3 June 2014 -- From 2-6 June, Fr
Frank Moloney, currently the Director of the Program for
Biblical Studies and Early Christian Literature in the
Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian
Catholic University, is conducting seminars at Don Bosco
Retreat Centre, Hua Hin, Thailand.
This is the fourth such seminar that Fr Moloney has directed
in Thailand. Over the past 8 years he has presented all
four Gospels. Although many participants are Salesians,
more than 100 people from various parts of Thailand, Priests,
Religious and Lay People, are in attendance.
The seminar focuses initially on the principles of
interpretation that must be understood for a contemporary,
critical, but faith-directed reading of the Sacred Text.
For most Catholics, even though these principles have been
part of the teaching of the Church for many decades, they are
not understood.
Once that is in place, Fr Moloney takes the participants
through the way Luke tells the story of Jesus: the infancy
stories and the remaining “prologue” to the Gospel (Luke
1:1-4:13), the Galilean Ministry (4:14-9:50), the Journey to
Jerusalem (9:51-19:44), and the events at Jerusalem
(19:45-24:53), with a special focus upon the passion narrative
and the resurrection narrative (22:1-24:53). Fr
Moloney’s recent writing has focused upon this aspect of all
four Gospels in his The
Resurrection of the Messiah. A Narrative Commentary on the
Resurrection Accounts in the Four Gospels (New York:
Paulist Press, 2013).
The purpose of these seminars, run regularly by the Thai
Province, is to provide guidance in this time in the history
of the Catholic Church when the Council (especially Sacrosanctum
Concilium [Liturgy] and Dei Verbum [Revelation]), the 2011 Synod of
Bishops, the Pope (Evangelii
Gaudium), and the Congregation, are asking us to use
the Word of God as the major source for our spiritual and
apostolic lives. As St Jerome once wrote: “Not to know
the Scriptures is not to know of Christ.”
