Roger Pearse has made a — very important — discovery of the patristic foundations of, and justification for, indulgence of your chocolate cravings.
Month: December 2009
Vanity Post
Alicia Van Hecke at Love2Learn Blog posted a very kind profile of Yours Truly, for Catholic Speakers Month.
Primeros Cristianos (EarlyChristians.org) are promoting their “exclusive interview” with the host of this blog.
The brilliant and charming Karen Edmisten displayed her brilliance and charm by posting an appreciative review of my book Fire of God’s Love: 120 Reflections on the Eucharist.
A blog called One Billion Stories posted an extremely appreciative review of my book The Mass of the Early Christians.
A discussion group at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Sherman, Texas, is reading my book Sharing Christ’s Priesthood: A Bible Study for Catholics.
Outside the Walls, But Now on DVD
One of my all-time favorite books is Margaret Visser’s The Geometry of Love: Space, Time, Mystery, and Meaning in an Ordinary Church, a noted art historian’s study of Rome’s fourth-century Church of St. Agnes Outside the Walls. Regular readers know that I’m deeply devoted to St. Agnes, having both a mom and daughter who bear her name. Last week I thrilled to learn that Margaret Visser has taped a feature-length documentary on the church. You can view excerpts here. The program’s not available on Amazon, but I learned that it’s for sale on DVD from Les Productions Colin Neale, Inc., in Quebec. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way to purchase it online.
I’ve never visited St. Agnes Outside the Walls — yet — though it’s been a dream of mine.
It will be a dream come true, God willing, next May when Scott Hahn, Kimberly Hahn, Steve Ray, Elizabeth Lev, and I lead a pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi. It would be awesome if you could join us.
You’ll find an itinerary and registration details here.
Wheaton’s New Patristic Center
Mark Sullivan, esteemed son of my sister Sue, has posted an interesting piece on the new Wheaton Center for Early Christian Studies. It originally appeared in Our Sunday Visitor newspaper. Here’s a snip:
“We are striving to create a center where discussions between Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox can happen. A place where we can come together and say, ‘What is this that we call our common faith, and how do we each contribute to a better understanding of that,’” George Kalantzis, director of the new Wheaton Center for Early Christian Studies, told Our Sunday Visitor…
“What is missing in American Protestantism is an understanding of the richness of the early Church,” Kalantzis said. “One looks at reformers such as Calvin, Luther and Wesley and one sees the dependence on the early Church. The Reformation itself is a call to come back to the Church. It is a call to the Church to come back to the tradition of the Church.”
“Wheaton has always been at the forefront of that evangelical call to be faithful to the Bible and the faith of the Church,” Kalantzis said. “And now we have an opportunity to have a programmatic relationship with that.”
It looks great on paper — though it’s hard to imagine how “discussions between Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox” can happen if Wheaton continues to exclude Catholics from its faculty. It’s the college’s right, and I support that right. But it does render impossible the discussion they say they want to have. Or am I missing something?