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Summary of today\u2019s show: Jaymie Stuart Wolfe was called to serve on a grand jury for three months earlier this year and the experience left her with 16 distinct insights as seen through her Catholic faith into our culture and human nature. Scot Landry and Fr. Mark O\u2019Connell discuss her unique take on a process most people will only see in TV legal dramas, but can be applied to every person\u2019s life.\nListen to the show:\n\nToday\u2019s host(s): Scot Landry and Fr. Mark O\u2019Connell\nToday\u2019s guest(s): Jaymie Stuart Wolfe\nLinks from today\u2019s show:\n\n\n\nToday\u2019s topics: Insights learned while serving on a grand jury\n1st segment: Scot Landry and Fr. Mark O\u2019Connell discussed the upcoming annual Red Mass and luncheon for the Catholic Lawyers Guild of Boston. Fr. Mark is the chaplain for the local guild. This year\u2019s speaker is Rep. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey. The Red Mass is celebrated by the Cardinal at the cathedral. This year it is September 30 at 11:30am. Rep. Smith is well known within the pro-life movement.\nThe website with information about the Red Mass and luncheon is \n2nd segment: Scot welcomed Jaymie Stuart Wolfe to the show. She works as an editor of children\u2019s books at Pauline Books and Media and has been writing a column for The Pilot for the past 17 years.\nJaymie wrote a column in July about her experience serving on a grand jury. She said in Massachusetts grand jury is a three-month commitment, 3 to 4 days per week almost full-time. She clarified that this is a separate summons than the usual jury duty. The reason it\u2019s such a long commitment is because it takes so long to get the members of the jury up to speed.\nYou are called to consider major crimes and their duty is to be a check on the government. They are a safeguard to prevent people from being railroaded on the basis of insufficient accusations. The grand jury considers the evidence of the prosecutor. There are 23 jurors and 3 more alternates. The judge does not judge reasonable doubt, but instead consider probable cause.\nThey only hear from the prosecutor to see their evidence. You don\u2019t hear from the defense. Then they weigh whether it\u2019s probable to believe that this person committed this crime. You have to connect the dots from the crime to the person. They vote to find a majority.\nShe said it could become heated at times, but it was cordial. One of the challenges is that evidence isn\u2019t presented all at once, so they have to keep notebooks for weeks, hearing evidence one day and then again several weeks later. She said a bond forms among the jurors even such they\u2019re having a reunion today. You see in the jury room interacting with people in very positive ways and not just the jurors but also the people work work in the criminal justice system.\nJaymie said the jurors can ask questions directly of the witnesses. They also came to know the assistant district attorneys very well in their work. She noted that they were in Woburn two days per week, two days per week in Lowell and in Natick once per month. One day in Lowell there was a witness who\u2019d seen a stabbing. Her personal life was a mess, but she was there to testify for her friend and to help her out. Jaymie said the prosecutor was able to humanize the witness to the jury through her testimony.\nShe said about eighty percent of the cases they saw would not end up in court, but would be settled. But the success rate of convictions for those that do is over eighty percent.\nIn her column, Jaymie wrote about sixteen things she\u2019s learned:\n\nIf someone is a drug addict, homeless, or has been convicted of a crime, it is still possible for that person to be a victim.\nSin is real. People routinely do terrible things to each other. They also tolerate terrible things being done to them for a chance to be loved.\nVirtue and selflessness are also real. People often come to the aid of a stranger at great personal risk.\nThe amount of child sexual assault reported is astonishing. I can only imagine what goes unreported.\n\nJaymie said the first thing speaks to our perceptions of the poor and not just the materially poor. People can be victims no matter what they look like, sound like or even smell like. Fr. Mark asked about the judges or prosecutors becoming jaded. She found that they were all quite sympathetic and theorized that those who do move on to other jobs.\nYou do see that sin is ver real. Not every sin is a crime, but every crime involves sin. There are a lot of terrible things that go on and you may not be aware of it. We tolerate evil and disrespect because we hope for better. She said it as rare even in the rape cases that there victim didn\u2019t know the perpetrator. But she wanted to be loved or believed it could be better.\n\nPolice, prosecutors, state and federal agents, forensic interviewers, court reporters, computer experts, accountants, and lab technicians engaged in law enforcement have a high level of professionalism and dedication to their jobs. None of them gets the respect they deserve.\nPeople from intact families are far less likely to commit a crime or be the victim of one.\nVictims of crime are among the most courageous people you could meet.\nA very high percentage of criminal activity involves drugs or alcohol in some way.\n\nJaymie said of the 150 or so cases, she could count on one hand the number of cases that involved an intact family: a mom, dad, and children living in the same house. The breakdown of families leads people either to act out or to become victims. It puts you in jeopardy. It puts you at risk. The risk for divorce also puts you at risk for so many other things and into a world where criminal activity is so much more common.\n\nMayhem is a felony.\nOn the whole, bank robbers are probably the dumbest criminals.\nBeing in the wrong place at the wrong time, or hanging out with the wrong people can cost you your life.