book: nothing in my hand I bring

Book: Nothing in my hand I bring”.

After a week of World Youth Day adventures taking over Sydney, it seemed high time that I read the latest Matthias release on the subject of Catholicism. One of my favourite pilgrims was struck by the way that people were protesting beside the walk – “Jesus is the only way” – that this wasn’t something that the pilgrim thought was disputed?

Clearly, Protestants and Catholics have a lot to learn about each other.

The author, Ray Galea is currently an Anglican minister, but born a Maltese Catholic. He spends the short, tightly written chapters explaining in broad brush strokes the differences between the bible’s teaching, and the traditions of the Catholic church, but in a way that is likely to offend neither Catholics nor Protestants.

if you’re wanting to learn some more about what your Catholic neighbours believe, this is a book that you can comfortably read in a couple of hours, and would be a good starting point.

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3 Comments

  1. That was the weirdest thing about the pilgrimage walk… all those non-pilgrim people yelling and screaming about stuff every Christian believes. 😐
    It was still awesome though!
    Aww, your “favourite pilgrim”.

  2. actually- I don’t think you can just give this book to a catholic without the caveat of making sure they read the last chapter first (where he apologises for “yelling”!).
    His tone is quite strident throughout- some people may find it offensive. Also – not all catholics believe what Ray Galea seems to think they do (in the same way that not all anglicans are sydney evangelicals au fait with JBF etc.)
    Liberal catholicism is much like liberal anglicanism in many ways. I gave this book to my catholic raised boyfriend and he just did not recognise the catholicism depicted in this book.

    hope things are well back home!
    alison 😎

  3. @Sarah: you figured out who I meant! very sneaky.

    @alison: I guess I’m a bit blinded by how used to reading such books: I didn’t really notice the tone! I’ve heard Ray Galea speak (at KYLC, I think), and for him, this seemed fairly restrained.

    He seemed to do a fairly solid job of explaining the different strands of catholicism – I read his dogmatic style as “what works for him”, I guess I figure that someone who is convinced of another belief system won’t be too rattled!

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