Book Reviews
May 2012: Book Review
The Truth of Catholicism
by George Weigel
Book Review by Eileen Love
A proposition: What do you say we spend the summer months really committing ourselves to fine-tuning our knowledge of Catholic faith basics? This would be a suitable preparation for entering into The Year of Faith which Pope Benedict XVI has declared will begin October 11, 2012 and conclude November 24, the Solemnity of Christ the King. The Year of Faith will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council and is also a push to reignite Catholics to participate in the New Evangelization.
A perfect book to help set us on the path is The Truth of Catholicism by eminent Catholic writer, commentator, and papal biographer, George Weigel. The book is subtitled, “Inside the Essential Teachings and Controversies of the Church Today” and was written in 2001. Though we have advanced beyond that pinpoint in time, the essential questions remain and they deserve exploration.
To begin, Weigel allows that many outside the Church consider the choice of one’s religion to be something not unlike their choice of car, or pet, of favorite restaurant. Of course, it is infinitely more than that. He explains that the Catholic Church insists that faith involves truths and truths carry with them obligations, since once we encounter truth, a response is called for.
Some of the truths he lays out in this remarkable book – relatively brief at 188 pages but packed with neatly wrapped summations – have to do with the big questions. Chapter 1 asks: “Is Jesus the Only Savior?” Weigel tackles the world’s hostility to “the unambiguous claim that this is the truth and that all other truths incline toward this truth as iron shavings incline to a magnet…” (pg. 6). As women learning all the time to speak the truth in love, every gem in this book teaches something we need to know.
His chapter on “How Should We Live?” takes us through the moral laws and helps us see that freedom, not exactly the license to do whatever we want, is more perfectly understood as the freedom to do what we ought.
When it comes to the question of suffering, count on Weigel to offer his own tidy wrap-up of this difficult topic in Chapter 7, “Why Do We Suffer?” He says the Church has always believed that the answer to this question “takes us directly into the Heart of the Church which is Jesus Christ” (pg. 114). Suffering cannot be understood apart from love. Weigel also knows plenty about the human sufferings of John Paul II, which he shares in his acclaimed biography of the late pope, Witness to Hope and which surface again here in this chapter.
Weigel cautions at the outset against skipping ahead to the sexy stuff, but that is just because the question dealt with in Chapter 6, “How Should We Love?” is best understood in the context of the bigger picture. Weigel devotes five chapters to that bigger picture so when he gets to the bedrock of what sex teaches us about God and ourselves, we are better situated to receive that information in a truly Catholic way. He reminds us that the Catholic position is far more than an exhaustive list of long-faced prohibitions, but a loving and life-affirming exhortation to order our lives according to our Creator’s design. Topics like contraception, divorce, annulment, and homosexuality are treated with reason and compassion.
So let’s get ready for October 11, 2012. In declaring the Year of Faith, Pope Benedict XVI released would-be evangelizers (who, us!?) from undue fear, by reminding us that God is the prime mover in our apostolic activities, and “it is God and not the evangelist who touches hearts.” How true. But well-informed women, desiring to do the work of evangelizing a weary world, have a big role to play. Let Weigel’s book help prepare you.
April 2012: Book Review
The Catholic Girl’s Survival Guide for the Single Years
By Emily Stimpson
Book Review by Eileen love
A few years ago, recording artist Beyoncé made a big splash with “All the Single Ladies.”
The track tells the story. A girl nurses a broken heart by going to a club where
she meets a new man who’s into her. In her mind the old boyfriend is lurking jealously in the background and she scolds him for trifling with her, wasting her time, not appreciating what he had. Then comes the kicky refrain:
If you liked it then you should have put a ring on it.
Sassy lyrics and a bouncy tune made the song a hit – but the story stings. It acknowledges that the single life can be a minefield of exploding drama, duck and cover maneuvers, missed opportunities, and always, shattered dreams. There isn’t a woman who can’t relate.
But while Beyoncé is entitled to her artistic take on relationship woes, her version is only one view, and a little warped at that.
