Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Mandatory reading

I've finally gotten around to reading Jason Pennington's series of bulletin inserts on Sacramentum caritatis at Christus Vincit. As far as I'm concerned, every parish should be providing inserts like this to parishioners for every encyclical or Apostolic Exhortation. I know some priests aren't comfortable delving into theological or liturgical issues like this as that is not their particular area of deepest expertise - that's fine, they should request and be allowed to use resources such as Jason has posted here.

These documents are for the whole Church, not just for some learned few, and starter overviews - authentic, orthodox overviews - such as this are perhaps the only way most people will ever see or hear anything about most of them. If you haven't read Sacramentum caritatis yet, do yourself a favor and read Jason's overview. If your parish hasn't had any inserts or handouts about Sacramentum caritatis, perhaps it's time to ask your pastor and volunteer to help should he need it. Consider it an act of charity to your fellow parishioners, for which God will reward you many times over.