Theology Update for the Week Beginning May 18

Dear friends in Christ

The Sunday Bible Study on May 18 at 10am will pick up at 2 Corinthians 4:7. This part of the epistle has some achingly beautiful words. We have this treasure in earthly vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. And a bit later: So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

The class is repeated on Thursday (May 22) at 12:40pm on the 2nd floor.

NEWS: Divine Comedy Seminar Announced

One of the greatest literary achievements of all time, Dante’s Divine Comedy, is great in no small part because of its ability to touch and speak to everyday people in their ordinary lives. Dante combines theology, politics, philosophy, astronomy, ethics, passion, sin, desire, hope, and everything else that goes into our human world, and re-presents the whole thing to us as a journey that is at once everyday and extraordinary. A “public intellectual” has recently written that Dante saved his life. The Divine Comedy has that kind of power.

Over six monthly sessions, we will read and discuss this magnificent poem. Our focus will not be scholarly or antiquarian. We are not much interested in the politics of 13th and 14th century Florence. We will read Dante directly and expect his Comedy to speak to us.

These monthly seminars, in the ongoing “Good Books and Good Talk” series, are open to anyone who wishes to read the book. Any translation will be fine for our discussion; the Saint Thomas bookstore will be stocking the contemporary translation by the Hollanders. Participants may wish to browse the shelves of a library to see which translation seems most appealing to them.

Each session is on a Monday evening from 6:15 to 7:45 p.m.

· July 21: Inferno cantos 1-17
· August 17: Inferno cantos 18-end
· September 15: Purgatorio cantos 1-17
· October 20: Purgatorio cantos 18-end
· November 17: Paradiso cantos 1-17
· December 15: Paradiso cantos 18-end

Peace.