Mission and Catholic Identity News

The most shoplifted book in the world!

I enjoy reading with my three young children. I tried recently to read them a few stories from the Bible. From my eldest two, who are primary school aged, I got the response that they have to read these stories at school and why at home? My oldest in Grade 3 also commented that they were not action packed enough for him!

So I decided to get creative on how to hook them in. My kids love outlandish facts and I was very happy when I found an article from the New York Times that quoted a book shop owner as saying that he believed that the Bible is the most shoplifted book in the world!

From that, I asked my eldest to find me some more interesting facts and stats about the Bible. Here are some of the more unusual or interesting ones found.

The Bible was written in three languages. Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek
The Bible is about 611,000 words long. Not sure how they came up with that stat. Maybe Gutenberg had a word count on his printing press?
The longest book of the Bible is Jeremiah
The five-part Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) - a mega book which makes up about one fifth of the whole Bible
The shortest book of the Bible is 3 John
The Bible was written by more than 40 authors
The books of the Bible are traditionally attributed to heroes of the Jewish and Christian faiths
Parts of the Bible were written by farmers, fishermen, a tentmaker, homeless prophets, a doctor, a professional scribe, vocational musicians, pastors, etc.
There are at least 185 songs in the Bible
The Bible was written on three continents. Most was written in what is modern-day Israel (Asia). Some passages of Jeremiah were written in Egypt (Africa) and several New Testament epistles were written from cities in Europe

Another interesting read of recent times that I have had is that there is a balloon Bible smuggling operation going on in South Korea with balloons filled with helium strapped to a Bible and into the skies of North Korea they go!

Let’s make some room in the Inn

Soon we celebrate Migrant and Refugee Week. The reasons for our support for this week are pretty obvious. Key touchstones of being a Catholic school include hospitality and compassion.

Also, because Jesus was a refugee.

If we rejected refugees then that would be troubling to us as a school in the Catholic Christian Tradition. We must continually remind ourselves that Jesus and his parents were Middle Eastern refugees. The nativity scene that we all know so well presents a Middle Eastern family looking for a place to stay and being told there is no room. In the Gospels it says that after Jesus’ birth that Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt as refugees, escaping violence. Familiar messages heard in Scripture such as ‘whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me’ speak about the welcome that we should give to refugees.

I can remember being taught once, that the ‘least of these’ is the stranger and that in Greek, for which much of the Gospels was written in, stranger is xenos, which can be translated in English as ‘foreigner’ or ‘immigrant’.

So if we don’t welcome and show hospitality to the ‘foreigner’, I think St Peter and Jesus would have had something to say about it!

St. Augustine

Towards the end of the month, on 28 August, is the Feast Day of St. Augustine one of my favourite saints and accepted by many as the most important figure in the Western church. St. Augustine was born in North Africa in 354CE to a Christian mother, but his father remained a pagan until late in life. A review of his life and work shows him as an active mind engaging the practical concerns of the churches he served.

He is the patron of brewers because of his conversion from a former life of loose living, which included parties, entertainment, and worldly ambitions. His complete turnaround and conversion has been an inspiration to many who struggle with a particular vice or habit they long to break.

Mr Matt Williams

Deputy Principal - Mission and Catholic Identity