Synopsis of Homily by Father Dave Caron
Team and Community Building Workshop
St. Bonaventure's School, August 15, 2007

Fr. Dave Caron, in his homily on Team Building, reflected on the importance of the gospels’ use of the story narrative. He noted that a story captures our hopes, joys, dreams, and sorrows. A story can be and, often is, transformative. There are participants in stories and each has a role to play; in the gospels, their roles, played properly, show us how to build community, how to build the Kingdom of God.

He noted that at St. Bonaventure’s school, each team member has a role to play in building a educational community that imparts knowledge, skills, and values and that helps students gain the foundation they need to become fulfilled, ethical adults. Fr. Dave next addressed what the gospel reading (MK 10: 46-52) illustrates and how it could provide tools for the team members.

This story regarding Jesus’s cure of Bartimaeus, a blind man, notes both the physical and spiritual blindness. Bartimaeus was physically blind, but spiritually sighted. He could not see; but he knew Jesus could cure him. Furthermore, he knew Jesus was present in the crowd. He recognized Jesus’s presence and he recognized God’s presence in Jesus.

Noting that it is God’s presence we are often most blind to, Fr. Dave recommended that the workshop participants strive always to see the presence of God in the school community and in their neighbors and to always recognize God as the One who finds a way to bring healing and salvation. Encouraging the participants to open their spiritual eyes to God’s presence, Fr. Dave remarked, “Regardless of age, gender, ethnic heritage, old hurts, past mistakes – God makes a way out of no way! Even in disappointment our task is to build, to be a team, to form community – in order to build the Kingdom of God.”