Looking
for a good Theological and Spiritual Book?
Look no further!
The first Sunday of the month we will feature a new title with a review
written by our own Dan Brent. Dan holds degrees in Theology from St.
Bernard’s Seminary and for many years lead the RCIA formation team here at
Transfiguration. Dan is also a published author on themes Catholic.
February 2012 Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
God’s Voice Within: The Ignatian Way to Discover God’s Will
Mark E. Thibodeaux SJ
Loyola Press, 2010, 230 pp., $14.95
If you’re familiar with the Jesuits, you know they can be generally described as “practical”. They get it from their founder, St Ignatius of Loyola. He gave his men a formula for how to make decisions. It’s practical. In this book, Father Thibodeaux outlines the Ignatian system for making decisions. It helps if you’ve made the 30-day retreat or its 19th Annotation variation. But it will make sense to anyone who has a relationship with God.
The steps – too briefly – are these. (1) Get prayerful. (2) Identify the options and learn about each. (3) Dream about what life would be like under each option. (4) Think about each one and whether its prospects generate “consolation” or “desolation”. A tentative decision then gets tested by some time and consultation.
The book includes frequent quotes from Ignatius and occasional prayer suggestions. It starts with a long (and, I found it, ponderous) explanation of “consolation” and “desolation”. But the concepts are critical to the system.
Thibodeaux then gives a wonderfully clear summary of the four-step process for identifying and weighing our options when we face serious decisions. (No surprise. His book Armchair Mystic is a remarkably clear summary of prayer options!)
January 2012 Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See
Richard Rohr
Crossroad, 2009, 187 pp., $19.95
Our culture runs off of a philosophy of “dualism”, the author notes. Everything is either-or, right or wrong, liberal or conservative, us or them, etc. Mystics, on the other hand, are “both-and” people. They don’t have a need to be exclusive or judgmental. They can in silence stay in the moment and ponder the whole as God’s creation. “Contemplation is an exercise in keeping your heart and mind spaces open long enough for the mind to see other hidden material.” (p.34)
“Jesus seemed quite comfortable with the constant disorder of his world.” (p.36) Unhappily popes and clerics opt for either-or thinking because it gives them certitude and control. Believers are told to love their enemies but the churches have God punishing his enemies for all eternity.
“The kingdom of God is the naked now” (of the book’s title). It means that in nonjudgmentally pondering what is, we contact its Maker. Rohr puts it this way: “Prayer is something that happens to you” or “Prayer happened, and I was there.” (p.102) “We made Jesus into a mere religion instead of a journey toward union with God.” (p.154)
I found the book to be opaque and disjointed . . . but thought-provoking.
December 2011 Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
John O’Donohue
Harper, 1997, 231 pp., $15
“The human journey is a continuous act of transformation,” O’Donohue writes in the Prologue. The balance of the book is given to reflecting on what Irish wisdom has to offer by way of advice for that journey. The text is often puzzling and ambiguous. Largely because of that it’s always thought provoking.
The author identifies himself as a poet and it shows throughout. Even when the thought is elusive, the choices for words and phrases are a delight in themselves. “When your passion awakens, your soul becomes young and free and dances again.” (p.20) “The world of the soul is secret. The secret and the sacred are sisters.” (p.79) ”See aging not as the demise of your body but as the harvest of your soul.” (p.167)
The book deals with a series of topics that we would consider material for retreat times: friendship, our attitude toward our inner selves and our bodies, work, old age, and death. Here is another view on the “What’s-it-all-about-Alphie” question.
November 2011 Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
Where the Hell Is God
Richard Leonard, S.J.
Hidden Spring, 2010, 69 pp., $12
Last year we lost our first grandchild. Charlie, born healthy and beautiful, died suddenly three weeks later, a victim of SIDS. I’ve since read several books on evil, suffering, death. This book was the most helpful.
In searching for a rationale for pain and loss, Leonard goes into speculative theology. Yes, God must take responsibility for creating a less than perfect world. There are earthquakes, floods, disease, death. But what if . . . ? What if God has decided not to know the future and not to intervene with nature’s laws? Then God will neither prevent suffering nor miraculously make it go away. He will just be with us through it.
Jesus did say that, for God, the hairs of our head are all numbered. But Leonard cautions that Jesus used Semitic exaggeration to teach about God’s love. We don’t need to become biblical fundamentalists on the point!
God loves us more than we can imagine. God does not choose to inflict suffering and death. He chooses instead to be with us through life, a friend and support in its vagaries.
If you have a friend who is coping with a “bad turn”, give them this book.
