[Roderick] Strange wants to tell us how Christianity is naturally catholic. His exposition has a simple structure: the Church’s liturgical year. He starts with reminding us that belief in God is a reasonable thing, and then offers a series of reflections that go from Advent to the following November.

Part of the didactic skill of this wise teacher is that he understands how the experience of liturgy communicates a truth beyond itself. His account of Passiontide and Holy Week is a good example of how liturgical events open up what sustained the life and teaching of St Paul. Similarly, the feast of the Immaculate Conception is used as a hook on which to hang a meditation on the theme of mercy which Jesus reveals in the Gospels.

In an age when so much has been forgotten about our Christian inheritance of faith, Strange introduces saints and theologians of the past as though they were old friends. He does not labour the point, but offers the odd soundbite to remind us how thin our own discourse is becoming.

The warmth of human sympathy, the array of interesting and original people, and the range of places, circumstances, art, and literature all indicate how Strange has been nurtured by the ease and confidence of the Catholic Church.

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‘Part of the didactic skill of this wise teacher is that he understands how the experience of liturgy communicated a truth beyond itself’ Lovely surprise to see a review of Journey into Light by Roderick Strange in today’s @churchtimes @HodderFaith https://t.co/bbyzgL7B3m

— Andy Lyon (@andyhodderfaith) June 10, 2022

Top military leaders from the United States and China met last weekend at a forum in Singapore, where they attempted to manage mounting tensions between the superpowers. But throughout Asia, there’s growing fear that China’s drastic military expansion will soon result in Chinese regional military superiority, which could embolden Beijing to start a war over Taiwan.

That sense of urgency was palpable at last week’s Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual conference of diplomats, officials and experts from across Asia, organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. Over three days of discussions a common sentiment emerged: China is racing to become the dominant military power in Asia in the next few years — and if it succeeds, Beijing is likely to use force to attempt to subdue Taiwan’s democracy. Russia’s attack on Ukraine has dispelled any notion that revisionist dictatorships can be deterred by anything short of a superior opposing military force.

In recent years, Chinese President Xi Jinping has said that China plans to achieve military parity with the United States in Asia by 2027. As the Chinese military advances in both technology and territorial presence, leaders in the People’s Liberation Army are now openly threatening to attack Taiwan and promising to fight anyone who attempts to intervene. Beijing is speeding up its plans, and the United States risks falling behind.

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New: China’s military expansion is reaching a dangerous tipping point https://t.co/Za7nJ27nVT

My dispatch from #SLD22 in Singapore @IISS_org @PostOpinions

— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) June 16, 2022

In the US, where I studied for my Masters in Divinity (the professional degree for clergy across most of the churches in North America) it takes at least three years to prepare for ordination. I studied the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, the history of Christianity, the philosophy of religion, moral theology, systematics, homiletics and pastoral care and counselling. I have my old ring-bound notebooks stacked in the wardrobe, and it comforts me to know they’re there if I ever forget what was said in that seminar on “Revelation, Faith, and the Nature of Tradition.”

You learn the history of liturgy, and how and why the church’s ceremonies have taken the shapes they have. There’s Field Education, the North American name for the attachments and placements we have here. Finally, before your General Ordination Examination, you go off to a hospital for an intensive programme of chaplaincy training combined with group therapy: the dreaded Clinical Pastoral Education. You learn how to listen to what’s not being said as much as to what is. You learn what your own baggage is, and how to check it. Some people concentrate on one part or another of the curriculum, but everyone has the basics and for everyone—whether they’re 20 or 60—it takes three years.

Over here it’s quite different. Alarmingly so. In the Church of England, the training you get depends, first of all, on your age. Ordinands over 40 tend to be funnelled into a shorter programme. The three-year course is primarily for younger ordinands, and those who have been talent-spotted for preferment. A full-time residential programme is for the lucky few. In a new development, one theological college and at least one diocese are trialling a scheme for ordinands to move in a single year from the selection interviews to the bishop’s laying-on of hands and anointing that makes them priests. This is aimed at what are referred to as “mature Christians.” Apparently, they are people who have been active in their church for a long time, and have retired with a really good final salary pension scheme, or are independently wealthy. The Church of England has decided that the learned clergy that the Elizabethans pushed for are a limiting factor to the survival of the institution.

