|
Bookshelf
By WILLIAM C. GRAHAM
It is time already for my annual
summer pilgrimage to Spikes Lake in northern Minnesota, where both air
and water are cool, the wood stove glows warm and all the mosquitoes are above
average.
Wine and Bread, by Benedictine Sr. Photina Rech (Liturgy
Training Publications, 118 pages, $15), is an excerpt from a volume previously
published in German, translated by Heinz R. Kuehn. Rech explores the sacred
mysteries in a mystical manner that invites new reverence: Only the
passionate desire of the divine to become one with humanity, to become the
beloved -- in a manner incomparably more intimate than the bride and groom --
only that desire was able to create the eucharistic miracle. Ive
sent my copy off to a young man about to be ordained, hoping that these
reflections will quicken him in hope.
Made in Gods Image: The Catholic Vision of Human
Dignity, edited by Franciscan Frs. Regis Duffy and Angelus Gambatese
(Paulist, 157 pages, $14.95 paperback), grew out of a three-year seminar of
Catholic scholars of various disciplines reflecting on the churchs
consistent social teaching of the dignity of the human person created in the
image of God. Six contributors reflect on Gods affirmation of human
worth; human dignity, human rights and ecology from Christian, Buddhist and
Native American perspectives; the threat of commodity-consciousness to human
dignity; preaching about dignity or preaching with dignity; immigration; and
reflections on ministry to people with AIDS.
Essential Monastic Wisdom: Writings on the Contemplative
Life, by Benedictine Fr. Hugh Feiss (HarperSanFrancisco, 218 pages, $23
hardbound), is, as Kathleen Norris correctly suggests in her introduction, an
excellent guidebook to the literature of monasticism. This selection of short
texts from monastic authors, arranged by topics and prefaced by essays, is
primarily for those who are not monks but who wish to ponder what monastic men
and women have learned about being both whole and holy. Ive sent my copy
off to Trappist Fr. James Stephen Behrens for the guest room at Holy Spirit
Monastery in Georgia.
The Invisible Father: Approaches to the Mystery of
Divinity, by Fr. Louis Bouyer, translated by Benedictine Fr. Hugh Gilbert
(St. Bedes Publications, 319 pages, paperback; first published in French
in 1976), is part of the revered theologians trilogy on the Trinity,
which also includes The Eternal Son and The Paraclete. Bouyer
traces the paths of Gods self-revelation and feeds the life of grace
within.
Edith Stein: Her Life in Photos and Documents, by Discalced
Carmelite Sr. Maria Amata Neyer (Institute of Carmelite Studies [2131 Lincoln
Rd., NE, Washington DC 20002], 83 pages, $13.95 paperback), is translated by
Waltraut Stein. The author served numerous terms as the prioress of the Cologne
Carmel in which Edith Stein lived as Sr. Teresia Benedicta a Cruce before her
murder in Birkenau in 1942. Stein was canonized in 1998, and this book
chronicles the events, joys and sorrows of her life.
Jesus and Those Bodacious Women: Life Lessons from One Sister
to Another (United Church Press, 213 pages, paperback) is by Linda H.
Holies, director of the Outreach Office of the West Michigan Conference of the
United Methodist Church. She sees bodacious women as unmistakable, remarkable
and noteworthy. When Jesus Christ comes into a womans life, she becomes
bodacious, and even the male compilers of the scriptures could not erase their
remarkable feats. Believing that she is inspired by the Holy Spirit to do so,
the author has compiled lessons about the women in scripture she sees as
bodacious.
She gives a warning, however, that she has taken great
personal liberty with scripture! She asks the reader to be indulgent in
reading what I saw and felt was intended! Her considerations of
Eve, Mary Magdalene, the pregnant Mary, the woman at the well and others may
provoke helpful meditation in some readers. Those annoyed after reading this
paragraph will do best to pass on this one.
Running to the Mountain: A Journey of Faith and Change, by
Jon Katz (Villard, a division of Random House, 242 pages, $20 hardbound), is
the reflections of an author turning 50 who had settled down, reflecting,
Any more settling and I would vanish into the mud like some fat old
catfish. Not religious (Judaism, the faith of my parents, never
spoke to me), he tried Quaker meetings. But sooner or later, people
like me run into the same wall when it comes to organized religion: Those
around us all claim to believe in God, and we dont. This
interesting book may well be appreciated by others who, like Katz, feel
orphaned in the promised land.
Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues,
by Ian G. Barbour (HarperSanFrancisco, 368 pages, $21 paperback), is a revised
and expanded version of Religion in An Age of Science (1990), winner of
the American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence and the Templeton Book
Award. Barbour defends an ecological theology that is supportive of efforts to
preserve the environment. He considers five challenges -- science as method, a
new view of nature, a new context for theology, religious pluralism and threats
to the environment -- in exploring religion in an age of science and to present
an interpretation of Christianity that is responsive both to biblical faith and
contemporary science.
