Daijiworld Media Network – Bangalore (SP)

Bangalore, Mar 10: ‘Retelling the Story of Jesus Through the Stories of the People’, is the name of a new book, conceived and edited by Fr Antony Kalliath, CMI, and Fr Thomas D’Sa, director, Regional Bible Institute in Bareilly, UP, is out. It has been published by Sugranth Subodhana, the Agra Regional Bible Institute, Bareilly, in collaboration with National Biblical, Catechetical and Liturgical Centre (NBCLC). This 418-page book, illustrated with 16 colourful posters, is the fruit of three years of deliberations in connection with the Ruby Jubilee Year of NBCLC. The thoughts contained in the book are new and creative, which are connected with the mission in Asia, supported by good story telling techniques and art forms.

This volume is an innovative prolongation of the Asian Mission Congress’s (2006) initiative of ‘Telling the Story of Jesus – through the Stories of the People’. The book promises to inspire the evangelizer to ‘re-conceive’ the Incarnate Word in the ‘religious womb of Asia’ and to re-interpret the Gospel in the ext and texture of Asian travails for social justice and human rights.

Jesus’ Gospel needs a narrative figuration to vibe with the present ethos of the media and Asian cultural genius.  Asia’s is a culture of stories, parables, metaphors, poetry, and symbols.  ‘Telling the story of Jesus’ must  not be a parroting of the Gospel stories, or a missionary polemic or a dialectic, but an experiential sharing of one’s telling encounter with Jesus in one’s journal of life. When one shares his or her ‘telling’ experience, it grows into ‘retelling’, which will spontaneously grow into a new interpretation and new advocacy resonating with the context. It was the case with Jesus who ‘retold’ the story of Yahweh through the stories of people with new intensity and appeal. So also was it with Evangelists who interpreted the Gospel through the tragedies and triumphs of the people, be it Jewish Christians, or the Greeks or the Gentiles.

This volume is a compilation of various deliberations, studies and experiments with regard to ‘Retelling….’ on the occasion of the Ruby Year of the NBCLC.  The whole Church of India – Cardinals (His Eminence Oswald Gracias), Bishops (Archbishop Menamparampil, Mar Andrews Thazhath, Joshua Mar Ignathios), theologians (Amaladoss, Felix Wilfred, Jacob Parapally), religious, the laity - was involved in the deliberations of ‘retelling’. It promises to help the reader to familiarize the ongoing discourse in the Church of Asia and to be intelligent in his or her mission.