First Sunday of Lent (Cycle A)

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The Temptation of Jesus Lectionary:  22 Reading 1 -  Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7 Responsorial Psalm -  Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 17 Reading 2 -  Romans 5:12-19 Verse - Matthew 4:4b Gospel -  Matthew 4:1-11 One does not live on bread alone. Every year, we begin our Lenten journey in the same place: the desert.   The Gospel for this Sunday places Jesus in the wilderness, fasting and praying, confronted by temptation. In that stark setting we find the pattern of our own Lenten journey: a movement away from distraction toward the heart of God, a testing that reveals what truly sustains us, and a call to conversion that reshapes our lives.  Throughout our lives, we are frequently confronted with tests … and these tests generally reveal something about ourselves: In school, we demonstrate that we have mastered an academic subject with a test  in sports, we demonstrate our level of a particular skill with a contest  In life, we demonstrate the integri...
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Review: Christian Love

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Christian Love Christian Love by Bernard V. Brady

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book: *****
Performance: ***

The Evolution of Christian Love

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor 13:13)

This is a review on how the understanding of the Command to Love as a Christian vocation has evolved since the founding of the faith centuries past. The other begins with how love is portrayed in the Hebrew scriptures (aka Old Testament), focusing on the aspects of ahab (broadly between persons) and hesed (compassion and mercy). Examples are taken from Ruth, Tobit and Song of Solomon among others. Dr Brady follows that up with another two (2) part chapter on Agape (Greek) and Caritas (Latin) in the New Testament (the latter coming from a Latin translation of the Greek). From there, we start to consider the various theologians and philosophers who were the thought leaders of their time, such as St Augustine (another two part chapter), three (3) medieval mystics (Bernard of Clairvaux, Julian of Norwich and Hadewijch), Courtly Love poets such as Andreas Capellanus in response to the mystical love movement … eventually bring us to the present time after considering St Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther. Our modern understanding was greatly influenced by 19th century theologians such as Søren Kierkegaard, Anders Nygren, Reinhold Niebuhr; and 20th century activists such as Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II; to finish with Jules Toner and Gene Outka.

Dr Brady skillfully weaves in all of these sources to come to three (3) general propositions about Christian Love.

1) God Is Love
2) Humans Love
3) The Full meaning of human love is found within the full participation in God’s Love.

In other words, we have the Lover, the Beloved and the Love shared between them (one of the concepts frequently used to explain the concept of the Christian Trinity).

The chapters and sections in this work are:
Preface 0.1 - I Love Therefore I Am (7m)
Chapter 1.2 - Love In the Old Testament (70m)
Chapter 1.3 - Romantic Love (72m)
Chapter 2.4 - Love in the New Testament (73m)
Chapter 3.5 - St Augustine (106m)
Chapter 3.6 - Ordered Love (94m)
Chapter 4.7 - Mystical Love (74m)
Chapter 5.8 - Troubadours and Troubled Romance (39m)
Chapter 6.9 - St Thomas Aquinas (50m)
Chapter 7.10 - Martin Luther (40m)
Chapter 8.11 - Christian Love is Sacrificial Love (43m)
Chapter 9.12 - Love Activists (84m)
Chapter 10.13 - Self Regard, Other Regard and Mutuality (70m)
Chapter 11.14 - Reflections on Christian Love (29m)

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#ChristianLove #FreeAudiobookCodes

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