What are you doing for the Year of Faith? Two Book Recommendations

Welcome back to Stuart's Study. It is a sad day for Catholics in our country today, but despite how the election turned out, we can't bury our heads in the sand. We are still called to change our culture. That change doesn't come dramatically all at once. It comes gradually and incrementally. If you start with individual changes build to family changes then church changes, community changes, and keep it growing. Start small and it will snowball. So in this post I am going to review/recommend two books to you that I hope to implement in my Year of Faith, and you can too.

Both of these books were sent to me by Ascension Press, the people who bring you The Great Adventure Series, in exchange for an honest review. The first book I am going to review is The Bible Compass: A Catholic's Guide to Navigating the Scripture by Edward Sri. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect with this book, but I know that I like Edward Sri's works so I was looking forward to reading this. This book is an excellent source for understanding the Bible and answering basic to intermediate questions about the Bible that Catholics should know but most don't.

The first few chapters address Scripture as being divinely inspired and the three pillars of the Catholic faith - Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium. We then move on to what I consider the most important section of this book, how to read Scripture correctly. So many of us just read random bits of Scripture, if any, and never get anything out of it, but that is not the proper way to read it. We have to know the author's intention with which he wrote as well as reading within the Living Tradition of the Church. Reading within the Living Tradition of the Church is important because the Church has been around 2,000 years so we should trust that the Church knows better than us and we shouldn't trust modern or personal interpretations that don't jive with the 2,000 year history of interpretations.

The book then goes on to address questions Catholics might have or be asked like why Catholics have more books than Protestants? (Short answer is we use the Septuagint Old Testament and the Protestants use the Masoretic text.) The book then concludes with a very short chapter on Lectio Divina, using the Scriptures to pray, which is something I am going to try and do in this Year of Faith, and you can read more about in my next review.

This was an excellent book, as I expected it to be. The chapters were short but packed with straight forward information and answers. I give this book 5 out of 5 just because I can't give it a higher rating. This book is just the right length where it doesn't bog you down with information, but makes you want to get a thicker book and dig deeper on the subject. I recommend you buy this book, if you feel like you don't know enough about the Bible and want to learn more.

The second book I am recommending to you today is Praying Scripture for a Change: An Introduction to Lectio Divina by Dr. Tim Gray. I read another one of Tim Gray's books this year, Walking With God: A Journey Through the Bible, so I knew I was going to get another gem, and I was not disappointed. Hopefully, you're not like me and you have a great prayer life. If you are like me though, then you need all the help you can get! Like others before me, and probably after me, I felt that I always talk to God, but never hear Him answer. Sure I can see answers to prayers (be they yes or no), but I never felt like I was getting a one-on-one response. Arrogant to expect that, I know. Well, this book changed my whole way of thinking about prayer!

Lectio Divina is a ladder traditionally involving four steps, but a fifth step was added in this book. The steps are Lectio (Reading), Meditatio (Meditation), Oratio (Prayer), Contemplatio (Contemplation), and in this book Operatio (Operation or Application in real life). Dr. Gray uses the example of a vineyard and making wine (like ancient monks used to do) as a comparison for Lectio Divina. Like winemaking, prayer requires many steps to produce a beautiful end result. He also repeatedly says in the book, "When you pray, you speak with God; when you read, God speaks to you." This was a game-changer for me. It seems so obvious, but we expect to hear the voice of God, like the voice of a person. In reality, we always hear the voice of God when we read the Bible.

Reading this book has left me thirsting for more (fitting analogy since he compares Lectio Divina to making wine). I know I will have to take baby steps in this beautiful practice, but I am eager to try it in this Year of Faith. I'm debating ordering the workbook that goes along with this book or finding other books that offer specifics passages and exercises in Lectio Divina. Despite not having a chapter at the end to get you started with, I still give this book 5 out of 5 stars as it explained a powerful prayer practice in language anyone can understand. So if you want a deeper prayer life and not just a one-sided monologue with God, go out and buy this book and you too can be on the path to a deeper prayer life.

Book Review: Seek First the Kingdom

Welcome back to my study. I know I said I would do an Orthodox book review at the beginning of each month, but I'm still waiting for an Orthodox publisher to send me the two books I requested, and I felt this book was fitting to review with the Presidential election tomorrow. So the book I chose to review today is called Seek First the Kingdom: Challenging the Culture by: Cardinal Donald Wuerl.



