APRIL 2, 2017
5:30 PM ORDINARY FORM (ENGLISH) MASSES
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses. This causes someone to pay more attention and assign greater credence to ideas that support their current beliefs. That is, people tend to cherry pick evidence that supports an idea we already believe in, and ignore evidence that argues against it.
It is a type of cognitive bias, and is based out of a systematic error of inductive reasoning – in effect, assigning factual basis to something which is only probable. This is played out in such things as selective memory, alternative facts, or perhaps even fake news.
Confirmation bias leads to an overconfidence in personal beliefs even in the face of contradictory evidence; resulting in poor decision making in various organizational contexts.
Today is the Fifth Sunday in Lent.
It is customarily the beginning of what is called Passion Week. We begin this week with Jesus’ greatest miracle – the raising of Lazarus. At the end of the Gospel we hear that:
Many of the Jews who had … seen what he had done began to believe in him.
Earlier in the Gospel Mary says to Jesus:
Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
In this, Mary reflects or perhaps dwells in the past. Jesus tries to draw her into the present, telling her:
Your brother will rise.
To which she responds,
I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.
This time, Mary jumps into the future.
Jesus again tries to drag her into the present, telling her:
I am the resurrection and the life … Do you believe this?
She affirms that he is the Christ, “who is coming into the world.”
Expressing an indeterminate time, as if there is nothing going on right now.
St. John narrates that “[Jesus] became perturbed and deeply troubled,” and then proceeds to perform this, the greatest miracle of His ministry to date.
The key take-away from this is “Do you believe this?” Oftentimes we find it easier to believe that God has acted in a mighty way in the past, or that God will work great miracles in the future. But somehow, we dance around that fact that He wants to come into our lives right here … right now.
“Do you believe this?”
Ezekiel prophecies this 2,600 years ago declaring: “I will open your graves / and have you rise from them.” And St. Paul assures us in the Letter to the Romans that, “the one who raised Christ from the dead / will give life to your mortal bodies also”.
“Do you believe this?”
Few events change things in an enormous way. We might think about the Twin Towers, or the Moon Landing, or the Assassination of JFK.
But the Incarnation – God becoming a human being … changes everything. And then after walking the Earth for 33 years, God the Son is nailed to a cross – for our sake.
For the rest of the week, the readings become more and more intense. And as the tension rises, we will find ourselves on Palm Sunday with the reading of the Passion.
Holy Week then leads us to Easter Sunday, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because while He took on our sins and died on the Cross … death has no power over God.
And this, too, changes everything.
“Do you believe this?”
As we approach this altar to receive the Sacred Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ – let us pray to recognize the immensity of God’s love for us. Demonstrated in His plan of Salvation … the high point which culminates in the Incarnation of the Son of God as a human being, and continues with the death and resurrection of Christ … Do. You. Believe. This? … Let us ask God for a deepening of our Faith … through the infinite graces of the Eucharist we will receive today. So that, without hesitation we might say:
“Yes, Lord … I believe.”
