviolent Brain: The Sacrament of the Nonviolent God."  Join us for what many have called a “life-changing” conference.

Mission Overview:  This mission will provide a spiritually profound and logically ordered reflection on the nonviolent Jesus of the Gospels, and His Way of nonviolent love of friends and enemies as the Way and the Will of the “Father of all.”

Background & Purpose:

Fr. Emmanuel:  Homicidal violence is the first sin outside Paradise and homicidal violence is the sin that brings about Jesus’ death. In the Old Testament alone violence is spoken of 1,682 times. It is the most oft-presented human experience mentioned in Hebrew Scripture. The 20th Century gave us more deaths by war than all the other centuries combined.  Capital punishment, violent revolution and abortion have all increased logarithmically during this same time period due to escalating capacity of the technology of violence.  Beyond this—because of the exponential rise in the power of mass media—the human mind is being inundated with images of violence and violent conflict resolution as the preferred way of settling differences—at a rate and at age levels never possible before in all of human history. This nurturing in the most advanced technological country on earth, the U.S. , has given us the highest murder–suicide rate on the planet. 

Certainly some thing is way out of kilt here. These cannot be the proper consequences that should follow from believing in Jesus Christ. In this mission we will focus on what Jesus, God incarnate, has to teach by word and deed about the evil of violence and God’s Way of conquering it.  From this springs both hope and joy: the hope that as nonviolent love transforms us, it can also transform others.

John Carmody:  John reviews the scientific evidence that shows clearly that the human brain has, as part of its endowment, an innate capacity for empathy and care. These capacities reside in the most highly developed areas of the brain, and thus can regulate lower brain areas that give rise to violence, fear and aggression. John focuses attention on a critical finding: these capacities for empathic and caring behaviors, as well as those for modulating negative emotions, are either expressed or inhibited dependent on how an individual is nurtured. Experience is a critical determinative of brain organization. It is the neuro-architecture that is created by experience that serves as the basis for memory and learning -- ultimately determining the functional capacity of the brain. Thus, based on the behavior of the community towards the infant or the developing child, genes may or may not be turned on; emotional regulation may or may not begin on a healthy path; and cognitive development may or may not move in the direction of maximum growth.

If with this awareness the community decides, through the cognitive process of reason (logic), that its primary task is to bathe one another in empathy and care, it will come to know for certain that the incarnation of these quintessential capacities reveals, not only their primacy, but also their power and wisdom -- their oneness with the Logos (Word of God, Son of Man, Agapé).

NOTE: Babysitting will be available during all sessions except from 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM on Saturday night.