Reading Round Up January 2019

CURRENTLY READING

Side by Side: A Catholic Mother-Daughter Journal

by Lori and Ava Ubowski

2018 Ave Maria Press

This book is intended as a way for a mom to bond with her tween daughter; however, I decided to use it as a means to connect with two of my daughters as knew that both my 15 year old and 12 year old would appreciate and enjoy the process. It will take a little bit of adapting as we go along to make it work in this way, but so far we have just divided the daughter responses in half. We have the book in a Ziplock bag with a different colored pen for each of us. This will be a good way for the three of us to connect, while also nurturing our faith as it connects to Catholic Saints and scripture woven among other general topics. As a mom still adjusting to having 5 girls and trying to navigate meeting the needs of each daughter, I appreciate this as one means to keep open the lines of communication with my oldest two as they navigate their first years of middle school and high school. As I anticipated, we are all enjoying it so far. 

*Note: Review copy provided by the publisher.

Life of Christ Lectio Divina Journal

by Sister John Dominic Rasmussen, O.P. 

2015 Lumen Ecclesiae Press

paired with

The Great Adventure Catholic Bible

2018 Ascension

I am still reading the Life of Christ Lectio Divina Journal with The Great Adventure Catholic Bible for the Scripture readings (as the readings are not included in the journal). I started this journal back in August and am not about half way through the book. I have really appreciated the format of the book - some predictable structures and prompts mixed with those tailored to the specific reading. I had been wanting to read Scripture beyond daily readings more consistently and also wanted to explore lectio divina. This has been a perfect scaffold for me to be better equipped to pray lectio divina on my own. However, I was also excited to see that there is also an Advent Journal and a Lenten Journal by the same author with a similar look and feel that I will likely read in the future, perhaps in the next liturgical year. 

I also continue to love my The Great Adventure Catholic Bible. I love the aesthetics of the Bible, as well as the way it feels physically. One area that has taken some adjusting for me though is that it is a different translation than what is used for daily readings on the USCCB site that matches the lectionary at my parish. There are some verses where I miss the wording I am more familiar with; however, having different wording of some of those passages has also helped me to consider based on the subtle differences. I love thinking about language and translation, so I have enjoyed that layer. 

A Family of Saints: The Martins of Lisieux

by Fr. Stéphane-Joseph Piat, O.F.M.

2016 Ignatius Press

This has been on my to read pile for over a year. I am still on the initial pages but am excited to delve deeper into it. Jackie and Bobby Angel recently mentioned it in one of their Ascension videos, and it was a great reminder to prompt me to finally pull it out. 

RECENTLY READ AND LOVED

Broken and Blessed: An Invitation to My Generation

by Fr. Josh Johnson

2018 Ascension Publishing

I have loved Fr. Josh's voice since I first saw him on Altaration from Ascension where he shared his vocation story alongside Fr. Mike Schmitz - I Will Follow. I saw him in some other Ascension Presents videos, including one that I especially loved about lectio divina, so I was thrilled when earlier this summer he started the podcast, Ask Fr. Josh and then when he announced his book. This break in between terms I read it, and as expected, really appreciated the ideas. There were a lot of familiar concepts and stories based on having listened to his podcast and viewed his other videos; however, the book also provided other details and suggestions. It also wove together the ideas with a common thread of prayer linked to the ideas in order to nurture a stronger relationship with God. 

The Grace of Enough: Pursuing Less and Living More in a Throwaway Culture

by Haley Stewart

2018 Ave Maria Press

and

Don't Forget to Say Thank You: And Other Parenting Lessons That Brought Me Closer to God

by Lindsay Schlegel

2018 Ave Maria Press

I read these two books at the same time throughout the fall because I just couldn't choose one to begin and finish before starting the other and they were both featured as online book club books. I enjoyed the voices of both (I was already familiar with Lindsay Schlegel from her CatholicMom posts). Both of these books inspired me and gave me a lot to think about related to my vocation. I appreciated both of their experiences. There were concepts in both that I revisited multiple times and want to keep both to re-read in the future. Both had concepts that highly resonated with me and my experiences/thoughts/feelings in this phase of life. 

