JESUS HIS LIFE AND MISSION (Book review)

JESUS HIS LIFE AND MISSION, Clare Ukken fsp, Pauline Sisters Bombay Society, 2006, Pp. 184, ISBN 81-7176-444-4, Rs. 70
A simple and lucid biography of a simple yet magnificent life. A life that proved to be counter-cultural but yet influenced a great deal of people. The influence of that life did not merely end with death nor restrict itself to a geographical and cultural milieu or a particular epoch but extending to every corner of the globe and is effective even to this day. This life is that of a man called Jesus, the Christ.
God could not bear to see man suffer-a suffering he had brought upon himself through disobedience. Time and again he tried to draw man back but man would not be won easily. At last, God felt the need to come himself. He sent his Son, Jesus, to be born of a human moter and to restore humankind to its original position and relationship with God.
The author has nicely put together the story of Jesus, basing herself on the account given in the gospels besides using her own imagination to construct a locus and context for events that occurred. Copious quotations and references to scripture are used. These provide a solid grounding for whatever else she narrates.

The book covers the significant occurences in Jesus’ life and also examines the various dimensions of Jesus’ personality. It is a good book for those wanting to discover teperson of Jesus. Those initiated in the faith will find in it a wonderful source for meditation and reflection. It enchants the reader with the charismatic appeal of Jesus and concludes with the mandate of bringing Good News to the poor, restoring sight to the blind, freeing the oppressed and proclaiming a year acceptable to the Lord (cf. Lk 4:18-19).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Great Grand Masti 2 (2016) (Movie Review)

Image
Dir: Indra Kumar Starring: Vivek Oberoi, Riteish Deshmukh, Aftab Shivdasani, Urvashi Rautela Dur: 2 hrs 10 mins Genre: Comedy Rating: 1/10 Comment: The jokes, gestures and costumes are sexually suggestive. An absolute waste of time. “What an opening line”, you might think. But to say otherwise would be an absolute lie. This film is in fact, a great grand waste of time. It’s horrible whichever way you look at it. The story is weak and thrives on cheap thrills and sorry jokes. The actresses are no doubt eye-catching but the rest is all a blur. The comedy is in fact tragedy and the film attempts to play on the basest desires of man. It’s unbelievable that actors like Riteish and Vivek would do such a film. I am not a big fan of bollywood but I still feel bad when I see bollywood making films like these. All of a sudden, I see that sex is being propagated through Indian cinema. The views of sex are changing and filmmakers and actors are not hesitating to take on unconvent...
Read more

A Day with Don Bosco

                              Don Bosco was declared the Patron of Youth by Pope John Paul II in 1989. He received his mission: to be Father to the young, in a dream at the tender age of nine. He nurtured this call throughout his life and never wasted an opportunity to gather boys and direct them to God. He did not do this as a spiritual director, (at least no at first!) but rather as a friend, a companion and a seminarian. As a young boy, he would attract youngsters with his magic tricks, tightrope skills, games etc and then get them to recite the rosary with him or recount to them the Sunday sermon (which he remembered thanks to his prodigious memory). Already then, he had ingeniously found a way to combine religion and entertainment. His entertainment was necer for entertainment sake but rather a façade or an advertisment for religious instruction. Even as a young pries...
Read more

St. Joseph: A Father after the Father's Heart (Book Review)

Image
  St. Joseph: A Father after the Father’s Heart , Hyderabad: Don Bosco Publishing House, 2021, Rs. 150, pp. 240. The book is a compilation of articles from various authors writing about qualities of St. Joseph. They have used the litany of St. Joseph as an index and have put together articles on each of the invocations. All the contributors are Salesians from different parts of India but there a couple of contributors from abroad as well. The book lends itself to be a souvenir of the Year of St. Joseph that Pope Francis declared. Let me start out by commenting on the quality of production. The paper is of good quality and so is the design and layout. It is neat and has an attractive cover. Coming to the content, it gets rather repetitive but that is understandable considering that there is so little Biblical foundation for an exposition of St. Joseph. The articles often reference Pope Francis’ letter Patris Corde and extensively utilize Pope St. John Paul II’s apostolic exhort...
Read more