Toronto

So, my talk in Toronto.

I had a genuinely interested, if compact, audience: about ten lay people (roughly half of whom are Pauline Cooperators) and seven Sisters of the Divine Master (the second women's congregation founded by Blessed James Alberione). There is a wonderful conference hall below our Dufferin Street book center, well equipped for multi-media. (The sisters host a monthly movie discussion group with an average of 25 participants.) Needless to say, the Pauline audience was very responsive, even though my notes are still a bit "rough" and out of order (to my way of thinking). It's a start, at any rate.

One of the main themes I presented was on the message our Founder received from the Eucharistic Jesus: "Live with a penitent heart." I have been thinking about this line for a year or so, because it has been problematic. For one thing, the translation from the original Latin (God speaks Latin; you knew that, of course) has been anywhere from "be sorry for sin" to "living in continual conversion." (The Latin is "Cor poenitens tenete.") Translating it as "be sorry for sin" can make it seem like a call to perpetual contrition. But besides not being spiritually healthy, that doesn't match our Founder's typical approach, which is a "twofold story" that puts the focus on God's action, and only secondarily on ours. Besides, "repent" (metanoite in Greek) is the first word out of Jesus' mouth in the Gospel of Mark, putting this message in line with the original Gospel, and also with St. Paul's exhortation, "Be transformed by the renewal of your minds"--in both expressions, the root word is "mind." So the Latin "hold fast to a penitent heart" may well mean just what St. Paul says to the Romans about the renewal of your mind.

Anyway, that was one of the points I developed in my talk, and hope to continue to investigate and process as the year goes on. We'll see!