Get Excited

I have been in the process of reading... no... studying an excellent book. "Christianity and the Crisis of Culture" is a series of essays written by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (before he was Pope Benedict XVI) on Christianity and its place in the secular world.

Here's the plan, so get excited! When I am done reading the book, I plan on creating a series of posts highlighting the key points of each chapter and  then hopefully, going into what this could mean for us today. Now I'm posting this in advance in case anyone wants to pick up this excellent book and see what it's all about.

To maybe spark some interest I'm going to begin my series by speaking a little bit about the cover of this book. Does anyone know where this picture is from? New York City, directly in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral.

So what is that in the foreground? It's a statue of Atlas holding the world on his shoulders.

Cathedral.
Atlas.

Atlas would represent the ideals of secularism. That man is in charge of his own destiny and quite literally holds the world on his shoulders. That he is subject only to himself and relative only to his own ideals. Ideals, which he cannot force on anyone else to preserve their freedom of expression.

Juxtaposed in the backgroudn behind Atlas are the reaching spires of St. Patrick's Cathedral. As solid as the Church it springs from with rosette window and open doors. Cardinal Ratzinger's essays look at how the Church's offering of moral certitude does not hinder a person, rather frees him to be fully alive in the image and likeness of God.

Excited yet?