Bøger af Paul Fletcher

It is far from being a lost art. So many people pray. There is so much need to pray. And there are many books on prayer. There are many books on the history of prayer, the structure of prayer, collections of prayers, books of daily prayer, but there aren't so many books introducing the everyday themes, practice and practicalities of prayer. This is a little book of prayer to help you think about some of these themes and practicalities to encourage you to reflect upon your routine of prayer, perhaps even help you in your prayer. Also, this book will give you just a little push towards thinking of prayer as a sacrament. Prayer isn't listed among the three or the seven sacraments. And a wider definition of sacrament doesn't give prayer its most essential part in spiritual life. So this book tries to bring prayer into a central and focal place in our spiritual life. This book will encourage you in prayer, but also it will try to convince you to explore the focal place in prayer of listening, discerning God's will, and letting go. It's only a little book. It isn't definitive, nor is it academic, nor scholastic. It is intended for the person of prayer, or the person who wishes to begin to pray. I hope it has a simplicity, but with a more profound "essence-tiality."

These Sunday Thoughts were delivered as sermons in online worship over the weeks immediately before, and throughout, the lockdown until just very recently, as we begin to open up again. It is presumed among many that a second wave of infection may happen, possibly in the winter. The reflections are based on the Sunday Gospel readings provided from Year A of the Three Year Cycle Lectionary. They were set within the thematic collection of readings. As the lockdown closed our church buildings, I have suggested in various forums that there are several manifestations of the 'Corpus Christi'. There is, of course the Sacrament, and there is the historic body of Jesus, but we tend to forget that the community of the faithful is also defined as the Body of Christ. How should the community have been fed spiritually over the period when churches have been closed? Communally, pastorally and spiritually, this has been left to a number of means. Snail mail and the telephone are the most traditional. Email, all kinds of social media and conference apps have been central, and registered hospital chaplains have been the face-to-face ministry. For the rest of us, we have tried to minister to our congregations, but, in the virtual world across the internet, we have preached, prayed, praised, blessed, absolved and consecrated, as well as offered some form of pastoral care. Consecration however has been the focal point of discussion. But The Body of Christ continues, and so it must have been fed, during this time. These reflections do not answer all these issues and opportunities, but some of them do touch on the possible theological development. One source of spiritual sustenance has been prayer. I approach that sphere more directly in my first work, A Little Book About Prayer: A New Sacrament. If there is to be a second wave, or further future occasions when the church buildings and face-to-face fellowship has to close down again, I would like to propose that prayer, personal and virtual, needs to be the ongoing sustenance of the fellowship of Christ. Even if there is no further viral disruption, surely the church, like so many others in the world, should be looking for a new normal. These reflections were written at the same time that I was delivering daily prayer online accompanied by some devotional thoughts about prayer. This is now available as an e-book, and very shortly in paperback by on-demand printing, which are offered in the same way this book will be, through Amazon Kindle.While many of these reflections will have a direct thought from the circumstances of the pandemic of the Covid-19 virus, that won't always be. They may reflect the situation, or the Gospel, or both, wherever appropriate. The pandemic developed a number of related issues of our time. Some offshoots of public concern are touched on among these Sunday Thoughts. The ecological problems of our time, especially deforestation and global warming, are thought to be a cause of the pandemic. Within Church circles, there has been an ongoing discussion about the Sacrament and online services, including consecration, and how, if and what should the church do via social media.

Essentially this is a memoir of growing to manhood in Fall River based on my Irish-Catholic family in the old New England textile town Fall River, Massachusetts. It is from the point of view (flawed or otherwise) of myself. The oldest of eight children and their first grandchild and the great ethnic surge of Irish, French Canadian, and Portuguese immigrant mill labor force during and after the Great Depression with the Catholic Church in Fall River including a few priests and a couple of aunts who are nuns. All of the above no doubt factors in my mother's nervous breakdown-as I move from parochial schools to the public high school, to a Catholic Seminary, on to the Bristol County (MA) T.B. Sanatorium, where amidst cure and chaos and the medical staff's hijinks I meet my future wife.

Over the past thirty years, the Internet has transformed virtually every area of human activity, social and economic. The bulk of these changes have been positive, allowing people to work, imagine and connect with each other in new ways. The boost to economic activity has been enormous. But along with the benefits have come new risks. Our children can learn and play on the internet, but they can also be bullied there, or unwittingly stumble across extreme pornography. For ordinary citizens, the Internet provides an unprecedented opportunity to comment and participate in public discourse; but the same digital platforms providing this opportunity can also be forums for the wide circulation of abusive, defamatory or grossly inaccurate material. And while the Internet has created vast new opportunities for businesses and consumers, it has disrupted many traditional forms of economic activity. The result is a rich set of policy challenges for governments.--from the publisher.

Covers the Social Model of the Trinity, exploring its central place within much theological discourse, including its relation to wider cultural and political concerns. This book highlights the manner in which theologians have attempted to make the doctrine of God relevant to modern issues.