We Christians didn’t invent monotheism. The ancient Zoroastrians proclaimed a single uncreated and benevolent god of wisdom. The Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep IV, father of the famous Tutankhamun, took the name Akhen/aten after joining the Atenist sun worshippers and he sought to impose their monotheism on all Egyptians.
In January this year NBC premiered a sit-com about a young computer programmer who, through a freak accident, develops the power to hear people’s innermost thoughts and feelings as classic songs. Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist is a quirky, funny series that doesn’t shy away from deeper questions raised by people’s ‘heart songs’, as Zoey calls them.
Years ago I saw a very beautiful image of The Virgin Mary at Prayer in the Dominican church of St Clement near the Colosseum in Rome. When I got back home, I discovered the same painting in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.
Why are you Jews gawking at the sky?Well, because God told Abram, ‘Look up at the night sky, for your descendants shall be as many as the stars of heaven.’ Abram believed the Lord and this was reckoned to him as righteousness. (Gen 15:4-6)
The birds in Nunhead Cemetery begin Before I’ve flicked a switch, turned on the gas. There must be some advantage to the light I tell myself, viewing my slackened chin Mirrored in the rain-dark window glass, While from the graveyard’s trees, the birds begin.
Only six days after the British Fleet arrived in 1788, La Pérouse’s French expedition laid anchor in Botany Bay.
The American comic strip “Fritzi Ritz” began in 1922 and starred ditzy Fritzi, an airheaded flapper. In 1933 the cartoonist introduced Fritzi’s precocious eight-year-old niece Nancy and in 1938 Nancy’s ragamuffin friend Sluggo.
If you had to stand up today and introduce the Risen Christ to a crowd, what would you say? A man is given that daunting task this morning. (Acts 2:14-33). He is called upon to be the very first Christian preacher. He’s Simon Johnson, an uneducated fisherman from the country, of vacillating and impetuous temperament, nicknamed Peter or Rocky by Jesus.
“The effects of war are widely spread and can be long term or short term. Soldiers experience war differently than civilians, although [both] suffer in times of war…” So begins the 5,000 word Wikipedia entry on ‘Effects of war’. Yet strangely, apart from a passing mention of ‘trauma’, there is no discussion of war’s emotional and spiritual toll.
Painted for the Marchese Vincenzo Giustiani at the beginning of the 17th century, The Incredulity of St Thomas was the most copied of all Caravaggio’s paintings in its day. It now hangs in the Sans Souci Picture Gallery—not in Southern Sydney but in Potsdam, Germany.
There are two endings to John’s Gospel. This Sunday we’ll hear the first, the Jerusalem ending (Jn 20:19-31), in which the apostles (minus Thomas the Twin) are huddled in the Upper Room on the day of the Lord’s Resurrection
Saved from what? Christians talk a lot about salvation through Jesus’ cross and resurrection, but in this age of science and technology, affluence and education, big government and media, do we really need saving? Well, healthcare may address our physical diseases, but we know that it can at best only postpone our deaths.
In the middle of the 3rd century AD a pandemic of Smallpox or Ebola erupted in Ethiopia, spread quickly to Rome and Greece, and then swept through the whole Roman empire. Big concentrations of people in cities, excellent roads and great trade routes that were strengths of the Roman empire, proved to be fatal flaws in a time of plague.
Normally on Good Friday I’d be looking out at two thousand or so people packed into the pews of St Mary’s. But today I stand in an empty cathedral looking into a camera. Beyond the lens are thousands of you across the country, in a living cathedral made up of tv rooms and home offices
The recently restored paintings of the Stations of the Cross here at St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney are massive French oils, each weighing 200kg, bought in 1885 by Cardinal Moran from the Chovet studio in Paris. In most, Jesus looks at us, to engage, scrutinise or console.
