Matt and Dan light a joss stick for the ancestors and crack open a very special (and slightly spicy) episode of Awkward Asian Theologians - this time, in memory of the dearly departed Pope Francis. Yes, the Argentinian Pope who said “Pachamama” out loud in the Vatican and lived to tell the tale.

They reflect on a papacy that was as chaotically beautiful as your auntie's home altar: a bit cluttered, deeply sincere, occasionally controversial, and full of incendiary content. Matt takes a detour into the legacy of Luigi Giussani - no, not a K-drama villain, but close - while Dan channels the virtue of presence, something Pope Francis quietly re-centred in the Catholic tradition. Like the yum cha trolley that shows up with you need it most, this special episode of Awkward Asian Theologians is steaming hot and smells of the sheep.

Resources

Evangelii Gaudium

This is the second installment of a two-parter on the theme of mystery.

Matt and Dan use more big words to talk about how divine mystery makes itself incarnate into our experience. They also talk about how Christian grappling of divine mystery should lead to a certain posture, one that brings us to our knees rather than inflates our heads.

Look out for the use of the term "sacramental ontology".

Matt and Dan begin a two-parter on what mystery is and entails.

They use big words like "epistemology", and warn us about the risk of reducing mystery to a jingoistic stopping of further reflection on the life of faith.

They also warn us about the conceit of thinking one's way to salvation, instead of truly encountering the complexity of reality and God's working his way through our lived experience.

Graham Ward: The Unimaginable

Pope Francis: Address to Participants in the International Congress on the Future of Theology