There is another way to live your single years and in The Catholic Girl’s Survival Guide for the Single Years, Catholic author Emily Stimpson spells it out. It involves class, grace, style, and yes, virtue. It envisions not so much a life lived in the throes of romantic despair but a more balanced life that welcomes a potential mate but doesn’t collapse if he is absent.
At 35 years old with a background in theology and political science, Stimpson is certainly well-rounded. And well-connected. Her book mentions lots of Catholic favorites: saints and authors, popes and poets, and there is even a feature called “Hip Single Sisters in History” where readers will meet the likes of Florence Nightingale and Flannery O’Connor.
In fact, this book is a little like a backyard barbeque to which all your best friends have been invited. Everyone is hanging out, laughing, trading ideas, and offering wisdom and encouragement, all in the most positive setting. Best of all, these people really get you – a modern day intelligent and involved woman who happens to be single.
Listen to Stimpson recalling the words of Dr. Janet Smith speaking to singles at the 2010 Theology of the Body Conference in Philadelphia:
If all we wanted was marriage – any marriage to anyone – most of us would be married by now. If we were willing to widen the pool by forgetting about our faith, abandoning our morals, and lowering our standards, the majority of us could scare up some kind of spouse. But that’s not what we want. We don’t want a spouse. We want the right spouse, a spouse who loves Christ, desires our ultimate good, and is capable of entering into a healthy, holy Catholic marriage.
Emily Stimpson assumes your dream is to have a Catholic marriage and she’ll remind you that finding a true soul mate means first being the woman God calls you to be.
There is some exploration of “feminine genius”, along with ways to expand your intellectual horizons by reading good books; she has a whole section of recommended reads – all good. Stimspon shares some gems from Theology of the Body and has tips on dealing with married friends – and their kids – as well as helpful career advice and wardrobe tips (yes, style can happily co-exist with modesty).
This book is easy to read and a lot of fun. It is packed with sage advice, not the kind an eccentric relative gives you in front of everyone at the dinner table, but the kind you’ll actually welcome. Read great books, take long baths, nurture your friendships, travel foot loose and fancy free.
And, if you take this advice to heart, you’ll likely craft a life that is a thing of beauty and a gift to all who know you. Who knows, you might even find your married friends envying you.
March 2012: Book Review
To Know Christ Jesus
by Frank Sheed
Reviewed by Eileen Love
Quick! Pop Quiz: At the Transfiguration Moses and Elijah spoke with Christ. What were they talking about? There is only one spot in the Bible where we are told that Christ was joyful. Where is this? In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus speaks about hell how many times?
If the answers didn’t leap off your tongue, you are not alone. Leave it to Frank Sheed (1897-1981) the stellar career catechist and legendary founder of the Catholic publishing house, Sheed and Ward, to preface his book To Know Christ Jesus with questions that arouse our curiosity and draw us into discovery.
He supposes we might have a vague sense of Christ’s life with perhaps a few parables standing out here and there, but we are dogged by an inability to connect the dots and plumb the depths of biblical meaning. He plans to rescue us from our ignorance and he is just the one to do it.
Sheed is renowned as one of the 20th century’s most ardent Catholic apologists, a man who got his start soapbox preaching at a London Park. He and his wife Maisie shared a love for the Catholic faith and produced numerous books on theological themes throughout their lives.
To Know Jesus Christ is a real gift of a book: 380 pages of spellbinding stories, fascinating history, intimate glimpses of the people on the pages of Scripture, all written in the scholarly, dependable prose of a true modern disciple. Sheed spent a lifetime getting to know the One he loves and he’d like readers to know Him too. As he says in the book’s foreword, “The object is not to prove something but to meet someone–that we should know Christ Jesus, know him as one person may know another. As Christians we love him, try to live by his law, would think it a glory to die for him. But how well do we know him?” Sheed the lecturer brings us through the gospels translating words and phrases and exploring the levels of meaning they contain. The background he offers on the miraculous events of the early life of Christ as experienced through Mary at the Incarnation, the Annunciation, and the Visitation is one reason this book is considered among Sheed’s finest.
