Most people think that title is a contradiction in terms. How can an ancient language be fun. Even clergy who learned Greek at College seem often to have found it really boring. That is sad. It shouldn’t be boring. Those who took part in this week’s Greek for Fun course here at Mirfield know that it’s not. Fr Nicolas expects no more than a knowledge of the Greek alphabet so no one need be embarrassed. Reading the Gospel in Greek takes one in a single step 2,000 years closer to Christ. We hear the actual words that people who knew him spoke.
Translating from Greek (Fr Nicolas does the work!) we notice all sorts of things about the story we wouldn’t see when we skim through it in English. It comes alive in an astonishing way. We also see the skill of the different evangelists. Each one, Mark, Matthew, Luke and John have their own ways of turning this story of Jesus into a story that people remember and think about. It’s only when you work closely with the text you see how clever they are.
And then there is the presence of the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised that when two or three are gathered together in His name, He would be there too. We find that. On our own, wading through a Greek text and a commentary can be pretty boring. Together it takes fire and we see all sorts of things we had never noticed before. Is not this the Holy Spirit making Christ present to us as we ponder his ways?
Come and try it. You get the retreat experience of a few days with CR and the intellectual satisfaction of discovering new things about the impact Jesus can make on our lives.
Book in for next year!
