Bookshelf
By WILLIAM C. GRAHAM
From time to time, I like to repeat how books are selected for
review in this column. Editorial forces in Kansas City, in a secret conclave,
decide which books will arrive at my door courtesy of UPS. After the white puff
of smoke is spotted rising above the offices there, a box of 31 or 57 or
how-many-ever books arrives at my door. From them, I usually choose 20 for
comment.
I am drawn to books on and about the church’s liturgical
life. And prayer. And about parishes, including how-to manuals. So also for
sacraments. And history, particularly about the church in the United States.
I’m always on the lookout for helpful resources both for parish and
classroom. I tend to favor books that target a Catholic audience.
If I cannot clearly understand the first sentence or paragraph of
a book, I tend to put it aside. I sometimes read the conclusion first, or open
up to a chapter that sounds intriguing. I tend to save space for books that
ought to have attention called to them (even if these might appeal only to a
small audience).
More books are published annually than could ever have attention
here. If someone has a better plan for how to choose the monthly 20, I’m
all ears: Talk to me at NCRBkshelf@aol.com
On to this month’s books.
Just Peacemaking: Ten Practices for Abolishing War, edited
by Glen Stassen (Pilgrim Press, 209 pages, $14.95 paperback), is a new and
novel approach. Rather than debating whether or not to wage war, the
contributors instead spell out options that come before the last resort. This
one is sure to be a hit on the peace studies curriculum.
The Compassionate Community: Strategies that Work for the Third
Millennium, by Medical Mission Sr. Catherine M. Harmer (Orbis, 205 pages,
$14 paperback), identifies problems (endemic poverty, homelessness, domestic
violence, inadequate health care) and analyzes failed strategies that continue
to be proposed as workable. She then suggests alternative approaches, also in
use, that involve entire communities. Here is a valuable book that also should
be added to the peace and justice curriculum.
Peace-seekers might also consider The Moral Bond of Community:
Justice and Discourse in Christian Morality, by Bernard V. Brady
(Georgetown University Press, 174 pages, $16.95 paperback). Understanding that
ethical discourse is the process of giving reasons for actions, Brady presents
the four different forms of moral discourse — narrative, prophetic,
ethical and policy — inviting the reader to consider how different forms
may be appropriate in different situations.
Johann Christoph Arnold has a simple aim in Seeking Peace:
Notes and Conversations Along the Way (Plough Publishing House, 248 pages,
$20 hardbound): to offer “stepping stones along the way and enough hope to
keep you seeking peace.” Arnold draws on Christian faith and the wisdom of
other traditions to offer hope and direction to those who look within and
around in pursuit of peace.
Poverty, Celibacy, and Obedience: A Radical Option for
Life, by Sacred Heart Missionary Fr. Diarmuid O’Murchu (Crossroads
Publishing, 135 pages, $13.95 paperback), is a book about the traditional
monastic vows (O’Murchu considers celibacy synonymous with chastity). He
aligns the vows with the notion of nonviolence, which he sees as a radical
option for life. He writes for those called to the vowed life and lay people
who identify with those values.
Leon J. Podles sees something creating a barrier between Western
Christianity and men, and he sets out to discover that something. In The
Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity (Spence Publishing [501
Elm St.; Dallas 75202], 288 pages, $29.95 hardbound), he sees modern churches
as “women’s clubs with a few male officers.”
While the work is well-documented, the observations and
conclusions may strike some readers as facile or provocative. However, the
issue of what some see as the Europeanization of the American church with its
decline in male participation is surely an issue, and this volume will
certainly invite that important discussion.
More I Could Not Ask: Finding Christ in the Margins (A
Priest’s Story), by Fr. James Peterson (Crossroad, 181 pages, $12.95
paperback), is the reflections of a man who has lived the priesthood reverently
for 50 years. Good reading.
A Caregiver’s Companion: Ministering to Older Adults,
by Fr. J. Daniel Dymski (Ave Maria Press, 189 pages, $8.95 paperback), is a
lovely and useful book. Drawing on the author’s 38 years of pastoral
experience, the book offers guidance and training to pastoral caregivers who
serve the homebound and those in extended care facilities.
