New Book by Pope Benedict

Over supper tonight, I opened up the latest book published by Pope Benedict XVI. This book is essentially an edited collection of his weekly addresses in Rome on his spiritual reflections on church.
We read and learn from this writing of the singular influence of the church of today from the lives of the first apostles.
Moreover, as we read about the apostsles, we glean an insight into the mind of the Pope.
This book, ‘The Apostles’, is an important contribution to the understanding of the history of the church and its developed Tradition.

More on Pope Benedict's book ...

I have recommended for your summer reading the recently published book of Pope Benedict XVI – “Jesus of Nazareth”. It is to be noted that the book is not a ‘Magisterial’ text as an official teaching. The text is the personal search of the Pope for the Lord. He echoes Psalm 27:8.

The Pope provides a glimpse into his individuality as he reflects on the ways that scripture (the text) and tradition (the commentary) intersect and teach. For the readers, we learn about details not usually found in other commentaries. For example, in reflecting on the significance of the number ‘forty’ as used to denote a significant time interval in many of the scripture texts, the Pope offers this note.

He writes that “…The Fathers of the Church, stretching number symbolism in an admittedly slightly playful way, regarded forty as a cosmic number, as the numerical sign for this world. The four ‘corners’ encompass the whole world, and ten is the number of the commandments. The number of the cosmos multiplied by the number of the commandments becomes a symbolic statement about the history of this world as a whole. It is as if Jesus were reliving Israel’s Exodus, and then reliving the chaotic meanderings of history in general; the forty days of fasting embraces the drama of history, which Jesus takes into himself and bears all the way through to the end…” (Pages 29, 30)

Jesus of Nazareth

For your ‘summer reading’, I offer the following. The title is: “Jesus of Nazareth”. The author is Pope Benedict XVI.

This is a very readable text that will inform and challenge and inspire us all in our own understanding of Jesus. This is not an official text published as a teaching from the Vatican.

As Pope Benedict writes in the foreword, “…It goes without saying that this book is in no way an exercise of the Magisterium, but is solely an expression of my personal search ‘for the face of the Lord’ (cf. Psalm 27:8). Everyone is free, then, to contradict me. I would only ask my readers for that initial goodwill without which there can be no understanding…”

Particularly notable to me was this statement from Pope Benedict in his reflection on the Transfiguration. He writes “… the great events of Jesus’ life are inwardly connected with the Jewish festival calendar. They are, as it were, liturgical events in which the liturgy, with its remembrance and expectation, becomes reality – becomes life. This life then leads back to the liturgy and from the liturgy seeks to become life again…”

Religious Illiteracy

Religious Literacy, written by Stephen Protherow, chair of the religion department of Boston University, is a cogent description of our society’s relative ignorance of the basic tenets of the major religions in our world.

This is not a call to evangelize but to inform.

Fifth Sunday in Lent

Let the one without sin cast the first stone ...


Has no one condemned you?

Go, and sin no more.

The Prodigal Son

On March 18, the fourth Sunday in Lent, Laetare Sunday, the Gospel reading is the familar account in Luke that is described as 'The Prodigal Son'.

Questions for reflection:

What do we mean by 'Prodigal'?

Why do we not hear from the the Mother?

Would we react as the older son did?

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What a wonderful chapter in Luke.. 'The Lost and Found stories'

Naaman the Leper - healed

" ... Go , wash in the Jordan seven times, ...and you shall be clean... "