A Parish Mission has the purpose of refreshing and invigorating your faith, especially during the Lenten season as we prepare ourselves for the "newness" of Easter. Often, guest preachers are brought in so that you can hear the familiar with a "new voice" and a new understanding.
If that's the case then Mission: Accomplished.
Father Longenecker is a fun and compelling speaker and yet very down to earth. While I was there I picked up his latest book The Romance of Religion: Fighting for Goodness, Truth, and Beauty.
Fighting for goodness, truth, and beauty? What red-blooded man doesn't want to do that?
Being a life-long fan of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, I have to say that I enjoy this way of exploring the Catholic faith most of all: by myth.
C. S. Lewis said that Christianity works on us like every other myth, except it is a myth that really happened. Dwight Longenecker grabs this idea and runs with it, showing that the Christian story is the greatest story ever told because it gathers up what is true in all the fantasy stories of the world and makes them as solid, true, and real as a tribe of dusty nomads in the desert or the death of a carpenter-king.
Myth has the advantage of being able to present reality in another guise so that we can actually perceive it more clearly by removing the patina of familiarity.
Do yourself a favor and read it too!
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