Here is the author offering commentary on St. John’s gospel 12:23-28:
“Father,” he cried, “glorify thy name.” We note that he does not say glorify my
name but thine. The Father was to be shown glorious in the Son’s glory. And a
voice came from the sky: “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.” Our
Lord’s next words were all of triumph. The moment of crisis was at hand the
supremely decisive moment for the whole world, never one like it before, never
again to be one. For Satan’s time as ruler would be ended, with Christ raised on
the Cross to be the vital center of all humanity. “Now is the judgment of the
world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, lifted up from the
earth, will draw all things unto me.”
My suggestion is to make this book your spiritual reading for Lent. Not only will it sharpen your knowledge of Scripture but it will do much more. It will transport you to Bethlehem where the night sky is illumined to announce the arrival of the Infant King; it will bring you to Gethsemane where you will struggle to stay awake during the agony; and it will bring you to the foot of the Cross as the earth trembles and the curtain in the sanctuary is torn in two.
In other words, Frank Sheed’s book is designed to quicken your heart and awaken your spiritual fervor. It is written not to make you pass a test, but to fall in love. And if you find yourself getting smarter in the process, so much the better.
By the way, there won’t be a test so you won’t need the answer key to the opening questions. But just for fun: see Luke 9:28; John 15:11; Matthew 5: 1-48.
February 2012: Book Review
Left to Tell: Discovering God amidst the Rwandan Holocaust
By Immaculee Ilibagiza
Book Review by Eileen Love
Imagine standing in a 3×4 bathroom for 90 days. Now imagine that in this tiny cramped space, there are five other women with you. The space, concealed behind a wardrobe, is the only sanctuary from the violence that threatens on the other side of the wall. Imagine holding your breath, nearly passing out from terror as only a few feet away, you hear the shouting of blood thirsty criminals wielding machetes, taunting that your parents have been slain and now it is your turn.
Welcome to Rwanda, 1994.
Left to Tell is the autobiographical account of a young Catholic woman, a 22 year old college student, who miraculously lived through the genocide that gripped Rwanda for four horrible months. Following the plane crash death in April of the country’s president, old tribal rivalries between the dominant Hutus and the minority Tutsis re-emerged. Hatreds burned hotter than the African sun and in the mind of the Hutus old scores begged to be settled. Where previously the tribal heritage of the townspeople seemed incidental, it now became the defining measure of who would live and who would die.
With the Hutu regime in power, Tutsi men, women, and children were slaughtered in the most brutal fashion imaginable. A kindly pastor from the Hutu side risked his life to offer Immaculee and five others a safe haven.
In desperate times, the faithful drop to their knees and that is what Immaculee did. The rosary was her saving grace: over and over during the tortuous months in hiding, Immaculee withdrew to a place in her heart and prayed the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary. Exhausted, famished, and ridden with lice, the women endured daily horror. She speaks of holding the bible to her mouth as if she desired to literally consume the words.
She emerged from the ordeal with only the clothes on her back and her dead father’s rosary in her pocket. Her heart cried to God as she surveyed the carnage and with God’s help she found the strength to lay the dead to rest and move on to another life. Immaculee concluded that God spared her for a reason. Her job was to discover that and preach the gospel of love, peace, and forgiveness.
Eventually she took up residence in New York where she found a job at the United Nations. She fell in love with a man she calls her soul mate and they now have two children. Another prayer answered.
Her message today is one of forgiveness. For her, it did not come immediately and initially she prayed for God to do the forgiving that she felt incapable of. At one point after the genocide, Immaculee was given a chance to identify men she knew to be murderers, but she refused. She says in her book, “If Jesus was dying for everybody, he was dying even for the killers.” She held fast to the words of Christ on the Cross, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34). For any reader who struggles with forgiving a painful injustice, her words will hit the spot.
Because of the content, this is not the easiest read. But precisely because of the content, it is one you shouldn’t miss.
January 2012: Book Review
Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith
by Fr. Robert Barron
Book Review by Eileen Love
As I write this, it is January, the month of fresh starts and predictable commitments to improvement. Here is a suggestion. If you don’t already know speaker, scholar, theologian, and author Fr. Robert Barron, get to know him. Do it this year. He is one of today’s premier evangelists, appearing on television, in print, and giving lectures all over the world. Many know him through his Word on Fire website and many more are coming to know of him through the critically acclaimed series “Catholicism”.
