Book Review

Today being the Feast of St. Josemaria Escriva it is quite appropriate to post a review for Holiness for Everyone: The Practical Spirituality of St. Josemaria Escriva, the latest book from Eric Sammons.

In the age of speciality where every profession gets narrower and narrower in scope it is easy to apply this to everything.  For example when we look at the canonized saints we mainly think of priests and religious since for many reasons related to process they make up the majority of canonized saints.  That the holiness of these priests and religious elevated to the altars is a function of their “profession” and that you could be holy too if you got to spend most of your time thinking about God and related “stuff.”   It is easy when you fall to say “I am only human”, and forget that the same is true of the saints.  Really thought it is much simpler to outsource holiness to the “saints” and just muddle along the best you can as a lay person.

This thought process is totally alien to what the  Church teaches about the universal call to holiness.

Therefore in the Church, everyone whether belonging to the hierarchy, or being cared for by it, is called to holiness, according to the saying of the Apostle: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification”. — Lumen Gentium

In Eric Sammons’ new book he looks at what the Church teaches on this mainly through the lens of the spirituality of St. Josemaria Escriva. Since this was a keystone of this saint’s spirituality his writings offer a lot of insight on the universal call to holiness.  This book is not just a primer for those interested specifically in Opus Dei, but a book whose scope is indeed universal in application.

Eric starts with the scriptural foundation for this teaching and builds from there. While the phrase “the universal call to holiness” is relatively new in the context of the history of the Church – what it points to isn’t.   We might glance over Jesus saying “Be holy, as your Heavenly Father is holy.”, but really we should be stunned by it and not as hyperbole.  Really it makes me tremble a bit when I think about it.         There is much in scripture that points to this and this has been reiterated throughout history.  I think of the Carmelite Doctors of the Church especially in this regard. But the exemplar of this teaching was St. Josemaria Escriva and his insights were echoed in some of  the documents of Vatican II.  This book focuses on these insights in this regard and especially how we are called to sanctification within our daily work.  Specialization often leads us to building compartment and putting God in one and our work in another.  St. Josemaria Escriva helps us to remove these compartments and to truly “pray always” as per St. Paul – yes even when earning our daily bread.

I quite enjoyed Eric Sammons’ book as he writes about the history of this universal call, the biography and writings of this saint, and putting it all in an accessible package that goes beyond just “Opus Dei fanboys.”  He also proved to me that I really do need to go through the writings of St. Josemaria Escriva as they are so rich.

You can find Eric’s blog here.

Brandon Vogt’s review of the same book.

A new document Instrumentum Laboris – The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith has been released by the The General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops. This is the the working document that will form the basis for discussion at the October meeting of the Synod of Bishops. The Synod of Bishops will meet in Rome from October 7 to 28.

I have made an ebook version of this document complete with footnotes.

epub – Most ereaders
kindle
PDF

You can find other free Catholic books on my site here.

Today Cardinal Timothy Dolan has released a small book called True Freedom: On Protecting Human Dignity and Religious Liberty

It’s easy to take religious freedom for granted. It’s enshrined in our Constitution and praised by the Church, and most of us have grown up without questioning it. However when this liberty is threatened, when it’s not respected as a fundamental right, we’re forced to pull back and ask a basic question: why do people deserve religious liberty?

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York gives his answer in a new eBook released today. True Freedom: On Protecting Human Dignity and Religious Freedom (Image Books, 37 pages, eBook) shows how respect for human dignity—the dignity of all humans, regardless of their beliefs—undergirds the right to religious liberty. Quoting Pope Leo XIII, he begins by saying:

“True freedom… is that freedom which most truly safeguards the dignity of the human person. It is stronger than any violence or injustice. Such is the freedom which has always been desired by the Church, and which she holds most dear.”

Find out more and see at review at Brandon Vogt’s blog.

I haven’t been sucked into the Patheos Collective. Though while not being fully assimilated into Patheos I am contributing to the Happy Catholic Bookshelf where I join Julie of Happy Catholic in book related topics.

My first review there involves John Scalzi’s just released book Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas.  There is even a very small Catholic tie-in with this book.

The Environment is a new book put together by Our Sunday Visitor (OSV) to pull-together Pope Benedict XVI’s writings, speeches, etc on the environment.

