Book Suggestions

[Brother Adam]

The last two are very forgivable and reasonable. The first however, that's just wrong.

[MissScripture]

[quote name='CatherineM' timestamp='1313520295' post='2289259']
Never been on a rollercoaster. Never worn high heels (I didn't want to hit my head on things). Never owned a cat.
[/quote]
I think a good portion of your life WAS a roller coaster. And you re-learned to walk, which imho is far better than ever wearing high heels (I trip and nearly break my neck when I wear heels) and didn't you fall into a tiger cage or something like that? Much bigger deal than owning a little house cat.

[OnlySunshine]

Books I'd recommend:

[u][b]Abandonment to Divine Providence[/b][/u] by Jean-Pierre de Caussade - this book was recommended to me by Sr. Agnes of the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal when I told her I was having problems discerning and couldn't find a spiritual director; I learned so much from it.

[u][b]I Believe in Love[/b][/u] by Jean C.J. d'Elbee - a good companion to the book above since both are about abandoning yourself to God's Divine Plan in your life

[u][b]Story of a Soul[/b][/u] - I'm of the opinion that anyone who is discerning religious life should read this book; St. Therese was a huge inspiration for me to begin my search

[u][b]The Interior Castle[/b][/u] - though I'm not a big fan of St. Teresa of Avila by any means, this book taught me a lot about the mystery of the soul in relationship with God and how we mature over the course of our lifetime in our faith journey

[Lil Red]

[quote name='MaterMisericordiae' timestamp='1313531993' post='2289368']
Books I'd recommend:

[u][b]Abandonment to Divine Providence[/b][/u] by Jean-Pierre de Caussade - this book was recommended to me by Sr. Agnes of the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal when I told her I was having problems discerning and couldn't find a spiritual director; I learned so much from it.

[u][b]I Believe in Love[/b][/u] by Jean C.J. d'Elbee - a good companion to the book above since both are about abandoning yourself to God's Divine Plan in your life

[u][b]Story of a Soul[/b][/u] - I'm of the opinion that anyone who is discerning religious life should read this book; St. Therese was a huge inspiration for me to begin my search

[u][b]The Interior Castle[/b][/u] - though I'm not a big fan of St. Teresa of Avila by any means, this book taught me a lot about the mystery of the soul in relationship with God and how we mature over the course of our lifetime in our faith journey
[/quote]
lol, wow. those are hardcore. i've tried reading two of four of those books and couldn't make heads nor tails of them.

[OnlySunshine]

[quote name='Lil Red' timestamp='1313532559' post='2289375']
lol, wow. those are hardcore. i've tried reading two of four of those books and couldn't make heads nor tails of them.
[/quote]

Really? I thought I have the most trouble with books since I have ADD. I hated St. Teresa's autobiography because of how it seemed to ramble on. I also couldn't tolerate [u][b]The Way of Perfection[/b][/u]. [u][b]The Interior Castle[/b][/u] is the only one that I could get through completely without knocking my head on a wall.

[u][b]Abandonment to Divine Providence[/b][/u] was a little tricky, but I got a translation that is a little watered down. It's the one translated by John Beevers.

As for the other two - well, I'm just a big fan of St. Therese of Lisieux.

Edited August 17, 2011 by MaterMisericordiae

[OnlySunshine]

Another book I'd recommend is [u][b]Seeking Spiritual Direction[/b][/u] by Fr. Thomas Dubay. Pretty much everyone has told me that his books are totally worth the read.

[Slappo]

Surprised these ones weren't thrown in the mix already:

Scott Hahn's [i]The Last Supper[/i], and [i]Hail Holy Queen[/i]. We actually did a young adults group that went through The Last Supper reading a chapter at a time every time we met. They are not theologically dense, but they are good reads.


As for Tolkien and Lewis:
Tolkien is amesome. He does not use analogy in his writing like Lewis does (Aslan = Christ), but allegory. Tom Bombadil has undertones of Christ, and Goldberry that of Our Lady, but the characters are not meant to Christ. Gandalf also has a lot of similarities to Christ... fought the balrog that came from the pits of the earth, deathlike experience but rose again as Gandalf the White.

Although C.S. Lewis has some very good works, by and large he is not Catholic. Some of his views in Mere Christianity are heretical. His fiction works are great though like The Screwtape Letters, Narnia, The Great Divorce, and there's another one he has called [i]The Pilgrim's[/i] something or other that was pretty good. I took a college class on him. He also re-married after getting a divorce which by Catholic standards meant he was living in sin.


My personal gripe with a lot of the book choices is I think it would be hard to have group discussions on many of them, or to open up the works of the authors. You don't need a theology degree to expand on Tolkien and see the allegory, but it can get very tricky when you try to get spiritually inexperienced people together to expound on and talk about the Dark Night of the Soul and the Dark Night of the Senses. Some of my friends and I were very mislead through our understanding of vocation and discernment when we read stuff and talked about it together but did not have an extensive background on Catholic theology and spirituality. Thank God we had a patient spiritual director!

Edited August 17, 2011 by Slappo

[dells_of_bittersweet]

I would say that it's important to have a really good facutal grounding in the teachings of the Church-which is why I LOVE apologetics books. I would reccomend:

1. Catholicism and Fundamentalism, by Karl Keating
2. Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic, by David Currie
3. The Case for Christ (can't remember the author's name)

[LaPetiteSoeur]

Just a FYI

I'm the only person in this book club, at least currently. I don't have any Catholic friends who can do it!

