Grace and Peace: In Celebration of St Paul, Kieran Fenn FMS and James B Lyons, First Edition, 2008.
Wel-com readers will by now be familiar with the pairing of Br Kieran Fenn and Fr James Lyons in their joint appreciation of St Paul’s writings.
Pope Benedict declared the 12 months from Paul’s feast day at the end of June 2008 as the year of Paul and this little book will help to focus readers further on the richness of Paul’s wisdom.
Fr Lyons points out in the preface that the book’s title comes from the words Paul often used when he wrote to his communities.
‘He wrote with passion but never without respect for his readers. His greetings were genuine expressions of love and concern for people he came to regard as his very dear children, having given birth to them through his preaching of the gospel. He prayed for them all and wanted only that they might live in grace and peace.’
Br Kieran has the last word saying that Paul deserves to be better known by Catholics.
‘It has been said that every revolution in the Catholic Church has been triggered by a rediscovery of St Paul.’
For Br Kieran the book’s work has brought greater appreciation of Paul’s vision of unity in community.
‘He has much to say to our divided community today about what binds us together in Christ’ as he sought to help real people solve genuine problems.
But his message is not easy to understand unless ‘we identify what those issues were and how they relate to our day’.
I suspect this little book will go some way to helping us in our quest for greater understanding of this apostle to the Gentiles.
Grace and Peace is available from the Catholic Centre or from Br Kieran for $20.
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