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Great that @churchofengland has fresh ideas but we must ensure priests still get #training they need & deserve -in liturgy, in ‘how & why the church’s ceremonies have taken the shapes they have…how to listen to what’s not being said as much as to what is’https://t.co/4W9563eSKv

— Rebecca Chapman (@bexchapman3boys) June 16, 2022

The mighty Congo River has become a highway for sprawling flotillas of logs — African teak, wenge and bomanga in colors of licorice, candy bars and carrot sticks. For months at a time, crews in the Democratic Republic of Congo live aboard these perilous rafts, piloting the timber in pursuit of a sliver of profit from the dismantling of a crucial forest.

The biggest rafts are industrial-scale, serving mostly international companies that see riches in the rainforest. But puny versions also make their way downriver, tended by men and their families who work and sleep atop the floating logs.

Forests like these pull huge amounts of carbon dioxide out of the air, making them essential to slow global warming. The expanded scale of illegal logging imperils their role in protecting humanity’s future.

The Congo Basin rainforest, second in size only to the Amazon, is becoming increasingly vital as a defense against climate change as the Amazon is felled. However, the Democratic Republic of Congo for several years in a row has been losing more old-growth rainforest, research shows, than any country except for Brazil.

In this lawless trade, the river is the artery to the world. In some places, where once-towering trees are prepared for the journey, the water itself is stained caramel from the bleeding sap of felled trees.

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How Logging Is Affecting the Democratic Republic of Congo: The Congo River Basin rainforest, vital in the fight against climate change, has long been protected in part by its remoteness. But the river acts as a highway for… https://t.co/0qXA65d8mN #CongoRiver #LoggingIndustry

— Michael (@Mic4815162342) June 15, 2022

Soaring prices are hurting Americans. The cure is going to hurt, too. It may take a recession to stamp out inflation — and it’s likely to happen on President Joe Biden’s watch.

A downturn by the start of 2024, barely even on the radar just a few months ago, is now close to a three-in-four probability, according to the latest estimates by Bloomberg Economics.

On Wednesday the Fed delivered its biggest interest-rate hike in almost three decades, as it takes the fight against inflation into overdrive. When central bankers try this hard to slow the economy down, they often end up tipping it into outright reverse.

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The risk of a US recession by the first quarter of 2024 has hit 72% as the Fed hikes rates to curb inflation https://t.co/K4LabRfe6D

— Bloomberg Markets (@markets) June 15, 2022

O God, who dost raise up scholars for thy church in every generation; we praise thee for the wisdom and insight granted to thy bishop and theologian Joseph Butler, and pray that thy church may never be destitute of such gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

In contrast to the previous photos, sunrise almost felt unearthly. Like a different planet. pic.twitter.com/vSbiY7H1my

— Michelle Cowbourne (@Glastomichelle) June 16, 2022

To God the Father, who first loved us, and made us accepted in the Beloved; to God the Son, who loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood; to God the Holy Ghost, who sheddeth the love of God abroad in our hearts: to the one true God be all love and all glory for time and for eternity.

Alleluia, alleluia!
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the #HolySpirit;
the God who is, who was, and who is to come.
Alleluia! cf.Rv1:8#Mass #GospelAcclamation#MostHolyTrinity #TrinitySunday #GodTheFather #GodtheSon #GodtheHolySpirit pic.twitter.com/yHPigKgglT

— PrayeroftheChurch (@Neddamred) June 12, 2022

Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman; and they said, “Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” And the Lord heard it. Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all men that were on the face of the earth. And suddenly the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron and Miriam, “Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting.” And the three of them came out. And the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud, and stood at the door of the tent, and called Aaron and Miriam; and they both came forward. And he said, “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses; he is entrusted with all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in dark speech; and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”

And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and he departed; and when the cloud removed from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow. And Aaron turned towards Miriam, and behold, she was leprous. And Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord, do not punish us because we have done foolishly and have sinned. Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he comes out of his mother’s womb.” And Moses cried to the Lord, “Heal her, O God, I beseech thee.” But the Lord said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be shamed seven days? Let her be shut up outside the camp seven days, and after that she may be brought in again.” So Miriam was shut up outside the camp seven days; and the people did not set out on the march till Miriam was brought in again. After that the people set out from Haze′roth, and encamped in the wilderness of Paran.

–Numbers 12:1-16

Each sunrise is a little different. I like this morning's! pic.twitter.com/RGxKbob9A1

— JoeyLive5 (@JoeySovine) June 16, 2022