In an age where discussion of the environment has been so politicized it is quite refreshing to see discussions on the subject that starts from the perspective of the Earth as an act of creation and our responsibilities regarding stewardship of this gift.

It is also quite interesting just how many times the Pope has incorporated this subject in what he says. Now as a collection of his thoughts on the environment I really appreciate how OSV put this together. Instead of just pulling these references to the environment, this book takes the effort to print the full context of what was said. So what the book contains is full speeches or sections of larger document that aren’t just reflecting specifically on the environment, but how the subject is integral to his larger discussion.

The encyclical letter Caritas in Veritate” gives a solid glimpse into how the Pope and really the Catholic Church sees both our rights and responsibilities in regard to creation and specifically the environment.

48. Today the subject of development is also closely related to the duties arising from our relationship to the natural environment. The environment is God’s gift to everyone, and in our use of it we have a responsibility towards the poor, towards future generations and towards humanity as a whole. When nature, including the human being, is viewed as the result of mere chance or evolutionary determinism, our sense of responsibility wanes. In nature, the believer recognizes the wonderful result of God’s creative activity, which we may use responsibly to satisfy our legitimate needs, material or otherwise, while respecting the intrinsic balance of creation. If this vision is lost, we end up either considering nature an untouchable taboo or, on the contrary, abusing it. Neither attitude is consonant with the Christian vision of nature as the fruit of God’s creation.

Nature expresses a design of love and truth. It is prior to us, and it has been given to us by God as the setting for our life. Nature speaks to us of the Creator (cf. Rom 1:20) and his love for humanity. It is destined to be “recapitulated” in Christ at the end of time (cf. Eph 1:9-10; Col 1:19-20). Thus it too is a “vocation”[115]. Nature is at our disposal not as “a heap of scattered refuse”[116], but as a gift of the Creator who has given it an inbuilt order, enabling man to draw from it the principles needed in order “to till it and keep it” (Gen 2:15). But it should also be stressed that it is contrary to authentic development to view nature as something more important than the human person. This position leads to attitudes of neo-paganism or a new pantheism — human salvation cannot come from nature alone, understood in a purely naturalistic sense. This having been said, it is also necessary to reject the opposite position, which aims at total technical dominion over nature, because the natural environment is more than raw material to be manipulated at our pleasure; it is a wondrous work of the Creator containing a “grammar” which sets forth ends and criteria for its wise use, not its reckless exploitation. Today much harm is done to development precisely as a result of these distorted notions. Reducing nature merely to a collection of contingent data ends up doing violence to the environment and even encouraging activity that fails to respect human nature itself. Our nature, constituted not only by matter but also by spirit, and as such, endowed with transcendent meaning and aspirations, is also normative for culture. Human beings interpret and shape the natural environment through culture, which in turn is given direction by the responsible use of freedom, in accordance with the dictates of the moral law. Consequently, projects for integral human development cannot ignore coming generations, but need to be marked by solidarity and inter-generational justice, while taking into account a variety of contexts: ecological, juridical, economic, political and cultural[117].

This both/and approach is what is missing from both the (1) radical environmentalists such as the deep ecology movement that see humanity as almost a virus harming the planet or (2) the individualist view to use the environment with no considerations for others and future generations. What the Pope has to say on the subject is so much deeper than the political arguments we so often hear regarding whatever doomsday environmental catastrophe is currently in vogue.

I found this book to be quite helpful for myself in more fully understanding the subject. I was once part of the radical environmentalist camp myself buying into a Malthesian view of population and the dire predictions of the seventies. The environmental doomsday prophets have done us no favors by both their false prophecies and the fact that people can then turn a deaf-ear to actual environmental problems because of too many false alarms for the “cry of wolf.” The politically conservative side thus mostly spends its time rightly decrying these false prophets and unfortunately much less time our actual duties in regard to stewardship. This book helped me with gaining a more balanced view of the subject.

This subject does remind me of one episode when the media called Pope Benedict XVI “The Green Pope” because they thought his wearing green on Earthday was symbolic and not the fact that it was a Mass during Ordinary Time.

My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints is the new book by Dawn Eden. A book that must have been quite difficult for her to write as it concerns her sexual abuse as a child and the myriad bad routes she took to deal with it.

