4 Steps to Spiritual Reading

I tend to view spiritual books as the opportunity learn wisdom, beauty, and holiness at the feet of remarkable authors past and present.  One such author is Jean Pierre de Caussade, S.J.


"Now that you are less busied with others, spend more time in nourishing your soul with good reading.  To make this nourishment the more beneficial, let this be your method of taking it.  [1.] Begin by entering the presence of God and by begging his help.  [2.] Read softly and slowly, a word at a time, that you may interpret your subject with your soul rather than with your intelligence.  [3.] At the end of each paragraph containing a finished thought, pause for as long as it would take you to say an Our Father, or for even a little longer, to appreciate what you have read or to rest yourself and to gain interior tranquility before God.  Should this rest and tranquility last longer, so much the better; but when you notice that your attention is wandering, [4.] go back to your reading, constantly making similar pauses as you continue" (DE CAUSSADE, J.P., S.J. Self-Abandonment to Divine Providence. page 191).


It's not about how many books you read or even which ones you read.  It's about how well you read.  This is why I often say to our patrons, as I hand them their books from behind the checkout counter, "read well".

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Code of Catholic Modesty - No Slacks!

It's hard to imagine just exactly how this bibliosite was used before it became a bibliosite:

Was this a notice that the usher would slip into your hand during the offertory?  Did this arrive in your mailbox after Sunday?  Would it turn up in your sock drawer?

And just who did the noticing in the first place?  Where can one find the "Code of Catholic Modesty or Improper Dress"?

"And you're ugly" - was this written as an extra barb or in retaliation towards the person who originally gave notice.  We may never know.

One thing I do appreciate about this card is that it clearly lays out measurable modesty standards.  Everybody knows that it is important to be modest, but I rarely if ever hear of clearly modest standards.  This card has them (guess I better button up my shirt in church now!).

Please feel free to print out copies of this card for use as you see fit.  Just how would YOU use such cards?

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Heresy Watch: The Holy Use of Money by Haughey, S.J.

From time to time we offer for sale heretical books, sometimes knowingly (one must read Kung to critique Kung) and sometimes unknowingly.  The present title under discussion is a book that we had for sale in our Marriage and Family Life section.  One of my co-workers happened to be reading on the job one day and spotted the heresy in the Introduction of the book.  This was a heretical book that we were unknowingly offering for sale.

The book is The Holy Use of Money, Personal Finance in Light of Christian Faith by John C. Haughey, S.J.  The book was published by Doubleday in 1986.  Please see if you can spot the heresy:

"Transubstantiation is a metaphor.  In the case of the Eucharist, the bread and wine do not physically become Christ.  They remain bread and wine while they mediate the real presence of Christ to us.  He really becomes food and drink for us but we don't drink and eat the Son of God.  What we drink and eat mediates him to us.  The marvel in this is not the change that comes over the bread and wine but the change that comes over a people God chooses to be his own when they choose to exercise the faith with which God has embued them.  The Eucharist cannot be explained except that the believers believe bread and wine into being what Christ wills it to be for them.  He wills it to be him for them.  But he's not confined only to this mode of being present to them.  More than bread and wine should mediate him to us.  Money can and should, which is one reason for [this book]" pages vii-viii.

Did you spot it?

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The Father of the Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan

When I first started working at Loome Theological Booksellers there were two books Henry Stachyra gave me to read in order to become as Loomish as possible.  One was Pieper's Liesure the basis of Culture and the other was Fr. John Hardon's Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan.  I thought I was a well read person before I started working at the bookstore.  After leafing through the Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan and seeing page after page of authors I had never even heard of, let alone read, I found out I was woefully under-read, at least in the intellectual tradition that mattered at Loome Theological Booksellers.

Happily I later found that Fr. Hardon was a rather holy and intellectual priest leaving behind many good books. I have particularly benefited from his Modern Catholic Dictionary actually.  I recently met the postulator for his cause for sainthood, Fr. Robert McDermott (see him below).

Fr. McDermott visited the bookstore recently and he was after Fr. Hardon's books.  Happily we were able to show him a rare Hardon book on confession.  Fr. McDermott's visit prompted me to reflect once again on the worth of a good book and in particular, the many good books of Fr. Hardon.

Please learn more about Fr. Hardon and his cause for sainthood here.

What books of Fr. Hardon have you benefited from?

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The Misfits are out of Hell!

