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Taking risks…
Dear Friends,
It was a calculated risk running with yesterday's headline from Tom McMahon's commentary. It was either going to cause mass unsubscriptions from Catholica or it would create a lot of interest. We did did get one unsubscription but if it was because of the headline I do not know. We established a new record for the number of visitors to our website on a Sunday though. Jesus was a risk-taker also in the ways in which he challenged the culture and the authorities of his time. In our continuing series of extracts from Tom Lee's monumental personal exploration of his own beliefs and the origins of our shared Christian beliefs, we are now beginning to skip large sections of his text and examine particular elements and personalities in that first 500 years of our history. In this commentary today he examines the origin of our central sacrament, the Eucharist. I have left out a lengthy preliminary section of his manuscript that sets the scene leading up to the Last Supper. Next week though we will continue on directly from this extract and examine the history shaping events that immediately followed the Last Supper — the trial and crucifixion of Jesus.
 Tom examines the evidence as to whether women and children would have been invited to the Last Supper. He also examines how the Eucharist developed into the central sacramental ritual and how, over time, the meaning changed through reasons of governance and other cultural influences of later periods in human and Church history… <Read Tom Lee's commentary>
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