Catholicism, the book, encapsulates much of what is in the DVD series. But because you can hold it in your hand, it is like a companion you can sit with and revisit the things deep in your heart. His love – yes, love – and respect for the reader comes through. Of course Fr. Barron is not the first Catholic author to produce a work that is clearly a labor of love, but his is one that speaks to this generation in a particularly inspiring and relevant way. Not since Fulton Sheen has a man emerged with a clearer mission to modern day evangelization.
Through this commitment to the reader, the author is a friend in the truest sense. His aim is to help you become a better version of yourself by becoming a more passionate Christian. He writes of the loftiest things in language that is at once everyday familiar and otherworldly beautiful.
With every turn of the page it is Christmas morning again, one fabulous surprise after another. Fr. Barron takes the reader on a sort of pilgrimage through Catholicism’s key sites. But since he is transformed himself, the electricity of belief courses through his whole being and so his explanation of the faith is not some dusty museum tour, but rather an engaging and reflective exploration of the sacred truths. In the tradition of a “kneeling theologian” he is not just academically oriented but spiritually insightful.
In the book’s Introduction, Robert Barron says he would like to function
…as a mystagogue, conducting you ever deeper into the mystery of the Incarnation in the hopes that you might be transformed by its power…the truth of Catholicism is best appreciated from within the confines of the Church, just as the windows of a cathedral…shine in all their splendor when viewed from the inside. I want to take you deep into the cathedral of Catholicism, because I am convinced the experience will change and enhance your life. (Catholicism, pg. 5)
In that “cathedral” Fr. Barron will point out the significance of historical events, especially the mystery and miracle of the Incarnation. He will introduce you to some great saints, especially the Blessed Virgin Mary and expound on prayer and worship in the Christian life. Because he has the soul of a poet, all these truths will be communicated in a language that soars and swirls and sings its way into your heart.
This book is for people who think they are atheists but whose minds might just be open a crack as well as for Catholics whose engines have died and need a jumpstart back to life. Perhaps most of all, it is for committed Catholics who will appreciate the apologetics Fr. Barron offers in solidly crafted arguments that appeal to the intellect as well as the heart.
For Endow women who embrace that head and heart model of learning, Catholicism will be enjoyed for the encouragement it offers as well as for the help it gives in articulating well the truths of the faith. And reading Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith will do something else: it will get your new year off to the best possible start.
December 2011: Book Review
Extreme Makeover by Teresa Tomeo
Book Review by Eileen Love
Teresa Tomeo starts her new book with a powerful call to action from Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia. His words set the stage for what is to come:
We are ambassadors of the living God to a world that is on the verge of forgetting him. Our work is to make God real; to be the face of his love; to propose once more to men and women of our day, the dialogue of salvation.
In Extreme Makeover: Women Transformed by Christ Not Conformed to the Culture we recognize author and skilled Catholic apologist Teresa Tomeo as an ambassador for Christ and learn that she’d like you to join her.
It’s an interesting title – borrowed from TV – in which worn out looking women (and sometimes outdated houses) undergo dramatic transformations to maximize their beauty potential and re-create them into the best versions of themselves. As TV fare, viewers eat it up and networks score a home run.
Tomeo knows plenty about the effects of cultural influences. She is a syndicated radio talk show host and has worked in media all her adult life. She can speak credibly about the nuanced threats that lurk behind the TV screens and come through the radio waves.
Speaking from both personal and professional experience Tomeo asserts that “truth can be denied but not suppressed forever. God has designed us in a certain way and when we go against the natural order or law, we suffer negative consequences.”
Tomeo leads off with her own testimony: the not unfamiliar tale of a thoroughly Catholic upbringing that gave way to a lackluster observance during her high school years and tapered off to near extinction in college. Like many girls in the early 80’s Teresa was indoctrinated with the tenets of secular feminism and barely noticed how hostile the world had become to religious faith.
She threw herself into her studies and all the facets of college life and eventually landed a fabulous career in TV news along with marriage to a great guy. Not much need for God when you are “doing awesome” on your own.
