"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Anyone who knows me knows that I love going to the movies. Movies are powerful. They have the ability to entertain and inspire, as well as to teach. Do you like “The Breakfast Club”, “She’s All That”, “Back To The Future”, … I’ll admit, there are a couple of movies here I quite like. However, what kind of lessons do they teach us?
In our First Reading this week Isaiah consoles Israel, promising a time will come when wrongs will be made right, when “the ears of the deaf [will] be cleared” and the dry lands be refreshed. From the very beginning of the Bible, a Saviour was promised, a Messiah who would heal the rupture between man and God. Isaiah’s words find their fulfillment in this Sunday’s Gospel Reading as Jesus restores a man’s hearing, a sign that the long awaited Messiah had finally come…
In recent years it has been a difficult time to be Catholic. In addition to the priestly abuse scandals, there have been declining Mass numbers, as well as an increasingly secular society openly hostile to traditional Catholic morality.
However, amid these problems we still have hope. After all, Christ Himself promised us in Matthew 28:20 that He would be with His Church until the end of time!
We see other signs of hope as well. The priests graduating from seminary during the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI have been of the highest caliber and the traditional religious orders are flourishing. Oh, and it turns out that Obi-Wan Kenobi is Catholic.
Read more
There are a number of themes found in this week’s Readings, but they all centre around remaining in right relationship with God through observance of His Word.
In our First Reading, Moses reminds the people of their obligation to observe what God has commanded. If they do this, then they shall remain in covenant with Him and be light to the other nations. In the Second Reading, St. James exhorts his listeners to “Be doers of the word and not hearers only”. Finally, in the Gospel our Lord answers the criticisms of the Pharisees when they complain about his disciples not washing their hands. He responds with a stinging rebuttal, claiming that they “disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition”. He goes on to say to the crowd that “nothing that enters one from outside can defile”. It is what we say and what we do which makes us “unclean”.
This Sunday, as we hear the Word of God proclaimed, do we “humbly welcome” it and allow it to penetrate our lives? Do we act on what we hear or are we “hearers only”? As we renew our covenant with the Lord in the Eucharist, let us commit ourselves to be “doers of His word” and to live lives which reflect the holiness of the Lord.
Yesterday I posted the MP3 recordings of “Dei Verbum”, the document on Sacred Scripture from the Second Vatican Council.
I decided that today I’d also post the section of the Catechism on Sacred Scripture, which draws extremely heavily from that Council document.
Catechism On Scripture (PDF) (MP3)
Speaking of the Catechism, did you know that Flocknote have a service which will email you a short section of the Catechism each day?
I just received an email from someone asking for a copy of my recording of “Dei Verbum”, the document on Divine Revelation from the Second Vatican Council.
My blog seemed to be the easiest way to share them. Each of the chapters is in a separate MP3 file:
Chapter 1 (MP3) Chapter 2 (MP3) Chapter 3 (MP3)
Chapter 4 (MP3) Chapter 5 (MP3) Chapter 6 (MP3)
I hope these help you with your studies Alyson 🙂
Last week at Theology On tap we had Cy Kellett spoke to us on “Voting Your Conscience” and during the Q&A he mentioned Peter Singer, the Professor of Bioethics at Princeton.
I wonder if some people present thought that Cy was exaggerating when he described some of the opinions held by this chap. Well, thanks to Aggie Catholics, I’d invite you to watch the video below without gasping in horror at some of the things said in his interview with Richard Dawkins…
(Unfortunately, this wasn’t the original video I shared – the one before had Dawkins praising Singer for being “the most moral person I know”)
If you watch the uncut version of the interview, Dawkins begins the interview with the accolade “Peter, I think you must be one of the most moral people in the world…”….wow…kyrie eleison.