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Editorial
Thanks, firstly, for the positive feedback regarding the spring edition of The Swag which showcased the July Parramatta Convention and a second word of thanks to all who have contributed material for this summer edition.
Editorial
Recently I visited Theology on Tap (TOT), a regular forum run at a few pubs in Sydney for young people. I was the host to the speaker for the evening, Theresa Burke, founder of Rachel’s Vineyard Healing Retreats for those suffering post abortion trauma. She was visiting from America.
Editorial
Fairly obviously, whenever two hundred and fifty people gather to share experiences and to be challenged by experienced and thought-provoking speakers there will be two hundred and fifty different responses and memories.
Something of the richness of the experience of the recent NCP convention in Parramatta is conveyed in the pages of this Spring edition of The Swag. Peter and I thank those who have taken time to write down their reflections on the convention experience and made them available to publish in our magazine. There’s a wide range of responses – all valuable.
In this short editorial section, I want to share some of my own reflections.
Trinity Sunday thoughts
I’m sitting down to write this little editorial contribution on Trinity Sunday. So among other thoughts my mind is trying to uncover something of the Mystery of God, and hoping to share that during today’s celebration of Eucharist.
The cave at Bethlehem – a caveat
G K Chesterton once wrote that Christianity may be right or it may be wrong, but it is uniquely right or wrong. Alone among the world’s faiths Christianity has as pivotal to its understanding of God’s revelation to humanity the historical fact of the birth of a baby in a stable in an outlying province of the Roman Empire.
The Year of the Priest
History shows that the message of the Gospel has been best radiated by the Church when Christianity has been persecuted or greatly at odds with the culture of the day. Pope Benedict has chosen the counter-cultural John Marie Vianney, the Curé of Ars, as Patron Saint for the Year of the Priest.
A future not our own
The oft quoted words of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador are even more relevant today than they were in 1980, the year of Oscar’s martyrdom: “We are workers, not master builders, ministers not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.”
