*****
GLOBAL AND ECUMENICAL IN SCOPE
CANADIAN IN PERSPECTIVE
Wayne A. Holst, Editor
My E-Mail Address:
waholst@telus.net
Colleagues List Web Site:
http://colleagueslist.blogspot.com
Dear Colleagues:
Please let me know how I'm doing.
If you have friends who would like to
receive Colleagues List notices, just send
me their email addresses.
Your recommendation is all I would need
to include them.
--
This week's issue begins with my book notice
for Mother Teresa's "No Greater Love." The
original edition appeared in 2002. The new
commemorative edition has just appeared
at the time of her canonization in Rome and
contains background material developed after
feedback and assessment from the volume's
first appearance. A new audience awaits.
Four of you offer Colleague Contributions
this week, and I include 12 Net Notes - items
that appealed to me from my weekly trolling
of the internet for articles that may interest you.
We benefit from the wisdom of six seers,
past and present, this week, and I include
three historical events of significance, reported
as they occurred, in the New York Times.
Here in Canada we adjust to a new autumn
schedule. Hopefully life is good where you are
as it is for me here.
Wayne
*****
SPECIAL ITEM
Book Notice -
NO GREATER LOVE
Commemorative Edition
by Mother Teresa
Foreword by Thomas Moore
New World Library, Aug. 15th, 2016
Commemorative Edition $22.00 US
ISBN #978-1-60868-446-5.
Original Edition 2002 (still available)
Hardcover. 224 pages. $16.50 CAD.
--
Publisher's Promo:
"No Greater Love" is the essential wisdom
of Mother Teresa - the most accessible,
intimate, and inspiring book of her
teachings.
Thematically arranged to present her
revolutionary vision of Christianity in its
graceful simplicity, the book features her
thoughts on love, generosity, forgiveness,
prayer, service, and what it means to be
a Christian. A passionate testament to
deep hope and abiding faith in God, "No
Greater Love" celebrates the life and work
of one of the world's most revered spiritual
teachers.
--
Preface by Thomas Moore:
Mother Teresa has caught the imagination of
the world not because she is a great writer
or theologian, but because she is a person of
immense compassion and openness...
(In) her undefended state, she feels the
suffering of the world, of the old and the
very young and those between. She knows
firsthand the meaning of empathy and
more so the profundity of pathos.
In the intimate reflections published in this
book, we learn some of the secrets of this
person... her particular kind of Christianity,
with its spiritual vision, methods of prayer,
and inspiring figure of Jesus (she tells us)
keeps her personal spirits and unlimited
compassion high.
To a sophisticated modern reader, some of her
ideas and language, especially her piety, may
seem naïve and unnecessarily self-denying...
but modern psychology has yet to discover
what the religions have taught for millennia -
that loss of self leads to the discovery of soul.
As I read her words, I try to hear them, not
as naïve, but as sophisticated in a way that
is largely foreign to modern taste.
Rather than avoiding suffering, she becomes
intimate with it. Rather than heroically trying
to overcome death, in the style of modern
Western medical philosophy, she focuses on
a person's emotional state and sense of meaning
in the last moments. She is acutely attentive, too,
to the feelings of children, a strong sign, in my
estimation, of a person profoundly initiated in
the ways of the soul...
Beneath Mother Teresa's straightforward faith
and personal honesty lies a subtle knowledge
of human motivation.
(She avoids a focus on the mental aspects of
faith because) when religion is largely mental,
spiritual attitudes may never get translated
into compassionate attention and action in
the world community.
What is absent in these passionate words
of Mother Teresa is any attempt to convert
us to her beliefs. She simply describes her
strong faith and tells us about her work
among the poor and the sick... Her words
simply demonstrate how human beings,
when given the most basic kinds of love and
attention, find significant transformation and
discover their humanity, dignity and at least
momentary happiness...
(With her recent canonization we can formally
declare Mother Teresa a saint)... but the
reflections in this book could show us, as she
says, that we can all be saints.
- from the Foreword
--
Wikipedia Bio:
http://tinyurl.com/hlztqj9
--
My Comments:
The overarching theme of Mother Teresa's
book is missiological. By that, I mean that
the newly declared saint, like all saints who
preceded her, had a mission in the world.