[MissMaro]

Well, I would love to read 'Brideshead Revisited' in a book club. And, if your book club does get off the ground, it would be fun to read 'Three Men in a Boat' by Jerome K. Jerome. It's not Catholic, but it's good clean fun and it would be enjoyable to discuss. 'The Power and the Glory' might be good to read for one too, but I haven't read it recently. And that about exhausts my ideas.

[Lil Red]

[quote name='MaterMisericordiae' timestamp='1313544794' post='2289541']Really? I thought I have the most trouble with books since I have ADD. I hated St. Teresa's autobiography because of how it seemed to ramble on. I also couldn't tolerate [u][b]The Way of Perfection[/b][/u]. [u][b]The Interior Castle[/b][/u] is the only one that I could get through completely without knocking my head on a wall.

[u][b]Abandonment to Divine Providence[/b][/u] was a little tricky, but I got a translation that is a little watered down. It's the one translated by John Beevers.

As for the other two - well, I'm just a big fan of St. Therese of Lisieux. [/quote]

I thought it was Abandonment to Divine Providence that I'd tried to read - it was actually [u]The Soul of the Apostolate[/u] by Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard, OCSO. It was way too hard.

Now [u]the Story of a Soul[/u]? I know I'm gonna get flack for this - but it was too flowery, too, I don't know how to describe it, but after all these people telling me that it was amazing and would knock you off your feet, etc - I was like, "This book needs a good editor and a good rewrite." In my opinion, awful stuff.

I went through my bookshelf and pulled out a few of my favorites:

[url="http://www.amazon.com/Our-Lady-Lost-Found-Friendship/dp/0142001325/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313551702&sr=8-1"]Our Lady of the Lost and Found[/url] by Diane Schoemperlen
[url="http://www.amazon.com/Great-Divorce-C-S-Lewis/dp/0061774197/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313551711&sr=8-1"]The Great Divorce[/url] by C.S. Lewis
[url="http://www.amazon.com/Facing-Forgiveness-Catholics-Welcoming-Reconciliation/dp/1594711224/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313551721&sr=8-1"]Facing Forgiveness[/url] by Sofield, Juliano, and Aymond
[url="http://www.amazon.com/God-at-Ritz-Attraction-Infinity/dp/0824524721/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313551776&sr=8-1"]God at the Ritz[/url] by Msgr. Albacete
[url="http://www.amazon.com/Truth-Catholicism-Ten-Controversies-Explored/dp/0066213304/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1313551787&sr=8-2"]The Truth of Catholicism[/url] by George Weigel
[url="http://www.amazon.com/New-Anti-Catholicism-Last-Acceptable-Prejudice/dp/0195176049/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313551798&sr=8-1"]The New Anti-Catholicism[/url] by Jenkins
[url="http://www.amazon.com/Courage-Be-Catholic-Crisis-Reform/dp/B000W931F0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313551807&sr=8-1"]The Courage to be Catholic[/url] by George Weigel
[url="http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Fatima-Cardinal-Tarcisio-Bertone/dp/B00378L4T8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313551853&sr=8-1"]The Last Secret of Fatima[/url] by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone
[url="http://www.amazon.com/Catholics-New-Age-Psychology-Enneagram/dp/089283756X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313551870&sr=8-1"]Catholics and the New Age[/url] by Fr. Pacwa
[url="http://www.amazon.com/Evangelical-Not-Enough-Worship-Sacrament/dp/0898702216/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313551879&sr=8-1"]Evangelical is Not Enough[/url] by Thomas Howard
[url="http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Young-Catholic-Art-Mentoring/dp/0465092705/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313551889&sr=8-1"]Letters to a Young Catholic[/url] by George Weigel
[url="http://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Mystique-Fourteen-Fulfillment-Church/dp/1931709912/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313551900&sr=8-1"]The Catholic Mystique[/url] by Ferrara and Ireland
[url="http://www.amazon.com/Crowning-Merton-Other-Reasons-Catholic/dp/0829420258/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313551960&sr=8-1"]May Crowning, Mass, and Merton[/url] by Kelly
[url="http://www.amazon.com/Swimming-Scapulars-Confessions-Young-Catholic/dp/0829424717/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313551970&sr=8-1"]Swimming with Scapulars[/url] by Lickona
[url="http://www.amazon.com/Good-News-Bad-Evangelization-Conversion/dp/1586171259/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313551981&sr=8-1"]Good News, Bad News[/url] by McCloskey
[url="http://www.amazon.com/Curveballs-Catherine-Mardon/dp/189747203X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313551996&sr=8-1"]Curveballs[/url] by Catherine Mardon
[url="http://www.amazon.com/Soldier-Surrenders-Conversion-Camillus-Lellis/dp/1586171186/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313552006&sr=8-1"]A Soldier Surrenders[/url] by Susan Peek
[url="http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Catholics-Guide-Good-Living/dp/0824523008/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313552073&sr=1-2"]Bad Catholics Guide to Good Living[/url] by John Zmirak
[url="http://www.amazon.com/Catholics-Guide-Wine-Whiskey-Song/dp/082452411X/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313552073&sr=1-4"]Bad Catholics Guide to Wine, Whiskey & Song[/url] by John Zmirak
[url="http://www.amazon.com/Catholics-Guide-Seven-Deadly-Sins/dp/082452585X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313552073&sr=1-1"]Bad Catholics Guide to the Seven Deadly Sins[/url] by John Zmirak
[url="http://www.amazon.com/Psalms-Luigi-Giussani/dp/0824521242/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313552236&sr=8-1"]The Psalms[/url] by Fr. Giussani