Observe the Rustling Leaves: The Church and World of the Future - Tapa blanda

"Helps members of small prayer groups to engage constructively with the gospel and base their prayer in God's word."

This year (2007) the town of Callan, Co Kilkenny, is celebrating its 8th centenary. As part of that commemoration, Fr James O'Halloran SDB, a native of the town, has been asked to give an address entitled 'The Church and World of the Future'. At first he was somewhat surprised by the topic, thinking that, if he were to speak of anything at all, it would be about the Callan of his boyhood. The pleasant surprise lay in the universal rather than local nature of the subject. On reflection, however, he realised that this was totally appropriate. Countless people from the town were compelled to take the emigrant ship, or plane, in search of a new life, or to fulfill a dream. They, or their descendants, are now scattered throughout the globe. Various of them have had a considerable impact on the lands of their exile. James Hoban, for example, was the architect of the White House in Washington DC. O'Halloran saw too that the historical travails and triumphs of Callan were - and still are - mirrored elsewhere on the planet: 'The small town is the world, the world the small town', he says.