But when Teresa was unceremoniously dumped from her high paying news slot, her whole world went dark. That life-altering event turned out to be the time God threw her a life preserver. She realized how much she had sacrificed on the altar of career advancement. Something nudged her back in the direction of God. She and her husband straightened out their ailing marriage and resolved to put God and each other ahead of career. Thus began her exciting new work in Catholic media.
On her syndicated radio show she takes on the cultural issues of today and in her book she lays them all out: the harm that secular feminism has visited upon women and families, not to mention men; the abortion lies; the “contraception deception,” and what Catholic wisdom has to teach a woman about true beauty. There isn’t a woman walking who would not benefit from these reminders.
Not surprisingly, Tomeo is a fan of Blessed John Paul II. For Endow women, she is likely preaching to the choir when she spends considerable time sharing the gems tucked within the papal encyclicals, Mulieris Dignitatem (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women) and Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) but no matter, the truth never gets old and the message is so compelling it bears repeating.
Throughout her own transformation, Teresa has been fortunate to be surrounded by some pretty terrific friends and like a big Catholic pajama party, they show up in the book. In the final chapter she invites these six girlfriends – all different, all passionate, all committed women on fire for Christ – to tell their faith stories. Each one writes movingly of her personal transformation out of the cultural twilight into the dawn of Christ. You will be uplifted and inspired and chances are, you’ll see a little of yourself on the pages.
November 2011: Book Review
Real Women, Real Saints: Friends for Your Spiritual Journey by Gina Loehr
Book Review by Eileen Love
Who doesn’t love the saints?
They have walked the earthly path and know what arduous work it is to remain faithful to the will of God. We stumble, we stray, we lose our way, or feel too tired to continue. But nothing on the earthly journey is foreign to these women who have trod the path themselves and were rewarded when they reached their eventual and eternal destination of union with God – heaven.
By the grace of God, they walk with us today.
The author highlights many women saints who are no doubt familiar but mixed among the tried and true are those you have never heard of but will delight in meeting.
You probably know about St. Monica, the prayerful mother of the great St. Augustine, who prayed her once errant son into conversion and he became a Doctor of the Church. But do you know another French woman who also believed in the power of women to pray men into the heart of Christ? Consider St. Madeleine Sophie Barat (1779-1865) who believed that as women go, so goes the world. For that reason, she devoted her life to the education of girls and women, writing: “In this century we must no longer count on men to preserve the faith…Between women and God is often arranged the eternal salvation of husbands and sons” (Pg. 63).
Among the holy but not yet canonized is the 20th century’s Servant of God Dorothy Day (1897-1980). In her younger days, she amassed a laundry list of personal infractions against holiness, yet she hungered to know God and was driven out of love for Him to care-take the poor and work for social justice. Her whole life was given to this cause and after her conversion, her actions were steeped in prayer. She said, “We feed the hungry, yes. We try to shelter the homeless and give them clothes, but there is strong faith at work; we pray. If an outsider who comes to visit us doesn’t pay attention to our prayings, and what that means, then he’ll miss the whole point” (Pg. 99).
Touching but no surprise, is that the author dedicated the book to her parents. Great Catholic parents often make a practice of sharing saints’ stories with their children, almost the way a child would sit on the couch and have mother and dad go through a family photo album with her. Author Gina Loehr, a graduate in theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville, does a wonderful job of weaving short but powerful biographies of the people who will stir your heart.
In her Introduction she gives a brief catechesis on what makes a saint. Parents, catechists, and many Endow women will relish the solid teaching and find it useful. But it is not for the catechetical instruction that you’ll read this book. No, you will read it and return to it again and again because it introduces you to women who can step into your life as spiritual friends and companion you on your own road to sanctity. And you can’t have too many friends like those.
October 2011: Book Review
Childless by Brian J. Gail
Book Review by Eileen Love
Fasten your seat belts. Brian Gail is back and his newest book is a wild ride.
For those living under a rock, Brian J. Gail is the CEO turned writer whose explosive contribution to Catholic literature is the acclaimed “American Tragedy in Trilogy” – a series that explores a forty year period of insidious attacks upon the family.