But Mother Teresa's purpose as a Christian
is not to try to convert the world to her faith.
Her purpose is to demonstrate what her faith
means to her in the way she serves God and
her fellow human beings.
Any "conversions" to her faith (and there
are many) are not her responsibility. She
leaves that to God's Holy Spirit. Her task
is to witness to what God enables her to do.
--
The model for mission, personified by
Mother Teresa, emerged out of the reality
of a multi-faith, impoverished Indian culture.
That same model speaks to a secular world,
especially in the West, that tends to denigrate
all religion as self-serving and violent.
Far from viewing Mother Teresa as a vestige
of traditional Catholic piety, her witness,
to my mind, puts her in a teaching role for
many of us who try to be faithful Christians
in a rapidly changing world.
What is our mission?
Teresa demonstrates a mission to compassion
and caring. Some of us have a special vocation
for justice-seeking, and Teresa only indirectly
appeals to that dimension of Christian mission.
She has been criticized for ignoring justice
and focusing primarily on band aid work.
I believe she knows injustice only too well,
but her primary task is mercy.
I found this re-encounter with the major
treatise of the newly minted saint to be a
healthy counter to one-sided missiological
thinking.
My life must reflect a dual mission - to act justly
and to be merciful.
---
Buy New Edition from New World Library:
http://tinyurl.com/zc6479j
Buy Original Edition from Amazon.ca:
http://tinyurl.com/gm24xla
*****
COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS
Jock Mc Tavish,
Calgary, AB.
September 7th, 2016
Dear Wayne
I’ve just watched a quality debate between
Richard Dawkins and John Lennox on --
“Has Science Buried God?”
It was incredibly civil, respectful and broad.
Lennox does an excellent job explaining,
defending things “from the top down” as
does Dawkins “from the bottom up”.
Jock
http://tinyurl.com/jbpum2u
--
Elfrieda Schroeder,
Winnipeg, MB
In Transit Blog
September 3rd, 2016
"Zwieback Anyone?"
http://tinyurl.com/gpcwx9d
--
Ron Rolheiser,
San Antonio, TX
Personal Web Site
September 5th, 2016
"Feeding Off Life's Sacred Fire"
http://tinyurl.com/z6w2pk4
--
Martin Marty,
Chicago, IL
Sightings,
August 22nd, 2016
"Justification"
http://tinyurl.com/jr6rflo
Consider Marty's new book on Kindle:
"October 31st, 1517 - Martin Luther
and the Day that Changed the World"
http://tinyurl.com/juchbku
NET NOTES
THE LAST TRUMP?
Reflections on Facism
Sightings,
September 8th, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/jceqcae
--
TRANSGENDER IN CANADA
Canadians Say - Accept,
Accommodate, Move On...
Angus Reid Institute
September 7th, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/h8mggvt
--
FIRST NATIVE MONGOLIAN PRIEST
Speaks About His Mission
UCA News
September 7th, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/z5eqlym
--
WHY IS CHRISTIANITY DECLINING?
Assessing Traditional American Religion
(Make Your Own Application to Canada)
Religion News Service
September 6th, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/hhto7gt
--
HOW MOTHER TERESA CHANGED MISSIONS
An Evangelical Christian Perspective
Christianity Today,
September, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/jxtqae9
"Photos of Mother Teresa India Celebration"
UCA News
September 5th, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/grfpebv
--
WHAT RELIGION WOULD
JESUS BELONG TO?
New York Times,
September 4th, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/j4lszrm
--
THE UNFOLDING OF A DEADLY
HAJJ STAMPEDE
Personal Experience Described
New York Times/RNS
September 7th, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/julm79v
"Saudi Arabia Seeks to Prevent
Repeat of Serious Hajj Crush"
Religion News Service
September 4th, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/zxds5oj
--
ARCHEOLOGISTS RESTORE
SECOND TEMPLE TILES
2,000 Year Reconnection
Jerusalem Post
September 6th, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/hhhdbq6
--
THE WORLD HAS CHANGED
SINCE SEPTEMBER 11th, 2016
Fifteen Year Retrospective
National Catholic Reporter
September 9th, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/hss34fc
--
WOMENPRIEST SUPPORTERS
SEE HOPE IN FRANCIS' OPENNESS
Women Deacons Seen Possible
Religion News Service
September 4th, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/zxmu88l
--
RESPONDING TO CHRISTIANS
WHO ARE DONE WITH CHURCH
What are Real Reasons for Leaving?
