What is anxiety? You know I’m not a psychologist, but I do have some thoughts about it based on my own experiences. Maybe you’ll recognize something of them in your own. The point I want to make here is that anxiety sets in when I believe my life to be a disconnected series of events, but that belonging to a good story can restore in me a sense of purpose, and with it, peace.

But what about that tree of which Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Why would God say to us, “The moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die." If everything God created is good, what’s the deal with that tree?

Have you ever wondered what happened to all those people Jesus healed? Or all those He raised from the dead? Where is Bartimaeus now? Where is Lazarus?

We can’t love someone we don’t know. That’s somewhat obvious and often taken for granted. But it’s also impossible to know someone we don’t love. And that part of life is often overlooked.

Separation from God disturbs the psyche of the human person. We call it sin. But even those who don’t wish to call it that are always trying to be absolved of it. The desire for the Infinite remains in us, but smothering it always like a pall is our inability to obtain it ourselves. So we offer sacrifices to the gods, sacrifices that require a priesthood, trying desperately to go beyond the veil, to transcend our fallen condition.

I suppose we all imagine Jesus slightly differently, looking at him, as we do, through the lens of our own unique disposition and temperament, but what can we say about him in a more objective way? Mark’s Gospel helps us with that.

After all, we have received the gift of Baptism. There are lots of people in the world, but the will of God brought us to the font. That’s amazing, when you think of it. It didn’t have to be given to us, but it was. That is pretty special.

What follows is a development of what I preached on last week, about the institution of the Church as offering us a way to verify our encounter with Christ and to adhere to Him. We said that the experience of Christ is first, and then (only then) does one see the usefulness of the Church.