St. Peter’s Vision at Joppa

6 April 08 | Posted in Bible, Saints

 Was a vision of nature responsible for the conversion of the Gentiles?

 Acts 11:1-18 – the Reading for Monday, April 14.

The Apostles and the brothers who were in Judea heard the Gentiles too had accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem the circumcised believers confronted him saying, “You entered the house of uncircumcised people and ate with them.”

Peter began and explained it to them step by step, saying, “I was at prayer in the city of Joppa when in a trance I had a vision, something resembling a large sheet coming down, lowered from the sky by its four corners, and it came to me. Looking intently into it, I observed and saw the four-legged animals of the earth, the wild beasts, the reptiles, and the birds of the sky.”

“I also heard a voice say to me, ‘Get up, Peter. Slaughter and eat.’ But I said, ‘Certainly not, sir, because nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’

“But a second time a voice from heaven answered, ‘What God has made clean, you are not to call profane.'”st-peter-1.BMP

Ecological Conversion

2 April 08 | Posted in Global Catholic, Stewardship

“Pope John Paul II, who in a remarkably consistent series of statements on the environment, has passionately promoted ‘Ecological Conversion’ as the norm for all Catholics.”

“If such a conversion was to become a reality among the one billion Catholics of the world, think what a difference it would make to the well-being of the world, now and in the future…But passion for the environment will not be maintained unless we are plugged into Christ through scripture, prayer and the sacraments of the church.”

“As a Christian, concern about the environment must be linked to faith. We can express that concern as simply as by the careful use of power or water in our schools and homes, or as powerfully as by ensuring the magnificent Barrier Reef off our Queensland coastland is protected for the benefit of the entire planet.”

From An Ecological Vision for Catholic Education in Queensland, an address by Archbishop John Bathersby at the Queensland launch of Catholic Earthcare Australia at Marymount College, June 5, 2003.cea.jpg