There are over 200 young people present at the Faith Summer Session in Woldingham, including over 30 priests and more than seminarians, and it's going really well so far. Last night, Fr. Michael John Galbraith opened the proceedings with a good introduction, entitled The Church: Foreshadowed from the beginning.
Among other things, he explained that Catholicism is attracting a lot of antagonism, and there is an almost visceral hatred of the Church, because she claims to teach objective Truth. This is a real challenge to our society which wants everything to be seen as relative.
This morning it was the turn of Fr. Tim Finigan to give his talk, The Church: Our living link to Christ. Despite my speculations as to whether any new technological breakthroughs would be forthcoming, Fr. Tim stuck to PowerPoint for the presentation; I really hope that he will make the slides available online, because there were several very fascinating quotes which I'd really like to look at in more detail.
Fr. Tim explained that the Faith vision particularly took the Scotist view of the Incarnation, namely that Christ would have become incarnate even if our first parents had not sinned. He then showed how this lead organically to the conclusion that the Church must also have been intended. There was a quote from one of the earliest Christian literary works, The Shepherd of Hermas (I think) which described the Church as an old woman because she had been the first to be created, and the world was made for her sake. This seems to me to be one of the most powerful arguments against those people who say things like "Oh yes, I believe in God, and in Jesus, but not in all that Church stuff..."
I'm having a really great time (no surprise there) and I'll post again as soon as I get the chance...
I'd love to be there, and also want to echo your wish to see Fr. Finigan's slides made available online.
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