Though as the title suggest this is not just the telling of a tragedy, but the hope and faith she later found and how the lives of the saints have also helped her in healing.  She wisely I believe does not dwell in details of what happened to her but gives a biography of her life and how specifically as a convert to the Catholic Church she was more able to come to grips  with what happened and the effects on her life.

After her parents divorce when she was a child she lives in what she describes as a “sexually porous” atmosphere. She writes of this quite frankly, but also admits not all of the details of what she remembers line up with what her mother remembers.  But her recollections of her mother walking naked about the house with her boyfriend give some reference to the atmosphere she encountered along with the spiritual journey of her mother which had passed through the New Age movement at some points.

The help she sought in years of psychiatry also did not bring about the healing she required as her sexual aggressiveness was not seen as a problem, but as something positive.

Now as a long time reader of her blog The Dawn Patrol I was already somewhat familiar with her conversion to Christ.  When I started to first read her blog she was a pro-life Protestant blogger and so I followed with interest her growing attraction with the Catholic Church and ultimately her coming into the Church. This does not mean that her entrance into the Church was the magic cure-all as she still ran into problems dealing with the result of her past.  What I thought made this book exceptionally good was her discoveries that helped bring about deeper healing and how it was the lives of some of the saints that especially helped her in this.  Some of the stories of the saints you might be acquainted with, but she also brought out stories of lesser known saints and how the relate to the topic of this book. Some of the stories are quite haunting such as the story of St. Josephine Bakhita.

While this book is on the topic of sexual abuse and its consequences, she purposely did not broaden it to include sexual abuse by priests since she is mostly telling her own story.  Though the book should also be helpful for those who suffered such abuse and such fundamental betrayal.  I would not limit the book to only those who have suffered sexual abuse.

While I have never suffered sexual abuse, I could identify with what she called a “sexually porous” atmosphere.  I was introduced to so-called dirty jokes at a young age from my father along with pornography in the house.  After my own parents divorce I was also introduced to frank discussions such as an embarrassing one night stand. That along with an uncle that sometime lived with us and his parade of girlfriends and wives. Thus I was quite sexually fixated as a young child along episodes in grade school  and beyond that were part of my first confession.  The culture would tell us that just being open about sexuality and being taught about it the younger the better would prevent problems.  My experience was otherwise and lead to many bad decisions that troubled even my then-atheist conscience.  What my choices might have been had I not been introduced to such an atmosphere I can’t say; as people have fallen into these same sins without such an atmosphere.  I can only say it was not helpful in the least, especially since I had no moral protection against it.  I only bring this up since this book brought back some of these memories and sins and I can also reflect on all the healing I have experience since I came into the Church. What she writes on this subject hopefully will start the process for healing in others who have actually been abused or those other victims of this culture that have also been affected.

Dawn Eden being interviewed on Fox News.

Brandon Vogt interview of Dawn Eden concerning this book.

I was sent a copy of a new book by Francisco Garcia-Julve who is a Catholic philosopher and polymath – Sense Nonsense: Fundamental Propositions Not too Good to Be True, Just too Hard to Accept. I found this to be quite an interesting book of a string of thoughts. The way it is written is as a long series of thought/statements that often engage in Chestertonian paradox and wordplay. There are no chapters, but successive statements often build on a previous idea or restate things in another way.

Not the type of book that you would just sit down and read from end to end, but more like one to dip into meditatively from time to time. Though I did find myself returning to it each day for a week as I quite enjoyed his snippets of thought.

It is like reading a twitter feed from a very wise person as each thought is quite compact. In fact the author really should start a Twitter feed and tweet much of the book. Of course when you have a book composed in this way not every thought is engaging, but there is a high ration of those that make you stop, think, and evaluate. The wordplay, paradox, and inversion can be jarring at times, but that is mainly when you respond to it the most.

To better illustrate this here is just a very small sample of some of the thoughts that struck me specifically. This also gives you an idea about the formatting of the book.

If Laplace’s dictum—in Carl Sagan’s version—that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs should apply to anything, it would be abortion.

* * *

We would believe some supernatural truths, such as the Eucharistic presence, if they were empirical; and we would not believe some empirical truths, such as particle-wave duality, if they were supernatural.

