Book of the Week
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From the Beginning to Baptism: Scientific and Sacred Stories of Water, Oil and Fire, by Linda Gibler OP. Liturgical Press, 2010.
This is a well-researched book tracing the beginnings of water, oil, and fire to pre-historic times, long before God created the universe. She shows how the initial elements were used to create before time. She begins with the cosmic history of these three and ends up with their use in the baptismal and other sacramental liturgies.
New life begins in Christ, much as their initial life began before time. She leads her readers in a journey of space and time, and links the scientific beginnings of water, oil, and fire to new life in the sacraments which use these three elements.
Gibler's first three chapters are devoted to each of the three elements, each of which chapters contains a poem, a
reflection on the sacramental, its history in the Church, current blessings and prayers, Scripture notations, and instructions for using the information as part of the RCIA sessions.
The fourth chapter uses the previous information and applies it to the sacramental and an appreciation of baptism and sacramentality in general.
The prehistory of the three elements is very scientific and one may wonder if that is really authentic. The ordinary reader may find this difficult to understand and may get discouraged and miss out on the later sections on the sacraments.
(Thanks to Sr. Irene Hartman OP for this review.)
Paperback, Kindle versions
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Saint of the Week
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St. John XXIII: (1881-1963) October 11 Although few people had as great an impact on the 20th century as Pope John XXIII, he avoided the limelight as much as possible. Indeed, one writer has noted
that his "ordinariness" seems one of his most remarkable qualities.
The firstborn son of a farming family in Sotto il Monte, near Bergamo in northern Italy, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was always proud of his down-to-earth roots. In Bergamo's diocesan seminary, he joined the Secular Franciscan Order.
After his ordination in 1904, Angelo returned to Rome for canon law studies. He soon worked as his bishop's secretary, Church history teacher in the seminary, and as publisher of the diocesan paper.
His service as a stretcher-bearer for the Italian army during World War I gave him a firsthand knowledge of war. In 1921 he was made national director of the Society for the Propagation of the
Faith. He also found time to teach patristics at a seminary in Rome.
In 1925 he became a papal diplomat, serving first in Bulgaria, then in Turkey, and finally in France (1944-53). During World War II, he became well acquainted with Orthodox Church leaders. With the help of Germany's ambassador to Turkey, Archbishop Roncalli helped save an estimated 24,000 Jewish people.
Named a cardinal and appointed patriarch of Venice in 1953, he was finally a residential bishop. A month short of entering his 78th year, he was elected pope, taking the name John after his father and the two patrons of Rome's cathedral, St. John Lateran. He took his work very seriously but not himself. His wit soon became proverbial, and he began meeting with political and religious leaders from around the world. In
1962 he was deeply involved in efforts to resolve the Cuban missile crisis.
His most famous encyclicals were Mother and Teacher (1961) and Peace on Earth (1963). Pope John XXIII enlarged the membership in the College of Cardinals and made it more international. At his address at the opening of the Second Vatican Council, he criticized the "prophets of doom" who "in these modern times see nothing
but prevarication and ruin." Pope John XXIII set a tone for the Council when he said, "The Church has always opposed... errors. Nowadays, however, the Spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity."
On his deathbed he said: "It is not that the gospel has changed; it is that we have begun to understand it better. Those who have lived as long as I
have...were enabled to compare different cultures and traditions, and know that the moment has come to discern the signs of the times, to seize the opportunity and to look far ahead."
"Good Pope John" died on June 3, 1963. St. John Paul II beatified him in 2000, and Pope Francis canonized him in 2014.
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