Pilgrim progress- a disciple on a journey!

Those of you who know me know that I cultivate a special love for icons. In English the word icon can be used as a general term for an image. It is often used in connection with religious imagery, and the term iconography can relate to any consistent scheme of imagery, religious or secular. However, two modern secular applications of the word icon have gained wide currency. First, in the world of fashion and entertainment, people can be described as icon if they epitomise certain trends in style or culture. Second, in the world of computers and electronic technology certain images on the screen are known as icons. You'll also know that my acquaintance with the modern applications of the word is more with the latter! Click on an icon and you enter a whole new world of information and imagery. This modern usage of the word icon has interesting parallels with the theological use of the term! John Paul II in his encyclical "Duodecimum saeculum" wrote: "Just as the rea

Explaining the Trinity is not an easy task! I take some consolation in the fact that the great Doctor of the Church St. Augustine of Hippo spent over 30 years working on his treatise De Trinitate [about the Holy Trinity], endeavouring to conceive an intelligible explanation for the mystery of the Trinity. There is a story told that Augustine was walking by the seashore one day contemplating and trying to understand the mystery of the Holy Trinity when he saw a small boy running back and forth from the water to a spot on the seashore. The boy was using a sea shell to carry the water from the ocean and place it into a small hole in the sand.  The Bishop of Hippo approached him and asked, “My boy, what are doing? ” “I am trying to bring all the sea into this hole,” the boy replied with a sweet smile. “But that is impossible, my dear child, the hole cannot contain all that water” said Augustine. The boy paused in his work, stood up, looked into the eyes of the Saint, and replied, “I