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Great Christian Thinkers - 21 St. Jerome
Great Christian Thinkers - 21 St. Jerome
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
St. Jerome His Life and Work We now turn our attention to St. Jerome, a Church Father who centred his life on the Bible: he translated it into Latin, commented on it in his works, and above all, strove to live it in practice throughout his long earthly life, despite the well-know…
Great Christian Thinkers - 26 St. Leo The Great
Great Christian Thinkers - 26 St. Leo The Great
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
St. Leo The Great Continuing our journey through the Fathers of the Church, true stars that shine in the distance, we next encounter a pope who, in 1754, Benedict XIV proclaimed a Doctor of the Church: St. Leo the Great. As the nickname soon attributed to him by tradition suggest…
Great Christian Thinkers - 23 St. Ephrem
Great Christian Thinkers - 23 St. Ephrem
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
St. Ephrem Common opinion today supposes Christianity to be a European religion that subsequently exported the culture of this continent to other countries. But the reality is far more complex, since the roots of the Christian religion are found in the Old Testament, hence, in Je…
Great Christian Thinkers - 36 Bede the Venerable
Great Christian Thinkers - 36 Bede the Venerable
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
Bede the Venerable The saint we are approaching now is called Bede and was born in the northeast of England; to be exact, Northumbria, in the year 672 or 673. He himself recounts that when he was seven years old his parents entrusted him to the abbot of the neighbouring Benedicti…
Great Christian Thinkers - 37 St. Boniface, Apostle of The Germans
Great Christian Thinkers - 37 St. Boniface, Apostle of The Germans
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
St. Boniface, Apostle of The Germans We reflect here on a great eighth-century missionary who spread Christianity in central Europe—indeed, also in my own country: St. Boniface, who has gone down in history as “the Apostle of the Germans.”… Taken from Great Christian Thinkers by …
CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - 3 Consider the lilies of the field: Reading Luke’s Gospel and saving the planet
CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - 3 Consider the lilies of the field: Reading Luke’s Gospel and saving the planet
by SPCK - Sebastian C.H. Kim and Jonathan Draper
Consider the lilies of the field: Reading Luke’s Gospel and saving the planet ‘Consider the lilies….’ (Luke 12.22–31); the flowers in the grounds of Tantur Ecumenical Institute, outside Jerusalem, near the Bethlehem checkpoint, are thought to be the biblical lilies. Whether they …
Great Christian Thinkers - 19 St. Ambrose of Milan
Great Christian Thinkers - 19 St. Ambrose of Milan
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
St. Ambrose of Milan Holy Bishop Ambrose, about whom I now speak to you, died in Milan in the night between 3 and 4 April 397. It was dawn on Holy Saturday. The day before, at about five o’clock in the afternoon, he had settled down to pray, lying on his bed with his arms wide op…
Great Christian Thinkers - 20 St. Maximus of Turin
Great Christian Thinkers - 20 St. Maximus of Turin
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
St. Maximus of Turin Between the end of the fourth century and the beginning of the fifth, another Father of the Church made a great contribution to the spread and consolidation of Christianity in northern Italy: St. Maximus, whom we come across in 398— a year after St. Ambrose’s…
Great Christian Thinkers - 28 St. Benedict of Nursia
Great Christian Thinkers - 28 St. Benedict of Nursia
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
St. Benedict of Nursia Benedict, the founder of Western monasticism, is also the patron of my pontificate. I begin with words that St. Gregory the Great wrote about St. Benedict: “The man of God who shone on this earth among so many miracles was just as brilliant in the eloquent …
Great Christian Thinkers - 33 St. Isidore of Seville
Great Christian Thinkers - 33 St. Isidore of Seville
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
St. Isidore of Seville Saint Isidore of Seville was a younger brother of Leander, archbishop of Seville, and a great friend of Pope Gregory the Great. Pointing this out is important because it enables us to bear in mind a cultural and spiritual approach that is indispensable for …
Great Christian Thinkers - 42 John Scotus Erigena
Great Christian Thinkers - 42 John Scotus Erigena
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
John Scotus Erigena Though a noteworthy thinker of the Christian West, John Scotus Erigena’s origins are nonetheless obscure. He certainly came from Ireland, where he was born at the beginning of the ninth century. But we do not know when he left his island to cross the channel a…
Great Christian Thinkers - 47 St. Anselm
Great Christian Thinkers - 47 St. Anselm
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
St. Anselm The Benedictine abbey of Sant’Anselmo (St. Anselm) is located on the Aventine Hill in Rome. As the headquarters of an academic institute of higher studies and of the abbot primate of the Confederated Benedictines, it is a place that unites within it prayer, study, and …
Great Christian Thinkers - 48 Peter the Venerable
Great Christian Thinkers - 48 Peter the Venerable
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
Peter the Venerable Peter the Venerable takes us back to the famous abbey of Cluny, to its decor (“decorum”) and nitor (“clarity”), to use terms that recur in the Cluny texts - a decorum and splendour that were admired especially in the beauty of the liturgy, a privileged way for…
Great Christian Thinkers - 62 St. Gertrude the Great
Great Christian Thinkers - 62 St. Gertrude the Great
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
St. Gertrude the Great St. Gertrude the Great brings us once again to the monastery of Helfta, where several of the Latin-German masterpieces of religious literature were written by women. Gertrude belonged to this world. She is one of the most famous mystics, the only German wom…
Great Christian Thinkers - 63 St. Elizabeth of Hungary
Great Christian Thinkers - 63 St. Elizabeth of Hungary
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
St. Elizabeth of Hungary Another great woman of the Middle Ages who inspired the greatest admiration is St. Elizabeth of Hungary, also called St. Elizabeth of Thuringia… Taken from Great Christian Thinkers by Pope Benedict XVI
Parallel Lives of Jesus - 9 The Walking on the Water
Parallel Lives of Jesus - 9 The Walking on the Water
by SPCK - Edward Adams
The Walking on the Water The story of Jesus’ walking on the water appears in three of the four Gospels: not, as one might expect, in the three Synoptic Gospels, but in Matthew, Mark, and John. Luke does not include this episode; he moves directly from the feeding miracle to the c…
Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes - 17 Theology of Sexual Practice Joining the Body