This book was sent to me by the wonderful people at Our Sunday Visitor (OSV) in exchange for an honest review. Most of us Christians view the Kingdom as some lofty ideal that we will never see until we die and reach the pearly gates. While this is the Kingdom of God, Cardinal Wuerl points out that the Kingdom of God is the presence of God. Since God is omnipresent, that means the Kingdom is also here on Earth. Thus, the Kingdom is more than something in our head, the Kingdom is something tangible, we have to embrace and work to bring to other people. This is especially true in the public square and political arena, but it is also true in our own daily lives.

In this book, Cardinal Wuerl draws upon Scripture, tradition, and the teaching of the Magisterium to point out the major issues in our time (abortion, human dignity, etc.) and what we must do to address these issues. While each chapter is brief (generally 10 pages or less), each one is broken down in tiny segments that make each point easier to follow and understand.

My favorite chapter was Chapter 8: Ambassadors for the Kingdom. It underscored the truth that while we are currently living in this land, we are not of this land. Our ultimate and true home is Heaven, but while we are here on Earth, we need to be ambassadors to those who are not Heaven-bound. We are also called to correct those who are in error in love. I personally have no problem correcting others, but don't always do it in love. So that is something I definitely need to work on.

This book for me gets 5 out of 5 stars. While it is certainly a book that is timely given the upcoming election and liberties our country has given up, it is also a timeless book that presents a message that rings true at any point in history. It is also a book I recommend all of you to read, no matter who wins the election.

Catholic Religious Education and a Book Review

Well, here we are again at Stuart's Study. The lesson plan for this week can be found at this link. If you recall, a few weeks ago both myself and my aide were no shows, so my kids never received this lesson. So this week, they will be learning about Jesus. In fact, I am going to let my aide teach the lesson herself this week. I will be there as backup, moral support, and making sure she doesn't say anything heretical. But it will be good practice for her, and will give the kids another voice to hear besides mine.

Saints Museum was last week. Five of my nine saints showed up including St. John the Baptist, St. Anne the mother of the Virgin Mary, St. Luke, and two others who I am ashamed to admit I forgot. While, all of them didn't appreciate having to do it, it was definitely a creative way to get them to learn about their faith. The little kids also enjoyed walking around hearing about saints they had never heard of, and I played teacher and asked the saints facts they should know about their saints to test them. As for my four no-show saints, they will have a report they have to turn into our Parish Catechetical Leader.

Now for the book review. Surrender! The Life Changing Power of Doing God's Will is another book that Our Sunday Visitor (OSV) sent me in exchange for a review. I was super excited to read this book, as Fr. Larry Richards gave a men's retreat in Mobile, I was unable to attend due to Catechist training. My friend talked for months about how great the retreat is, and got this very book from his conference. When, OSV I opened my box and saw this book in there, I was super excited to dive in this book.

Unfortunately, the book did not meet my expectations. For starters this book had tons of typos in it. I understand one or two, but there are several in each chapter, including spelling errors and typing two verbs in a row where it seemed like the editor (if there was one) forgot to remove one of the verbs. Another thing, I didn't like about the book was the style it was written. Each chapter was roughly twenty pages, but it was written like a stream of consciousness, where Fr. Larry just started a thought and rambled in ink for twenty pages. Chapter breaks would have been immensely helpful. Those were my two biggest gripes with the book, and it definitely made the book harder to read than it should have been.

Those two gripes aside, the message in this book is solid. I like Fr. Larry's in your face attitude, and how he tells you things, like "Be a saint, or go to hell." Each chapter also builds on the previous chapter to provide a very clear road map for surrendering our entire life to God. And while surrender has such an ugly connotation in our society, surrender is exactly what we need to do to God, so that we can live a life pleasing to Him.

I also enjoyed the steps Fr. Larry gives at the end of each chapter to help us surrender our life. Though, the steps are simply written, they aren't simple to follow, which should be an obvious statement. If it was simple to follow God and surrender everything to Him, everyone would do it. One such step, Fr. Larry gave was to Write down the names of people we don't like, and pray that God will change our hearts toward them. This is extremely hard for me (and I'm sure most people), as certain people just rub me the wrong way.

My overall rating for this book is somewhere between 3.5 and 4 stars out of 5. The message was solid and spot on and something all of could stand to hear. However, the typos and stream of consciousness made it difficult to muddle through. This book would be better served as an audiobook, but only if Fr. Larry Richards agreed to read it, as he has a very distinct speaking style.