Caring Ministry: A Contemplative Approach to Pastoral Care,
by Sarah A. Butler (Continuum, 160 pages, $18.95 paperback), is another helpful
volume. Butler offers helpful hints and sensible instruction and theological
reflections on creating a sacred, safe space in which the caregiver listens to
another who encounters the mystery of suffering.
The Tao of Jesus: An Experiment in Inter-Traditional
Understanding, by Augustinian Fr. Joseph A. Loya, Wan-Li Ho, and Taoist
priest Chang-Shin Jih (Paulist, 185 pages, $14.95 paperback), recognizes the
profound differences between Christianity and Taoism but sees parallels between
the words of Jesus and Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. Sayings from both traditions
about nonviolence, perfection and virtue are examined in this book.
As a child, I always thought prayer books were great. I still
remember the old St. Andrew Missal I carried in the first Communion procession
and used religiously at daily Mass. I think today’s children will be
equally glad to have Jesus, Teach Me To Pray: My First Communion
Prayerbook, by Alison Berger with illustrations by Holly Bewlay
(Twenty-Third Publications, 124 pages, $9.95 hardbound). Prayers before Mass,
the prayerful explanation of the Eucharist, and all the traditional prayers
little ones ought to know and love are right there. Good book!
Someone asked me at church last week where she might learn more
about the practice of reciting novenas. I wasn’t quite sure what to tell
her. Now I have found and am eager to pass along to my interlocutor Novena:
The Power of Prayer, by Barbara Calamari and Sandra DiPasqua (Penguin
Studio, 156 pages, $24.95 hardbound).
The authors set out to answer questions about the devotions: Why
is everything in nines, why certain saints for particular favors, why so many
prayers to Mary? This is a good resource and a lovely book.
Did you ever notice that the first preface for Lent says,
“Each year you give us this joyful season”? Joy is not always the
first virtue that occurs to folks as a description of the holy season. Fr.
Edward Hays knows that and celebrates it in A Lenten Hobo Honeymoon: Daily
Reflections for the Journey of Lent (Forest of Peace Publishing, 143 pages,
$12.95 paperback). I did not know that hobo is a contraction for “homeward
bound” Civil War veterans who were working their way back to loved ones.
Lent reminds Christians that we, too, are homeward bound, and that we will not
rest until we see God face to face.
In the new preface to his book, film director John Farrow is
remembered by his daughter Mia as “a devout Catholic, and a womanizer of
legendary proportions.” He learned of Fr. Damien, the leper, and wrote
about him in 1937. Damien the Leper: A Life of Magnificent Courage, Devotion
and Spirit (Image Books, 272 pages, $12 paperback) has now been reissued
for a new generation. In fact, it has been reprinted over 100 times and in more
than 20 languages.
This book celebrates a true Christian hero and ought to be
appreciated by a new audience. I’ve sent my copy off to a priest friend in
Hawaii where Damien served.
Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew (Westminster John
Knox, 287 pages, paperback) by Jesuit Fr. Jerome Neyrey, on the theology
faculty at Notre Dame, is intended for serious students and is not light
reading. So I passed a copy on to Christian Br. Mark McVann at Lewis University
in Romeoville, Ill., himself no lightweight when it comes to scriptural
considerations.
Neyrey’s interest is first and foremost cultural
anthropology, and the approach is framed clearly and thoroughly in those terms.
Neyrey is not interested in the theological significance of fulfillment
quotations from the Old Testament, for example, a theme that occupies
commentators a great deal where Matthew is concerned. Rather, the focus is on
honor/shame as the primary axis of the world in which Jesus lived and in which
Matthew’s readers read about and understand life, death and
resurrection.
McVann concluded that “there can be little doubt that this
work will serve as a standard for any and all works that attempt to understand
Jesus and Matthew in their cultural context and is recommended for readers who
have an interest in Mediterranean antiquity and the cultural and social worlds
that are so markedly different from our own. It’s hard to imagine there is
a better guide to this world than Fr. Neyrey.”
Fr. William C. Graham is preparing the manuscript of Sacred
Adventure: Beginning Theological Study, coming soon from University Press of
America.
National Catholic Reporter, April 9,
1999
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