Christian Week Online
September 5th, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/zlsdz63
--
UCC PANEL URGES DEFROCKING OF
ATHEIST MINISTER GRETTA VOSPER
Long Process Ends in Split Decision
Globe and Mail
September 8th, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/gtbh9k5
***
WISDOM OF THE WEEK
From Sojourners and the Bruderhof online:
True love is a giving and giving until it hurts.
- Mother Teresa
--
It is my deepest belief that only by
giving our lives do we find life.
- Cesar Chavez
--
Weary or bitter or bewildered as we may be,
God is faithful. [God] lets us wander so we
will know what it means to come home.
- Marilynne Robinson
--
will know what it means to come home.
- Marilynne Robinson
--
I have held many things in my hands, and
I have lost them all; but whatever I have
placed in God's hands, that I still possess.
- Martin Luther
--
It is not the critic who counts, not the one
who points out how the strong man tumbled,
or where the doer of deeds could have done
them better. The credit belongs to the one
who is actually in the arena; whose face is
marred by dust, sweat, and blood; who strives
valiantly; who errs and comes short again and
again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the
great devotions and spends himself in a worthy
cause; who at the best knows in the end the
triumph of high achievement, and who at the
worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly,
so that his place shall never be with those cold
and timid souls who know neither victory
nor defeat.
- Theodore Roosevelt
***
ON THIS DAY
From the archives of the New York Times:
"German Luftwaffe Begins Abrupt, Heavy
Barrage of London in World War Two - The Blitz"
http://tinyurl.com/kv75lx4
"Palestinian Terrorists Massacre Israeli
Athletes at Munich Olympic Games"
http://tinyurl.com/1b56
"Mao Tse-Tung Dies in Beijing"
http://tinyurl.com/zpo7x4t
***
CLOSING THOUGHT - Frederick Buechner
Have you wept at anything during
the past year?
Has your heart beat faster at the
sight of young beauty?
Have you thought seriously about the fact
that someday you are going to die?
More often than not, do you really listen
when people are speaking to you, instead
of just waiting for your turn to speak?
Is there anybody you know in whose place,
if one of you had to suffer great pain, you
would volunteer yourself?
If your answer to all or most of these questions
is no, the chances are that you’re dead.
(end)
*****
For Those Interested -
Beginning Our Program Planning Season -
Autumn 2016 Adult Spiritual Development
ACTS Ministry at St. David's United Church,
Calgary
FALL 2016 MONDAY NIGHT STUDY
This series starts in September
Theme: "Rediscovering the Bible for Today"
Book: "Reclaiming the Bible
for a Non-Religious World"
by Bishop John Spong
http://tinyurl.com/jfanqdp
A ten-week introduction to the entire Bible
with help to engage it meaningfully, today.Ten Monday evenings, 7-9PM
In the St. David's TM Room
September 19th - November 28th, 2016
Excluding Monday of Thanksgiving Weekend
Books and Registration/Hospitality - $60.00
Books only - $20.00
Total book sets made available for sale: 35.
SOLD OUT, but more to come if needed.
Now beginning eighteen years
of Monday Night Studies
Our thirty-fifth series of
(usually) ten week sessions!
Course design: TBA in September
Check our complete archives
for all 48 book studies since 2000:
http://tinyurl.com/q3bw6dh
***
THURSDAY MORNING BIBLE STUDY
Theme: TBA in September, 2016
Group Decides Theme at First Meeting
Ten sessions 10-11 AM
Gathering at 9:30 AM
In the St. David's TM Room
September 15th - November 24th.
No charge.
Study resource -
The DK Complete Bible Handbook
http://tinyurl.com/odxlv7q
(copy available in our church library)
***
NEW SEASON,
NEW ST.DAVID'S SPIRITUAL TRAVEL PROJECT
The Planning Cycle for a 2017 Tour Continues.
The Travel Destination has been researched with
Rostad Tours of Calgary.
We have selected South Africa as our location!
We plan a seventeen-day trip that combines a
focus on faith, culture, and nature, and it will
take place in October of next year.
Follow these notices for weekly updates.
*****
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