The previous books Fatherless and Motherless explored the darkening landscape of American Catholicism. They centered upon the protagonist, Fr. John Sweeney, a good-hearted but poorly formed priest whose advice to his people was often a watery gruel of religious platitudes rather than the hard truths they required. A trip to Rome and a life-changing meeting with the moral giant John Paul II straightened him out and he returned to his people ready to do the hard work of pastoring a flock in moral peril.
The books are a progression of thought and drama, all revolving around St. Martha’s Parish in the fictional Pennsylvania town of Narbrook.
In Fatherless, we saw the alarming effects of technology seeping unfiltered into our homes almost like invisible radon gas. Through the seemingly innocuous channels of computers and TV, a culture of death threatens to paralyze consciences and marginalize men out of their God-given role as spiritual leaders and protectors.
Motherless visits the crisis that is the chilling result of assisted reproductive technology operating apart from moral references. The question of frozen embryos comes up; what to do about nascent life suspended in a cryogenic warehouse? Taken to extremes, if we can “create” life in a sterile petri dish, we may convince ourselves that there is no need for spousal love making, nor yet a womb, and a heartbeat, and arms that encircle a newborn with a mother’s love.
The books are populated with characters as diverse and familiar as the folks sitting behind you at Mass. Gail shows us everyday people who lose their moral bearings and begin to drift with the current of creeping secularism. Infected with a contraceptive mentality, imprisoned by their failings, and mired in vague but persistent unhappiness, they struggle against a rising tide of moral relativism until it appears they are going under.
It is the job of Fr. John Sweeney to see that doesn’t happen.
In Childless the plot has progressed from the original problems to an ominous science fiction freak show where current trends are taken to not-so-far-fetched extremes. Childless takes us to a future place where nanotechnology runs amok and individuals are coerced into implanting computer chips in themselves, the better to access necessary health care and even food. Along the way, their human freedom is impinged on, their privacy obliterated, and their every thought and action subject to scrutiny by a Godless government.
Against the odds, but proving nothing is impossible with God, a small, faithful remnant emerges and manages to stay spiritually intact. I won’t spoil it by giving details, but let’s just say you’ll be rewarded at the book’s conclusion.
Stylistically, Childless is not without its flaws, but overall Gail has proved that he is a competent novelist and an even better catechist.
If you are the kind of reader who can’t commit to a hefty novel and prefers to skip around, may I direct you to Chapter 13. Here, the impassioned Fr. Sweeney is giving a homily that is the teaching crux of the book. Don’t be surprised by the deafening noise that accompanies Sweeney’s words, not unlike the rumble strips on the freeway that jar a dozing driver. That’s Gail trying to shake complacent Catholics out of their slumber.
This book reads like science fiction but is an arrow straight to the heart. Brian Gail’s passionate love for the Church will break your heart as it grabs your attention. His message for today’s Catholics is that much at stake. Everything really. Readers would be well-advised to reckon with that, so to avoid the crash that awaits.
September 2011: Book Review
Theology for Beginners by Frank Sheed
Book Review by Eileen Love
Imagine, for a minute, you are back in Theology 101 with the wooden desks and the crucifix over the door. The teacher who has just stepped to the front of the class is the incomparable Frank Sheed.
In honor of back to school month, September’s book selection is a must-read classic, Theology for Beginners by renowned 20th century apologist, Frank Sheed.
As an aside, I offer the first lesson: an apologist is not someone who’s sorry he’s Catholic. The word derives from the Greek, “apologia,” meaning defense. A Catholic apologist offers an explanation or, a defense of our beliefs.
Next, a little background on the author:
Frank Sheed (1897-1981) spent his post college years as a soapbox preacher in a London park – a lay volunteer in an organization he helped found called the Catholic Evidence Guild. He met his future wife, Maisie (Mary) Ward this way and they discovered their shared passion for the faith was a logical path to married bliss. In the 1930’s they started publishing houses in London and New York called Sheed and Ward which during the last century was known for turning out reliably high-quality books on religious themes.
Soapbox preaching is not for the faint-hearted and Sheed developed a quick way of bantering with hecklers while not resorting to petty tactics. In fact, one of his tenets for successful preaching was to love your audience. And by all accounts, he did. He learned what perplexed people and into what quagmires their curiosities led them. If to love is to will the good of another, preaching Jesus Christ to hungry hearts is the most profound act of love.
