Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Friday, 14 December 2012

The Pope's latest book


Yesterday evening I managed at long last to begin reading the third volume of the Pope's Jesus of Nazareth. It is shorter than the two previous volumes and discusses the Infancy Narratives.

http://www.imagecatholicbooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Jesus-of-Nazareth-Infancy-Narratives-682x1024.jpg 


Although I only read thirty or so pages it is quite as cogent and lucid as its predecessors, and contains a vast wealth of learning elegantly understood and presented. I learned from my reading, or came to realise things which are actually very obvious, but rarely stressed. In doing so the Pope definitely enriches his readers' understanding. A book to read, and one to return to, and one to help one understand and explain the Faith.

In other words, just what one would expest from the author.



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