Year of Faith: Evangelium

We had the first parish meeting for the Year of Faith the other day, using the Evangelium material by Fr Marcus Holden and Andrew Pinsent, and published by the CTS (who, it should be noted in passing, have turned around from being somewhat flakey at the end of the the last century to being very good in this - is there hope for other bodies whose name begins 'Catholic...'?).

I nearly didn't go, as it wasn't being run by the PP, but rather by a few of the laity.  However, I decided to, not least because only one of the three lay people was one of the usual suspects; by which I mean that group of well-intentioned people who run most things in the parish, in accordance with an understanding formed in (and irreformable since) the 1970s.

However, I did go, and was pleased that I had done so. The content was excellent.

We did rush over it a bit, covering the first three sections in just over an hour.  The presentation was uninspired: quite a lot of the time we were simply reading texts from slides, and there was little room for questions or discussion. Part of me welcomed that, as uninformed discussion without someone willing and able to explain the Church's teaching can be particularly frustrating.  However, it did make it rather dry.

But, as I mentioned earlier, the content was excellent: we covered 'The Meaning of Life,' ' Creation and Fall,' and 'Salvation History.' (Yes, not bad for 60 minutes!)

I can't remember the last time I heard words like 'Original Sin' and 'Sanctifying Grace' in a Church: my only concern was whether people attending had much clue what they meant.

One of the things I particularly liked was the use of works of art to introduce various topics, with their symbolic meaning explored: see this slide for an example of that.

So I will be going to the next session, and if you get the chance to participate in an Evangelium course, I thoroughly recommend it.