The Week's Round-up and looking ahead...
Saturday, 16th September 2006

Dear friends,

It's been another week of steady growth at Catholica Australia. Gradually the number of members of the forum and subscribers to both the daily and weekly emails keeps expanding. Obviously there is some overlap between the these three lists but all-up and taking into account the overlaps we now have around 220 individuals who have made some sort of commitment to this endeavour. That is an excellent position to be in as we begin now to look further afield to our larger objective. As reported in the daily email over recent days we are also pleased to have received expressions of moral support from some of the Australia bishops following the recent background briefing we sent them and we are pleased with the progress in our endeavours to raise the susbtantial amount of funding that we will require to sustain this endeavour until it can stand on its own feet through advertising.

Could I thank especially all those who have been contributing to our forum, getting to know one another, and building what we hope will be a very welcoming community for when our real work begins. There have been some excellent discussions emerging on our forum that I commend our weekly subscribers to taking the time to peruse.

And here's what's on offer today and, below that, an overview of what we have offered in the past seven days...

Searching for the historical Jesus...

What was the world of Jesus really like? This week our resident Biblical scholar, Ian Elmer, provides an overview of the social and political climate in which Jesus lived. It is by way of further background preparation to his commentaries in future weeks which will focus more and more on Jesus' own mission and message. [more]

Cindy's secret addiction... Cindy has a confession to make. She's embarrassed to even make the disclosure in public but you know what it's like when the ladies of the parish start sharing their stories. What would you do if you were told you only had a week to live? [more]

010 :
15 Sep 2006

Demystifying the Mystical... Theologos has been on retreat this week. He submitted his commentary for today before he went on retreat in order to help us Demystify the Mystical. That is his title. I am not sure that he achieves that as I've been working on it for four days now trying to make head from tale in this Alice in Wonderland World he is writing about so that I might present it here in an accessible way. I can assure you though, Dear Readers, that as with Peregrinus' comment the other day regarding PJPII's Apsotolic Letter, Salvifici Dolores, perseverence does bring its rewards. [more]

001 :
07 Sep 2006

Handing on and Handing Over... Rosemary Canavan today takes up from a brief discussion that occurred in our forum during the past week: How do we hand on the faith to our children? What, precisely, do we mean when we say we have this desire to pass on our faith, our values or our ways of looking at life? [more]

015 :
13 Sep 2006

The Christian meaning in Human Suffering Catholica Australia presents a special feature on the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering. The editorial provides an overview and leads into a commentary prepared by Peregrinus on the Apostolic Letter of Pope John Paul II on the subject — Salvifici Dolores. [the editorial]

The meaning of Human Suffering (cont'd)... Today Peregrinus provides a summary of Pope John Paul II's lengthy 1984 discourse on The Meaning of Human Suffering — Salvifici Dolores. This Apostolic Letter was written relatively early in the pontificate of Pope John Paul and reputedly out of his own experiences of suffering following the attempt on his life in 1981 by an assassin in St Peter's Square. [peregrinus'commentary]

014 :
12 Sep 2006

Some further lay reflections on the Lectionary... Peregrinus challenges Ruth Fox's view on gender bias in the compilation of the Lectionary that Kate quoted on Sunday. His response here though opens up further the discussion on how effective the Mass readings are in themselves in educating us about religious faith if that is all we had access to from Scripture. [more]

009 :
11 Sep 2006

A second glance at the Holy Family... In this special post which Theologos has submitted to fill in while Cliff is indisposed, he explores another dimension of the recent discussions on the Holy Family that have been taking place both in commentaries and on the discussion forum itself. He asks us to "consider the possibility that Divine Wisdom intervened in the life of Mary and Joseph, to enable the outcome to be as it has been revealed within Holy Scripture". [more]

010 :
10 Sep 2006

Have you ever wondered about the Mass settings and readings? Today Kate provides an overview of how the Lectionary was developed and examines some of its shortcomings. Why do women get a raw deal in the coverage? [more]

020 :
14 Sep 2006

The lament of a childless Ruth Ruth's prayer today is for those who have been blessed with children, especially those times when our children are a challenge. [more]

019 :
12 Sep 2006

On the question of whether God wants us to be rich? Time Magazine's cover story this week is on this question. Ruth thinks we Catholics have something richer than "abundance theology". [more]

009 :
11 Sep 2006

On Pope Benedict's comments in Munich on the re-evangelisation of the Western world... The cloistered faithful have some questions about some of the assumptions behind Pope Benedict's thinking about the apostacy in the Western world. [more]

018 :
10 Sep 2006

On using beer to market religion... Ruth's been musing on Pope Benny's trip home to Bavaria and the merchandising involved with the marketing of religion. [more]
 

Best wishes for a great day wherever you happen to be ... in life, and in our world,

Brian Coyne
Editor and Publisher
Catholica Australia