Dear Misfits,

We remain embarked on the exciting literary journey of Dante’s Divine Comedy.  Last month, we concluded our descent into Hell by reading and discussing the final 17 Cantos of Cantica I of the Divine Comedy.  Our discussion of the nether regions of hell was particularly illuminating.  We found ample illustration of the sins described there; virtually all of the sins described by Dante are now routinely reflected in our modern (post modern) lives.  In fact, we concluded that you can see all of them each evening on our television screens. 

When we accompanied Dante and Virgil into the final depths of Hell, we finally meet Satan.  Dante’s image of Satan is arresting....He shows Satan with three faces symbolizing the perversion of the Holy Trinity. Dante concludes that Satan is as ugly as he was once beautiful, recalling his original incarnation as an angel.  However, he no longer has his transcendent Angelic powers.  In Hell, Dante depicts him as dumb and roaring, trapped in ice, enduring an endless punishment for his sins.  Dante describes the ultimate horror and punishment of hell as not a burning damnation but the punishment of extreme, unremitting coldness.  Satan and all of the sinners in the final circle of Hell (called Judecca after Judas Iscariot) are permanently frozen in ice, locked in the ultimate sin of their coldness to God and their fellow man. 

This month, we begin our journey towards God as we leave Hell and progress upwards through Purgatory.  Our journey upward through Purgatory occurs during June (Cantos 1-16) and July (Cantos 17-33).  Finally, we will enter Paradise in August and finish in September when we triumphantly conclude our literary journey.

As a final note, it is a true pleasure to read The Divine Comedy with you.  I especially appreciate the insights each of you contribute to our discussion of this remarkable Catholic literary classic.

Misfit Buzz

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The Misfits are in Hell

[Note from the editor: my apologies for the belated timing of this post].

Dear Misfits,

Well, we’re certainly embarked on an exciting literary journey.  And how appropriate that that the action in the Divine Comedy takes place at Eastertide in the year 1300.  The poem begins on the night of Maundy Thursday when Dante finds himself astray in the “Dark Wood”.  On Good Friday, after a day spent trying to scale the Mountain that lies before him, he meets Virgil and begins his journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. 

On this first part of the journey (Cantos 1-17), we’ve descended into the first seven circles of Hell as we follow Dante Alighieri and his guide, Virgil.  Our discussion last Wednesday evening of the first 17 Cantos was exciting and extremely interesting as regards the literary allusions and the Catholic theology it portrays and illustrates.  Reading and discussing Dante’s allegorical poem leads inevitably to one conclusion: it is truly an immortal Christian allegory of man’s search for self-knowledge and ultimately, spiritual enlightenment. 

We also concluded that Dorothy Sayers translation of the Comedy is masterful both in portraying Dante’s terza rima stanzas (interlocking three-line rhyme scheme) as well as her vivid notes and theological comments on the often obscure references Dante uses in describing the souls consigned to the nether regions Hell

As you read the Inferno, you soon become aware of Dante’s conclusion that the souls in Hell “have what they chose...they enjoy that kind of after-life which they themselves imagined.”  Sayers also notes that the souls in Hell, in Dante’s view, are lost not only because they did not have a Christian Faith....but also, more generally, they lacked a true “faith in the nature of things”  She writes, “The allegory is clear: it is the weakness of Humanism to fall short in the imagination of ecstasy;at its best it is noble, reasonable, and cold, and however optimistic about a balanced happiness in this world, pessimistic about a rapturous eternity.  Sometimes wistfully aware that others claim the experience of this positive bliss, the Humanist can neither accept it by faith, embrace it by hope, nor abandon himself to it in charity.”   The Misfits concluded at the end of our meeting that it is good to be a Catholic, especially a Catholic who possesses an awareness of the “positive bliss” that awaits those who practice our Faith.

We will now continue our journey into Hell by reading the final 17 Cantos of Cantica I of the Divine Comedy.  (Cantica I has a total of 34 Cantos).  We will discuss these 17 Cantos at our next meeting at 7:30 pm on Wednesday, May 11, 2011, in the St. Thomas More Library, the Church of St. Michael.  This will complete our journey into Hell.  We then begin our journey towards God as we leave Hell and progress upwards through Purgatory during the months of  June and July.  We will enter Paradise in August and September, and triumphantly conclude our Divine journey.

And may each of you have a blessed and Happy Easter,

Misfit Buzz

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Almsbaby and Pewbaby.

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