* * *

To think of oneself as incapable of being a saint is not humility but cowardice.

* * *

We don’t think that we can’t be saints because we know ourselves but because we do not know God.

* * *

It’s of little use trying to be a theologian without trying to be a saint first.It’s of little use trying to be a theologian without trying to be a saint first.

* * *

You are not the exception in having tortured and killed Jesus, but you can be in atoning for it.

* * *

Conversion to God is like a marriage in reverse, where they are two until death makes them one.

* * *

We only try right when wrong fails.

* * *

You must, by all means, seek happiness—but only provided it is not your own.

* * *

We cannot understand God, but we can understand that we cannot understand God.

* * *

There are two kinds of faults: the inexcusable and our own.

* * *

We must behave so that people who know us outside the church will not be surprised to see us in church.

* * *

The attention we give to ourselves, we don’t give to the others.

Unlike so many movie trailers – this is just a small sampling of the good bits.

The website for the book.

Via Russel Shaw

“Social issues.” It’s a squishy, equivocal term suited to a mentality ill at ease with the hard-edged implications of “moral issues” and “morality.” What implications? That there are definite moral truths that show some things to be always and everywhere wrong and deserving of condemnation. Not what the “social issues” mindset cares to hear.

There’s some helpful thinking on this subject in a new book by an archbishop that I want to recommend. But before getting to that, let me do a little scene-setting.

Much of the debate about social issues, moral truth, and the like has focused so far in this election year on Rick Santorum and his run for the Republican presidential nomination. Think what you will about Santorum’s candidacy, he stirred up a hornets’ nest. A typical reaction from the secular left comes from aWashington Post columnist named Lisa Miller, who, in a state of extreme exasperation, delivered this wisdom:

“’You can’t go home again,’ Thomas Wolfe said. Modernity is here, with all its progress and imperfections, and no matter how hard they pray, Santorum and his flock will never be able to turn back time.”

Leaving aside the appositeness of using the title of a novel published 72 years ago to argue that there’s no looking back, Ms. Wheeler has a point. It’s the point typically made by liberal pundits who wish to tell us their particular take on modernity is the only correct one—and if you don’t like it, lump it.

But there’s a different way of thinking. Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick, gave it an ironic twist when he said, “Truth is like a threshing-machine; tender sensibilities must keep out of the way.” Note that bothersome word: truth.

The quote is the lead-in to  A Heart on Fire: Catholic Witness and the Next America, a new e-book by Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia. [It’s available as an e-book for just 99¢]. This is a feisty manifesto by an admired leader of the Church.

I read this the other day and thought it quite worthwhile. Not exactly surprising for something written by Archbishop Chaput. He makes some very interesting observations that specifically apply to the Church in the United States.

Greg and Jennifer Willits of the radio show “The Catholics Next Door” have a book out called not-suprisingly The Catholics Next Door: Adventures in Imperfect Living.

This book, much like their show, gives inner glimpses into a Catholic family living their faith. Sections in the various chapters are alternatively written by Greg and Jennifer and each section gives their view of the topic and chapter at hand.  This is not a book written predominately to tell their conversion/reconversion stories or the history of their various apostolates, but to write about those daily conversion involved in marriage and family.  As Greg mentions at one point you can’t learn parenthood from a book, and they don’t attempt to do it themselves — but provide their experience  in growing in faithfulness and struggling on the path of holiness.

Considering the HHS mandate their chapter discussing contraception is quite timely.  We constantly hear how contraception is never mentioned in homilies, yet it was a homily they heard on contraception from a Deacon that started them on the road to rejecting what is seen as wisdom by the culture of death.  They managed to persevere in seeing contraception as a sin despite being told by a priest who gave them the standard Jiminy Cricket response. They were also very open in regards the struggles in accepting what the Church teaches as both their hearts and intellects came to the truth.

What I enjoyed most about the book is its good humor and honesty about living the faith.  There are many fun and instructive stories along the way and I think the book is very good for both the audience of those who have come to accept Church teaching and for those also who are struggling in believing what the Church teaches.  Their writing style invokes the conversational tone they have on the show and you do feel as reading the book to be involved in a form of conversation. Recommended.