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Frank O’MEARA
qui a longuement collaboré auprès de Maryline Faure à la revue « Antipode AFA » et, pour l’Association France Australie Parif, a rédigé (en anglais), le hors-série sur la Somme : THE SOMME, A "Must" for Australian visiting Europe », diffusé à 15 000 exemplaires en Australie,
vient de faire paraître l’ouvrage,
« FROM ILLUSIONS TO ILLUMINATIONS »
The itinerary of a franciscan priest from catholicism to atheism
The author, formerly Rev. Father Leon O’Meara, O.F.M., was, for many years, a member of the Franciscan Order and a Catholic priest.
Originally from Australia, he holds degrees in Sacred Theology and Pastoral Catechetics from the Institut Catholique, Paris, France.
For ten years he taught Religious Pedagogy in American Dioceses and in a Catholic university in Vermont, before finally becoming an atheist.
He, his children and their families live in France, where he pursued an international corporate career for over twenty years until his retirement ten years ago.
His book traces both his religious upbringing and experience, and his reasons for becoming an atheist.
It has no pretensions of being a Dawkins discourse on atheism or an Onfray opus on atheology. It is rather a collection of 227 sometimes serious, sometimes entertaining, often wry reflections, teasers an ticklers, to help believers on the brink realize that their belief has blinded them to the vision and the truth that alone can make them free.
Edition ISBN : 978-2-7466-4228-7
Editor : Frank O’Meara
Copyright Frank O’Meara 2011
« FROM ILLUSIONS TO ILLUMINATION »
Prix : 20 euros
Afin de vous procurer ledit ouvrage auprès de Frank O’Meara : frankomeara@free.fr
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« NUNC DIMITTIS »
A preview of a new Reflection which will appear in the second edition of « From Illusions to Illumination » (God willing…)
Certain quotations from Scripture still come to my mind in their Latin translation.
St-Jerome’s Vulgate had, for centuries, a monopoly on the minds of the clercy, whose command of the Latin texts they read in the Missal and in the Breviary may have been less than perfect, but whose knowledge of the biblical texts in Hebrew of Greek was practically inexistent. (Protestants, of course, run biblical rings around both Catholic clergy and laity in quoting, in translation. Old and New Testaments by chapter and verse.)
The holy man Simeon apparently had the job of performing the rite of « purification », post-partum, of Jesus’ mother Mary (we inherited certain sexual hang-ups from Judaism), and the consecration of her first-born in the Temple.
Among other things, this involved slaughtering a pair of turtle-doves (Luke 2/24), and « redeeming » her child by coughing up five skehels, as prescribed in Numbers 3:47 (you can draw your own conclusions from these quaint details…).
Simeon, it appears, had been told by the Holy Spirit that before he slipped the bonds of mortal life, he would be allowed to see the Anointed, the Christ. And there He was, in the arms of His (virgin) mother. So in joyous rapture he exclaimed :
« Nunc dimittis », « Now, Master, you can dismiss your servant in peace ; you have fulfilled your word ». Promise fulfilled, mission accomplished, the last item on his Bucket List could be scratched off.
I feel a bit the same with the publication of this book. I had received no promises from the Holy Spirit, nor even any divine warnings, but somehow I feel that with my Last Book and Testament, the End has Crowned the Work, « finis coronat opus ».
Three children, five grandchildren (so far), one a boy who will transmit the name, and now « From Illusions to Illumination ».
« Nunc dimittis », mate ! Bring on the undertaker !
Well, preferably, not quite yet. I’m only 75 and feel there are a few other things I still need to do. One is to do what I can for my children and theirs. The other is to do everything possible to make my convictions contagious. The most important of them is my atheism. Anything I can do to get believers on the brink to take the plunge will be time well spent.
I intend to « carpe » the « diem » as long as.
My « Nunc dimittis » can wait a while.
Copyright Frank O’Meara, 2012
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