Standing on the shoulders of greatness...

This was the title (or something like it) of tonight's 2007 Commencement Lecture for the United Faculty of Theology, which was delivered by the Very Rev Francis J Moloney SDB. Frank Moloney is a world-renowned New Testament scholar, who has written squillions of books (3 of which are in my own collection- the most recent of which is now signed by the author! Yes, I'm tragic :-) and has held professorial chairs in various Catholic theological colleges around the world, but is now the Provincial Superior of the Salesians of Don Bosco in Australia-Pacific.

The evening's festivities began with the dedication and official opening of the Dalton McCaughey Library, and moved on to the Commencement Lecture and supper afterwards.

The library was formerly known as the Joint Theological Library, and was renamed to honour the contributions to its foundation of Dr Davis McCaughey and Fr Bill Dalton who were then, in the late 1960s, respectively, Master of Ormond College, and Principal of the Jesuit Theological College (and Davis McCaughey went on to be the President of the Uniting Church's National Assembly when the UCA was first came into existence in 1977, and later the Governor of Victoria). This opportunity to rename the Library occurred upon its relocation to its new home in Morrison Close Parkville, within the Uniting Church's new Centre for Theology and Ministry (CTM) complex.

The evening was a great celebration, with more than 120 people in attendance (which is double the usual attendance of the UFT Commencement Lectures of the past few years) and a good time was had by all.

At supper time, I was chatting to one of my professors, and he made a comment about what an historic occasion this was (which I think he had capacity to appreciate more than I, since he has been on the organising/planning group for the CTM for the past 10 years, so it was certainly a special thing for him to see it all come to fruition).

As I have said in one of my earlier posts, it really is a blessing for me to be studying here at this institution, where there is now not only world class scholarship (in a uniquely ecumenical setting) but also a modern, (dare I say, "state of the art") facility in which to have classes.

Ahh... life is good! (or rather, I should say, life is "tov", and get back to my Hebrew translating for my reading group tomorrow! :-)