RECENTLY RE-READ

Time With God

by Fr. Jacques Philippe

In anticipation for a retreat later this spring with Fr. Jacques Philippe, I am re-reading his books, and this was the first one. Read just about a year after the first time, I benefited from refreshing my memory and once again enjoyed his ideas.

Time for God

Time for God, the third Fr. Jacques Philippe book I read, like the other two, provided a similar tone and feel that I had come to love with his books and content to stretch my thinking about relationship with God.

Earlier this summer my priest and I crafted a mission statement for our faith formation programs - To facilitate transformative family-based programs focusing on dispositions that nurture authentic Christ-centered lives. I loved how reading Time for God enriched my thinking about this statement and the potential I hope for in our faith formation programs. For example, towards the beginning of the book, Fr. Jacques Philippe said, "If the life of prayer is not a technique to be mastered but a grace to be received, a gift from God, then talk about prayer should not focus on describing methods or giving instructions, but on explaining the necessary conditions for receiving the gift. These conditions are certain inner attitudes, certain dispositions of the heart. What ensures progress in the life of prayer, what makes it fruitful, is not so much how we pray as our inner dispositions in beginning and continuing it. Our principal task is to try to acquire, keep, and deepen those dispositions of the heart. God will do the rest" (p. 13). I loved this quote both in relation to my personal growth, as well as from a ministry stand-point in order to consider my role to understand and help try to inspire these dispositions, while recognizing anything accomplished is God working through me and that it will be his grace that can accomplish any transformation that occurs. This quote gets at the core of the first portion of the book titled - Mental prayer is not a technique but a grace.

The other portions of the book are: How to use the time of mental prayer, The development of the life of prayer, Material conditions for mental prayer, and Some methods of mental prayer each deepen and extend on that goal of "acquire, keep and deepen those dispositions of the heart". He provides encouragement for persevering in prayer, as well as a focus on prioritizing prayer. He also highlights that through growth we can ever-increasingly give ourselves to God.

I appreciate Fr. Jacques Philippe's practical advise presented in an accessible manner and recognize that I can benefit from revisiting his thinking often.

Interior Freedom

Because I had recently read and loved Fr. Jacques Philippe's Searching for and Maintaining Peace shortly before I went to the Saint John Paul II National Shrine, when I was in the gift store two other books by Fr. Jacques Philippe stood out to me. I read Interior Freedom on the plane ride home.

This book is also fairly brief at 134 pages but packed with thought provoking ideas for spiritual growth. He talked about accepting sufferings for the sake of progress and purification, as well as loving and serving God with joy, regardless of whether or not the context around us makes it easy to do so. He addressed worry and how to approach situations that can provoke anxiety, a sense of a spiritual counter-attack in order to respond with hope and trust.

Another area that stood out to me was related to understanding God's will and trying to navigate contexts in which we are not sure what God wants us to do. This was especially beneficial to me as I have pondered trying to recognize God's will and the realization that I needed to move forward in faith, rather than complete assurance. He also talked about the importance of focusing on God's will for us in the day to day, rather than an over-emphasis on expending our energy on larger-scale choices to the detriment of a proper understanding of the rhythms of our daily lives.

Some of the quotes that I marked were:

• "The worst thing that could happen would be for everything to go exactly as we wanted it, for that would be the end of any growth" (pp. 50-51). 
• "If we were always sure we were doing God's will and walking in the truth, we would soon become dangerously presumptuous and at risk of spiritual pride. Not always being absolutely sure we are doing God's will is humbling and painful, but it protects us. It preserves us in an attitude of constant seeking and prevents the sort of false security that would dispense us from abandoning ourselves to God" (pp. 54-55). 
• "It is an extraordinary source of hope and a great consolation to know that, by virtue of God's grace working in us (if we remain open to it by persevering in faith, prayer, and the sacraments), the Holy Spirit will transform and expand our hearts to the point of one day making them capable of loving as God loves" (p. 68). 
• "Disappointment in a relationship with someone from whom we were expecting a lot (perhaps too much) can teach us to go deeper in prayer, in our relationship with God, and to look to him for that fullness, that peace and security, that only his infinite love can guarantee" (pp. 70-71). 
• "That others are sinners cannot prevent us from becoming saints. Nobody really deprives us of anything. At the end of our lives, when we come face to face with God, it would be childish to blame others for our lack of spiritual progress" (p. 72). 
• "The only free act we can make in regard to the past is to accept it just as it was and leave it trustingly in God's hands" (p. 81). 

In general, this book addressed many areas that I have been pondering and extended my thinking. 

Searching for and Maintaining Peace

Earlier this summer I met a woman while helping set up for a women's conference at our diocesan retreat center who I admired for how she seemed to have figured out how to live with Christ at the core from an earlier age than I did. By noticing that, I knew that there was likely a lot I could learn from her. She recommended a book by Father Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart.

Almost three months went by, and a couple of weeks ago I was talking to another woman asking for further explanation on a comment she made because I also recognized her as seeming to be more advanced spiritually and once again the same book came up, so I decided it was time to read it.

It is a brief book at 110 pages and relatively smaller in size as compared to other books; however, it contained insight to so many of the questions that I had been pondering over the last year. Fairly early in on my process of recognizing that I needed to re-align my life to having God at the core this image resonated with me so much that I printed it out and put it on my bulletin board.

Yet, along the way, I recognized that though I was drawn to the concept, I was far from knowing how to implement it. It was relatively easy to lose my sense of peace, and I realized part of my journey would mean re-defining what peace truly means in order to then try to cultivate it. Growth on the worry-trust continuum and all the encouragement over the years I received to lean into trust laid a foundation.

This book helped me to deepen my understanding by providing new ideas to consider, an explanation to some of the processes I had completed intuitively, and overall considerations to help me to self-reflect on my spiritual growth. Divided into three parts: 1) Interior Peace, The Road to Saintliness, 2) How to React to That Which Causes Us to Lose Peace, and 3) What the Saints Tell Us, the book complemented others I previously read about Ignatian discernment (this one and this one by Fr. Gallagher and this one from LifeTeen).

I also noted and appreciated that Fr. Jacques Philippe connected his concepts to some of my favorite Scripture verses, such as God working all things for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28). In this way, it took Scripture that had been speaking to me and guiding my journey towards greater trust and provided me with further explanation of how this could lead me toward growth with maintaining peace.

It also brought up a topic that I have noticed I do not like to think about - spiritual combat. Nonetheless, the way it discussed it helped me to feel a greater sense of peace about the whole topic - not surprising given the title and intent of the book - because it contextualized the purpose in the greater journey towards heaven. For example, "Every Christian must be thoroughly convinced that his spiritual life can in no way be viewed as the quiet unfolding of an inconsequential life without any problems; rather it must be viewed as the scene of a constant and sometimes painful battle, which will not end until death -- a struggle against evil, temptation and the sin that is in him. [...] And this combat is, correctly viewed, the place of our purification, of our spiritual growth, where we learn to know ourselves in our weakness and to know God in His infinite mercy. This combat is the definitive place of our transfiguration and glorification" (p. 9). Lines like that helped me to appreciate the concept through a new lens and embrace it, rather than having a response of fear/anxiety, especially because he emphasizes that it is the Lord's strength that helps us combat these spiritual battles.

In general, this book wove together so many threads that have been on my mind about growing towards God, such as: suffering, great peace, trust, and detachment. It also provided me with some answers about tendencies to ponder the experiences of others and how that links to my own sense of peace.

I am so fortunate for these two women recommending this specific book at this specific phase of my life. Developmentally, it felt like just what I needed and that it was rich enough that I will continue to gain insights from it by re-reading in the future.