\nThe overwhelming majority of criminals are men, and the overwhelming majority of victims are women.\n\nJaymie said mayhem is injuring someone in a way that disfigures them intentionally. Slashing someone on the arm is assault and battery, but across the face is mayhem. It\u2019s disfigurement or dismemberment.\nShe also said that bank robbers always get caught. There are cameras everywhere, marked bills, ink packs and more, and then you don\u2019t get the money you think you\u2019re going to get. They get a few hundred dollars and are caught within minutes.\nJaymie said in violent or serious crimes men are almost certainly the perpetrators and it will be a woman who is the victim. There were maybe a dozen cases where women where perpetrators and even then it was usually a joint venture crime with a man.\nFr. Mark asked about the men and women on the jury. Jaymie said there were differences were in how they got to the decisions, but they usually came to the same conclusions.\n\nNobody wakes up one morning and rapes a child. There has to be a long line of other choices that brings a person to a day on which something like that becomes possible.\nPeople can change, but most never do.\nThe worst day of your life can lead you to make the changes that could have prevented that day from ever happening.\nI have more in common with every defendant I have voted to indict than I will ever be willing to admit.\n\nOn Number 15, Jaymie said when someone is the victim of s tremendous act of violence they were in a state of mind\u2013drunk, high, out to the early hours\u2013that could bring them to the place where they said they want to make a change. In some domestic violence cases, some women have woken up one morning and decided that this is the rock bottom and now I\u2019ve got to change and do something different. Some people were brought to a moment where their lives changed because they found themselves in a place they never planned to be.\nOn those who can change but don\u2019t, they often saw cases involving people who were habitual criminals, who kept offending over and over again.\nOn the last point, under some of those circumstances that she saw which she doesn\u2019t share in a daily basis, maybe she would act the same way or make the same decisions. She has much more in common with both criminals and victims than she has in common with God and that\u2019s why we need confession.\nScot asked Jaymie how this has affected her faith. For her, evidence was what she heard from people. It was the compelling story someone made of the facts. When she thinks of sharing faithful she wants to be a good wittiness that testifies in a way that\u2019s honest enough or detailed enough. She wants to be able to share what happened to her, not just her thoughts or insights about God; what God has done for her. She remembers how some victims weren\u2019t compelling in their stories, even though they were true victims. She wanted victims to tell her how much it hurt them. One of the most compelling witnesses was a 15-year-old boy who was able to communicate clearly and without embellishment the horrific violence he saw.\nIt\u2019s really easy to put up a persona and tell the story you wish was yours. Just tell your story. Scot said Pope Benedict says the beginning o the New Evangelization is not testifying, but is having a deep conversion and relationship with Christ. He suggested those to pray for the Holy Spirit to enter into a deeper relationship.\nScot noted that part of being a good homilist is being able to tell a good story. Fr. Mark said he can see the people when he preaches and the key is not just to tell a story, but to relate it in some way to every person in the church. It\u2019s not about what the priest says, but what about the person hears and that\u2019s up to God.\n3rd segment: Now as we do every week at this time, we will consider the Mass readings for this Sunday, specifically the Gospel reading.\n\n\n\n\nThus says the LORD: Say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not! Here is your God, he comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing. Streams will burst forth in the desert, and rivers in the steppe. The burning sands will become pools, and the thirsty ground, springs of water.\n\n\nGospel for the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 9, 2012 (Mark 7:31\u201337)\n\n\nAgain Jesus left the district of Tyre and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, into the district of the Decapolis. And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man\u2019s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, \u201cEphphatha!\u201d\u2013 that is, \u201cBe opened!\u201d \u2013 And immediately the man\u2019s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly. He ordered them not to tell anyone. But the more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it. They were exceedingly astonished and they said, \u201cHe has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.\u201d\n\nScot said we are not called to be mute about God in our life. Jaymie said the people around this man knew him as someone who was mute, but he experienced life as someone who couldn\u2019t hear. Jesus cures what the community sees about this man, but what they don\u2019t see about him.\nFr. Mark noted how Jesus\u2019 care is not generic, but it\u2019s very personal. In other cases, Jesus just says be healed and the man is healed. Another man is only healed gradually. But in this case, the man needed to be touched by Jesus. Jesus brings people along individually. Jaymie notes how the man himself doesn\u2019t ask because he can\u2019t ask. He is brought to Jesus by other people.\nJaymie said Jesus might have groaned because what he saw wasn\u2019t right, it was not in accord with the way God wanted things to be.\nThey discussed why Jesus might have told them not to tell anyone. Fr. Mark said elsewhere Jesus adds, \u201cuntil I am risen\u201d. Scot noted that this passage is not an excuse not to witness to God in our lives.