God's Compassion with Laurie Cassidy, Ph.D.

Preaching for the Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Laurie Cassidy offers a reflection on the familiar parable of the prodigal son:   "Don’t these family dynamics feel familiar?  Aren’t these circumstances the very places where we feel lost and stuck.  It is tempting to want the parable to spell out a resolution, to offer a roadmap home, give an assurance that in the end 'we can all get along' if we just follow the divine directions.  But could it be that parable invites us to experience something better and beyond our imagining -- God’s compassion right at the very places we feel lost, vulnerable, stuck, and powerless? Jesus seems to be offering us compassion as 'a way out of no way'."   Laurie Cassidy, Ph.D. is a theologian, anti-racist activist and spiritual director.  She currently teaches in the Christian Spirituality Program at Creighton University and was associate professor in the religious studies department at Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania. An award-winning author and editor her latest book, Desire, Darkness and Hope: Theology in a Time of Impasse is edited with M. Shawn Copeland.  Her forthcoming book is entitled Praying for Freedom: Racism and Ignatian Spirituality in America. Over the past thirty years Cassidy has been engaged in ministry that facilitates the intersection of personal and social transformation.  Raised in Massachusetts she now makes her home in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, traditional homeland of the Ute in Colorado. Visit www.catholicwomenpreach.org/preaching/09112022 to learn more about Laurie, to view her video or read her preaching text, and for more preaching from Catholic women.