Monday 3 October 2011

The Memory and Identity Sessions



Back in 2007, before I came to Australia, I lead some evenings in the parish in which we looked at the themes which John Paul II had developed in his book "Memory and Identity". I happen to think that this book should be standard reading for young people today. This is because we live in a society and a culture (in the West) which is so heavily influenced by the secular project of superficiality, opinion and consumerism, that essential truths, upon whose basis human society can be elaborated, have been forgotten.

Having listened to the Elton John and ACDC for decades now, having daily absorbed the "culture" of the Soap Operas, and followed the relentless call to be a consumer, and having placed in political power leaders who are partisans of "lifestyle living", and having largely set aside the pursuit of truth and virtue, it is hardly surprisng that we have the social and economic problems that exist today. But there remains the essential task of handing on and giving formation to young people, the foundations of human living and its accompanying ethics, that they might again be able to discern and build their lives upon this basis.

This is precisley what John Paul II did during his Pontificate, especially through the World Youth Days and, before he died, bequeathed us, in "Memory and Identity", a presentation of the foundational elements of human living for the modern era.

I shall re-work my orginal notes which I used back in 2007 and post, over the next few weeks, on the themes which Bl John Paul II wrote about in his book.

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