SÉRIE DE 4 CONFÉRENCES SUR ST. PAUL APÔTRE



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The Protestant Reformation - good news?

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  The study of Reformation Europe makes many Christians wish that they had lived in the 16th century. Name 1) Some good reasons for not living in the sixteenth century and 2) Some ways in which we can live more deliberately as Christians today because of the events of that century. How should it and how should it not make a difference?    Some good reasons for not living in the 16th century include the climate of religious intolerance and violence.   Religious affiliation and observance were compulsory and imposed on the people by the state, especially it seems, in Protestant countries.   There was no freedom of conscience, except perhaps in England during the reign of Elizabeth, where the windows to people’s souls remained shut to the state, so long as they publicly conformed to the monarch’s religion (as enforced by parliament).   One may have thought that Luther’s appeal to conscience at the Diet of Worms would have inspired a broader and more sensit...
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“Walking the tightrope” (St. Luke’s: Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018: Ez. 34.1-11; Ps. 23; St. Mt. 20.1-16)

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Ancient relevance.   Any conscientious catholic who has the habit of watching the news cannot help but notice a direct link between today’s first reading and what is going on in the Church these days.   Last week, a grand jury released a report detailing the results of their 2-year long investigation into dozens of clergymen who had abused upwards of 1,000 children in various dioceses in the state of Pennsylvania.   Every time cases of the abuse of children by priests and religious come to light, we are reminded that we live in a world – and are part of a Church – deeply infected by evil .   And of course, let’s not forget that the line between good and evil runs through each one of us (cf. Solzhenitsyn).   In today’s first reading, the prophet Ezekiel proclaims an oracle of judgment against the false “shepherds” of God’s “flock”.   Instead of caring for, protecting and nurturing God’s people , Israel’s leaders had exploited the people for their...
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The Bible, western culture & the idea of “truth”

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      No one reads the Bible in a vacuum .  Also, the Bible is not self-explanatory.  Reading the Bible, like reading any text, involves the reader in the process of interpretation – what does this text mean?   Everyone who reads the Bible does so within a certain culture at a particular moment of history, perhaps as a member of a religious community who holds certain official beliefs about Scripture (inspiration, revelation, etc.).  All of these factors contribute to how we understand the Bible and how we seek to live in light of what Scripture says.  As westerners, or as members of peoples who were colonized by western nations, we are members of a culture/civilization which has been reading the Bible for almost 2,000 years.  When we open the Bible, we join a 2,000-year-long conversation – a conversation which has often resembled a heated debate.  No text has had a greater influence on western culture than the Bible.   The Bib...
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