WelCom December 2024/January 2025
Title: Fifth Gospel Living: God’s People Sharing Food for Faith
Author: John O’Connor and contributors
Publisher: The Copy Press, Nelson, 2024
Price: $35, paperback, 198 pages
Reviewer: Jo Woods
Fifth Gospel Living: God’s People Sharing Food for Faith has something for everyone. The seeker, the regular Mass goer, the half-in – half-out Catholic hoping for bigger Church change than apologies and those that see themselves as people of faith but no longer participate in a faith community.
The author, former Co-Director of the Catholic Church’s National Liturgy Office, Fr John O’Connor, stated in 2019, ‘if we get the liturgy right, all aspects of the life of the Church will fall into place easily’. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains ‘Liturgy is an “action” of the whole Christ’ (Vatican, CCC,1136). Through his Food for Faith online ministry, Fr O’Connor has made it his lifetime mission to translate Christ’s liturgy, in the context of daily life, through plain language stories and reflections, making it easily accessible for all seekers at all stages of faith. He seeks to make faith in Christ relevant in a complex time when much of the Church’s teachings and actions can be seen as irrelevant, or at worse harmful and in an entirely different direction from Christ.
In this book, O’Connor takes a slightly different approach. Early this year, he made an Easter invitation asking people to share one story of 400 words of their personal experience of God and Jesus Christ. The result is this book. Although O’Connor writes a thought-provoking introduction about journeying to and with God, this book belongs to the contributors whose personal stories range from survival miracles, experiencing God through dying people to seemingly ordinary events that have greater meaning.There is something of value in each story.
Fifth Gospel Living, following in the tradition of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John’s accounts of Jesus Christ, can also be read in many ways. However, I believe, the book is best read by dipping in and out, reading a story and reflecting or meditating on that story taking a slow approach.
Published in time for Christmas, this book would make a lovely gift for someone who is seeking or a person of faith needing hope, as each story is life affirming. In this difficult and often cruel time, it is easy to forget that we live in a world where so many people do good for others on a daily basis, and the liturgy of Christ encourages this for us all. God is not experienced as a one-off special event but as something we experience and have faith in daily. At the end of the book, O’Connor extends his invitation to other readers to share one personal experience of God, so this people empowering action continues.
Fifth Gospel Living can be purchased online from Copy Press, copypress.co.nz/shop/fifth-gospel-living at $35 per copy.