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Wednesday, August 1, 2018, 7:00 PMLocation: Burke Center-South RoomSUMMER SCRIPTURE—A MIXED BAG
SUMMER SCRIPTURE—A MIXED BAG
The topics for this summer’s Adult Formation/Scripture Study come from lectures offered at the Georgetown Scripture Institute about five years ago. I put them together in this package partly because none on its own could be stretched over four weeks, but each one is very much worth considering and led to a great deal of fruitful discussion when I presented this grouping at St. John Fisher in 2013. So here is the schedule for these sessions in August—four Wednesdays at 7:00p.m., beginning August 1st….
August 1 – Scripture at the Council of Trent and Vatican II
The Council of Trent, which lasted for sixteen years off and on in the middle
of the 16th century, is often seen as nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction to
the Reformation which, in part, it was. But it was also extremely progressive, in theory if not in practice, and it really laid the groundwork for the truly groundbreaking work of Vatican II four centuries later. Put
simply: without Trent, Vatican II might not have gone the way it did; we’ll
see why that’s the case. This session will be the shortest of the four, but it
comes from an extraordinary single presentation by the great church
historian, Fr. John O’Malley, S.J. who was given access to previously unseen
Vatican records from the Council of Trent.
August 8 - Social Concern in the Gospel of Luke – Part I
We’ve looked at some of the Lukan parables and passages in the previous
series on Luke, but we’ll approach them from a different angle, considering
their somewhat radical departure from, or expansion of, traditional Old
Testament understandings of social justice.
August 15 – Social Concern in Luke – Part II & Mary as Prophet
This session will focus on several unique Lukan sayings and parables,
including the Rich Man and Lazarus, but will also include an extensive
consideration of Mary’s Magnificat along with Luke’s Infancy narratives
and the relation of those texts to Mary’s status in Luke as a prophet of
social justice. This will probably be the longest of our four sessions and,
along with the previous week’s, comes from presentations given by the
renowned New Testament scholar, Fr. John Donohue, S.J. who has since
retired both from teaching and public speaking.
August 22 – Johannine Metaphors/Feminine Imagery in Jesus’ Self-Surrender
The Gospel of John presents a unique view of Jesus’ passion and death,
describing those penultimate events of his life in terms of birthing rather
than dying. And even though she is never named in John but always
referred to as the Mother of Jesus, Mary plays a crucial role at both the
beginning of Jesus’ public ministry and at the cross. This session
condenses four presentations by Sr. Barbara Reid, O.P., an authority of
the Gospel of John.
If you’re interested in attending some or all of these sessions, please call the rectory in the next few weeks. If the new accessible and larger meeting space in the school is completed by August 1, we will likely meet there, but if not, we’ll be in the Burke Center once again and there will be an announcement on July 29 regarding that. Since I can’t be sure about the location, attendance will still be limited to 40 at most, and beyond that there would be a waiting list—unless we’re able to meet in the new room.
Finally, if you need a bible, please indicate that when you register; the cost is $10.00. As always, we’ll be using the New Revised New American Bible since that is the version currently in use in the Lectionary for Mass—though even those readings are in the process of yet another revision coming out sometime in the next ten years.
Fr. Bob