In Theology for Beginners, Sheed brings his preaching – and his love for his fellow man – to the open page. In prose that is as clean as white linen billowing on the clothesline, Sheed leads his readers through the fundamentals. It’s all here: the sacraments, the Real Presence, Mary and the saints, the last things, sin and redemption, joy and pain.
His teaching on the Trinity takes a hold of one of the greatest mysteries of faith as he masterfully weaves an explanation that is not only accessible to his readers but transforming. His explanation of original sin will stop you in your tracks; such clarity of thought is what has been missing in too many religion texts.
One of the author’s best insights is found in the book’s Introduction where he addresses the importance of gaining knowledge in the realm of theology. In the following snippet we catch a glimpse of classic Sheed:
Knowledge does serve love. It serves love in one way by removing misunderstandings which are in the way of love, which at the best, blunt love’s edge a little. For example, the fact of hell can raise a doubt of God’s love in a man who has not had his mind enriched with what the Church can teach him, so that he is driven piously to avert his gaze from some truth about God in order to keep his love undimmed. But knowledge serves love in a still better way, because each new thing learned about God is a new reason for loving him.
Ultimately, religious study of any kind is an avenue to closer communion with God and only that can quiet the ceaseless longing of our hearts. Sheed knows this and it is what makes him a gifted catechist but an even better model of robust Christian living.
Should you pick up this book? You decide. But if it helps, here is the author nicely packaging its message for you:
This book will be concerned with theology as meeting a twofold need: the need of our souls for the food and light and love of God which the great dogmas bring them; and the need of those all about us, a need which can only be met if we [dedicated laity] meet it…communication of truth can flow normally through personal contact.
All of us involved in Endow study have learned to love the sacred work of sharing faith. This book will help you do it better. So, settle in, silence your phone, and let Frank Sheed tutor you in the faith. Class is in session.
August 2011: Book Review
Praying Scripture for a Change: An Introduction to Lectio Divina
By Dr. Tim Gray
Book Review by Eileen Love
Well, let’s at any rate come clean. Prayer is irksome. An excuse to omit it is never unwelcome. When it is over, this casts a feeling of relief and holiday over the rest of the day. We are reluctant to begin. We are delighted to finish. While we are at prayer, but not while we are reading a novel, or solving a crossword puzzle, any trifle is enough to distract us. And we know we are not alone in this.
- C.S. Lewis
Such is the beginning of this delightful book on prayer. It starts with acknowledging the problem that we humans fret over prayer. We fear we do not pray as we ought and we suspect others have the problem too. Even more vexing is the suspicion that somewhere out there, others are ahead of us in their more highly evolved prayer lives.
Worry no more. Tim Gray knows how you feel. And he can help you.
He is the perfect guide to introduce readers to the type of prayer called lectio divina (Latin for divine reading). Dr. Gray is a well-known professor of Sacred Scripture and has dedicated his life to helping others delve into the Word of God and discover the treasures within the Bible.
Using examples from the lives of the saints, Dr. Gray shows us that Scripture is like a divine love letter. Because the saints were so in love with God, they returned again and again to the Good Book to soak up God’s words to them, much the way a lover handles a written card from the beloved. Our author teaches us that all saints have this in common – they regard Scripture as writings addressed to them. We should do the same.
Step by step, Tim Gray takes readers through the four stages of lectio divina: reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation. He teaches that there is a progression here; first, we read, carefully collecting images, phrases and themes. Then we meditate on these things that have occurred to us. This meditation naturally leads to a prayerful dialogue, after which we arrive at contemplation, a peaceful resting place in which we experience God and joy takes hold of our inmost being.
Because our author is so steeped in Sacred Scripture, he easily weaves biblical verses throughout his writings, quoting from Psalms, Wisdom literature, the Gospels and Epistles, bringing Old and New Testaments into a perfect synthesis that naturally moves the heart to pray.
You will love this book. Take it with you as a companion to your next Holy Hour. Read it in the quiet moments at the end of the day. It will teach you the best lesson of all -how to become a better pray-er.