Responses to 101 Questions on Islam, by John Renard
(Paulist, 173 pages, $12.95 paperback), is part of a noteworthy series and is
itself a valuable little resource for the curious and for use in comparative
religion courses.
Unearthing the Lost Words of Jesus: The Discovery and Text of
The Gospel of Thomas, by John Dart and Ray Riegert (Seastone [P.O.
3440, Berkeley, CA 94703], 105 pages, $17 hardbound), tells of the discovery of
the Dead Sea Scrolls at Nag Hammadi and includes the apocryphal gospel of
Thomas with commentary by John Dominic Crossan. That gospel, said to be
dictated by Jesus to doubting Thomas, looks to return to the ideal, primordial
world first created. One returns to this state by a life of asceticism and
celibacy, leaving worldly life behind.
I have no business commenting on Catholics and American
Culture: Fulton Sheen, Dorothy Day, and the Notre Dame Football Team, by
Jesuit Fr. Mark S. Massa (Crossroad, 278 pages, $24.95 hardbound). Its author
was my dissertation director at Fordham where he is a well-regarded and popular
professor. It is, however, too interesting a volume to pass without comment. I
read the entire book on one long flight and considered it a page-turner. I
mentioned that to the books editor at Crossroad who told me that he had
the same experience reading the manuscript while waiting for jury duty. Massa
sees the aggiornamento of Vatican II leading in directions that the council
fathers never envisioned. The serendipitous journey of American Catholics into
the mainstream -- beginning with Leonard Feeney and ending with the Fighting
Irish of South Bend -- is, as Massa demonstrates, an interesting pilgrimage but
also a well-told tale.
The Ironic Christians Companion: Finding the Marks of
Gods Grace in the World is by Patrick Henry (Riverhead Books, 273
pages, $23.95 hardbound). An ironic Christian, asserts the author,
inhabits a world that is more as if than just
like, a world fashioned by a God of surprises. My copy of this
interesting consideration of Gods grace will make a fine graduation gift
for a young man who has just finished four years at a Catholic college.
Lay Preaching: State of the Question, by Patricia A.
Parachini, a Sister of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, (American Essays in
Liturgy: Liturgical Press, 68 pages, paperback) considers who can or should
effectively preach the message of the living God and also what effective
preaching is. Parachini helps focus attention on the growing interest in lay
preaching and to assess the needs of the people of God so that gifts may be
used wisely.
Were I more generous, this very day I would give my copy of
Jesus the Stranger: Reflections in the Gospels, revised and updated, by
Missioner of Africa Fr. Joseph G. Donders (Orbis, 165 pages, paperback), to a
local pastor whose daily homilies I often appreciate. This volume is great for
preachers as well as for those who would reflect on the Word day by day. I will
give it to him as soon as I show it to and use it with my students.
Denese Ferrera, a Caldwell College graduate student in pastoral
ministry, belongs to St. Pius Parish in Montville, N.J., where she is involved
with the liturgy of Word for children. I invited her to look at The Journey
from Misery to Ministry, Living Creatively in a Broken World by Norbertine
Fr. Francis Dorff (Ave Maria Press, 181 pages, $12.95 paperback). According to
Ferrera, Dorff writes for fellow priests and all those on spiritual journeys,
including religious sisters, ministers of other denominations, and lay women
and men from different religious traditions or from no religious tradition at
all.
He formulates an eight-stage process that focuses on the journey
through suffering to ministry. Ferrera observes that at the end we seem to be
back where we started, but we are clearly not in the same place. In our
newfound ministry, our transformation allows us to bring compassion, hope and
creative vision to those who are experiencing a misery similar to our own.
Dorffs style, Ferrera reports, is inviting, and his book is enlightening,
uplifting and informational.
An Ideal Church: A Meditation, by Denise Lardner Carmody
(Paulist, 95 pages, $6.95 paperback), is the 15th annual Madaleva Lecture in
Spirituality sponsored by the Center for Spirituality at St. Marys
College, Notre Dame, Ind. Its concern is what the Christian church ought to be.
Not avoiding what the church is, it muses about the better community that could
be created. Lardner Carmody sees that much in our church is beautiful,
but a considerable amount is dreck. Hers is not a call for fatalism or
quietism but an acknowledgment of the mysterious way things are. This is a
little book but not a small effort.
Fr. William C. Grahams Sacred Adventure: Beginning
Theological Study will be published in August by University Press of
America. He receives e-mail at NCRBkshelf@aol.com
National Catholic Reporter, July 2,
1999
|
|