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Essential Catholic Library?


the_rev

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Dominus Iesus (Pope Benedict XVI)

Salt of the Earth (Pope Benedict XVI)

The Following Titles by St. Escriva:
The Stations of the Cross
The Way
Furrow
The Forge
Christ is Passing By (a collection of homilies)
Holy Rosary

Introduction to Christianity (Pope Benedict XVI)

Witness to Hope (Weigel)

Letters to a Young Catholic (Weigel)

I second lumen gentium; especially article five (focus on the Laity)
I also second Intro to the Devout Life

Disagree with CS Lewis titles, sorry "Brother"

True Devotion to Mary (St. Montfort)

Dei Verbum

An Ordinary Christian: The Life of the Blessed Pier Giogio Frassati (Maria Dilorenzo)

Umberto Echo's The Name of the Rose :bigthink:

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mariology21

[quote name='Oik' date='Jul 25 2005, 03:48 PM']So many awesome sugestions. Think of how much that could be read!
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Yes. Now if I could just find time to read all the books I have on my list!!

~Jen

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i think we should get a phatmass library-type system going...because i'm too poor to buy all these books, and i wouldn't know where to find them for borrowing anyway.

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toledo_jesus

Harry Potter and the novelizations of all the Star Wars books.
:P:

actually, I would say Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. one a day

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mariology21

[quote name='jiyoung' date='Jul 25 2005, 07:30 PM']i think we should get a phatmass library-type system going...because i'm too poor to buy all these books, and i wouldn't know where to find them for borrowing anyway.
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Me too....but I got to Half.com or Amazon.com and t ype in the titles I want. They ALWAYS (almost) have the books marked down very considerably. Half.com has a very low shipping price too. That's how I get all my books (for the most part). Some come used with a little wear but I have always been extremely pleased with the books I've gotten.

~Jen

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JP2Iloveyou

For men interested in the priesthood, I recommend two title. First, [i]Priests for the Third Millenium[/i] by (then) Msgr. Timothy Dolan (now Archbishop Dolan). Second is [i]Priest[/i] by Michael Rose (although I would NOT recommend [i]Goodbye Good Men[/i], also by Rose. I could think of more but this is a good start.

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[quote name='zunshynn' date='Jul 24 2005, 11:54 PM']Veritatis Splendor
Ut Unum Sint
Evangelium Vitae
Code of Canon Law
Lumen Gentium
Ad Gentes

I'm drawing blanks... there's too much good stuff.

How big of a library are you talking about?
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I am in the middle of readint veritatis splendor -- YES EVERY SERIOUS CATHOLIC OUGHT TO READ IT!!! then EVERY SERIOUS CATHOLIC OUGHT TO READ ALL OF THE ENCYCLICALS AND CHURCH DOCUMENTS

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argent_paladin

This thread caused me to do a bit of research and I came across a truly phenomenal book (I just ordered it from Amazon) from one of the greatest living Catholic scholars, Fr. James V. Schall, SJ. The book is entitled "Another Sort of Learning: Selected Contrary Essays on How to Finally Acquire an Education While Still in College or Anywhere Else: Containing Some Belated Advice about How to Employ Your Leisure Time When Ultimate Questions Remain Perplexing in Spite of Your Highest Earned Academic Degree, Together with Sundry Book Lists Nowhere Else in Captivity to Be Found". And it is true to its title! It is basically a collection of essays on various topics and connected lists of books.

Here's an Amazon review:[quote]Fr. Schall, professor of Political Philosophy at Georgetown, speaks for all true bibliophiles when he writes, "There is something narrow, even self-defeating, in reading a great work only once." ANOTHER SORT OF LEARNING is a collection of short essays on the necessity of making and using a personal library. That means gathering about oneself wonderful books on diverse topics and marvelling as the years roll by that, as he says at one point, "Everything reminds me of something in Plato."

Fr. Schall shuns the approach of a Master List of Books To Read Or Else. Instead, he writes elegant, meaty essays on education, philosophy, science, politics, history, and revelation, and concludes each essay with a short list of the books that nourish his own thoughts on the subject at hand. Examples of such lists include, "Unlikely List of Books to Keep Sane By", "Books You Will Never Be Assigned", "Seven Books on Sports and Serious Reflection", "Seven Books on the Limits of Politics", and "Five Books Addressed to the Heart of Things".

Why haven't I begun to do this? Isn't it true that, in my dotage, the books I have loved and marked and returned to and brooded over and dreamed by will reveal more about The Real Me than anything else?

Schall champions "the recovery of permanent things." (Readers of conservative literary critic and social philosopher Russell Kirk will recognize the phrase.) He enlists the thought and works of Plato and Aristotle, of Augustine and Aquinas, of G.K. Chesterton, [contemporary Thomist] Josef Pieper, and C.S. Lewis. Allow me to quote from the book's Conclusion:

"I wanted to suggest that anyone with some diligence and some good fortune can find his way to the highest things even if such higher level concerns are not formally or systematically treated in the schools, even if they are in fact denied there or by our own friends or culture. Indeed, I would suspect that there is a certain basic loneliness in our relationships to the highest things. I am not a skeptic here, but we should not expect too much from our formal educational institutions in this regard."

Can I get an "Amen"?

If nothing else, considering Fr. Schall's lists of books that matter may prompt each reader to ask, while scanning the surrounding array of books, "Which books most shape my thought? How would I introduce them to others?" Fr. Schall provides a wonderfeul model of how to do that.
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Part of the charm of this book are the book lists but Schall is the product of a world that is no more, since he was educated by the pre-Vatican II Jesuits and recieved a first class education. This is a product of a lifetime of thinking about the important things in a Catholic way. This book will save you years of deadends and wasted time. Buy this book before you buy any other!! Seriously. I will do a review when I get my copy.

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God Conquers

If there were ONE book besides the obvious, I'd say:

Theology for Beginners by Frank Sheed.

INCREDIBLE book.

And it's SO not just for beginners.

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