Laura's Book "From Paul to Mark" is out!!!! ... And in French too

[Il Matto]

This is among the lines of "it's not where you are that matters, but who you are and what you see." Though, if you happen to visit a church, that can be turned into an opportunity.
Most people go to churches with good intentions, whether it's visiting or just devotion for the divine, or to think about people they lost, or like my mom who likes just to check out local culture and history. Churches often have better energies than other tourist places. At least that's my experience.

Absolutely agree. I do most of my travelling in France and Italy these days and always make a beeline for the churches - I do find that the older churches have a quite different energy about them. Speculatively, I wonder if that has something to do with the residual effects of Gregorian Chants, which are now - sadly - vanishingly rare..?

in that moment, what I saw was a ton of people filling a church and having mass - people believing in something greater than themselves, participating in a traditional ceremony, etc. Everyone does the best that they can with what they've got...

...it was a nice contrast to the turbo-commercialization of Christmas

I haven't in quite a while, but I do occasionally like to attend a Latin High Mass with all the bells, whistles and incense - its quite a show and I always feel somewhat uplifted, particularly by the chanting and the 'old-time' vibes!
Anyway, as this thread was originally about 'From Paul to Mark', I thought I would mention that in the run-up to Christmas this year I felt a rather compelling urge to re-read the whole book - my way of contrasting the turbo-commercialization of Christmas I think! I'm so glad I did. Clearly, I missed quite a bit on my first read (and I strongly suspect that future re-reads will continue to prove fruitful!).

Like many people, no doubt, I'm very much looking forward to the future volume hinted at in the section on 'Paul's Theology'.