October 2011
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
Clericalism: The Death of Priesthood
George B. Wilson, S.J.
Liturgical Press, 2008, 158 pp., $19.95
Behold, we are the culprits! The we includes you! This is a book about the pedophile scandal in the Catholic Church. Let me think. No, it’s not either. It’s a book about how we together are responsible for creating the Church. The sex scandal became the window through which we could see how “clericalism” has betrayed us. It has lured us into thinking that the ordained clergy are the ones who shape the Church, and that we are the bystanders, customers, laity in that process.
Father Wilson emphasizes that all the baptized share in the priesthood of Christ by virtue of their baptism. You’ve heard that before. But the author uses the tools of sociology to show how we’ve abdicated the responsibilities in that reality. We’ve created a clerical culture (“clericalism”) that has severe negative consequences. The sex scandal could not have happened without lay collaboration in fashioning a culture in which the ordained clergy were set apart and left unaccountable.
Wilson shows how people with special credentials (“clergy” for law, medicine, religion, etc.) generate a “laity” who give them preferential treatment and perks. In the case of the Church, that bred a culture that allowed the abuses. But it also creates a Church deprived of much of its blessing and resources.
September 2011
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
Freedom of Simplicity
Richard J. Foster
Harper One, 1981/2005, $13.99, 254pp.
What ever happened to the good old days when smartphones didn’t track where you were at every moment? Life has become so busy and complicated!
Richard Foster sets a course for the simplicity which, he says, is intrinsic to gospel living. Life is more simple, more fun, more free when a Christian learns that everything is God’s and all the things we are and own are God’s gifts to us, ours to use and share.
In the first part of this book, Foster examines the pillars that support our Christian theology of wealth and possessions: Old Testament, New Testament, saints. All say wealth is God’s gift to be shared. There was enough manna in the desert for everyone for that day. When someone tried to hoard some for tomorrow, it rotted. God was sending a message!
In the second part of the book, the author explores the consequences of the theology. Life gets simpler and more liberating when we trust a God who loves us and provides even for the birds. A focus on God and his kingdom makes our decisions easier. Foster offers many, many concrete ideas for how to find ways to make our lives less frenetic and more generous.
August 2011
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion
Gregory Boyle
Free Press, 2010, 213 pp., $14 (paperback)
Remember this number – 168.
This is the most moving book I can ever recall reading. It’s not about theology. No. I take that back. It’s profoundly theological. It’s about church at its most visceral level. We belong to each other. We are God’s gift – God’s presence – to each other.
Tattoos on the Heart is Gregory Boyle’s story of his efforts to bring joy and peace into the gang slums of Los Angeles. It is story after story after story of kids, enveloped by poverty and violence, struggling to find meaning for themselves. David. Luis. Carmen. Lapito. Shady. Lencho. Richard. Bandit. A host of others. And, finally, 16-year-old Chico.
The author’s reflections, seemingly just thrown in, stop you in your tracks. Mysticism, we are given to understand, is the all-absorbing gift of seeing God and God at work everywhere and in everything. Boyle is a mystic! And he lets us see the messy world through those eyes.
Oh. The 168? That’s the number of his kids that he buried.
July 2011
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
Four Witnesses: The Early Church in Her Own Words
Rod Bennett
Ignatius Press, 2002, $17.95, 346pp.
“And with your spirit.” “Hearts aloft!” “We keep them with the Lord!” “Let us give thanks to the Lord.” “It is right and just.”
Sounds like Sunday mass, right? It is Sunday mass – as described in a 215 A.D. passage written by Hyppolytus of Rome! The author of this book, Rob Bennett, was a Protestant minister who began to read the early “Fathers” of the Church. He wanted to be sure his church was as close to the purity of the apostolic days as he could get. What he found in the first days of the Church was – basically – the Catholic Church: the creed, the recognition of the bishop of Rome, the celebration of the mass. It was all there. He was astounded; even dismayed. It was so different from his lifelong convictions.
So he read and studied more. But the deeper he got, the more apparent it was. The orthodoxy of Jesus’ Church finds its home in the Catholic Church of Rome.
The “four witnesses” of the title are Clement of Rome (writing in 96 A.D.), Ignatius of Antioch (writing in about 105 A.D.), Justin Martyr (writing in 153 A.D.), and Irenaeus of Lyons (writing in about 188 A.D.). Bennett quotes them each at length in probing the thinking of the original Fathers of the Church.
A fascinating book!
June 2011
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC REVOLUTION: How the Sixties Changed the Church Forever
Mark S. Massa, SJ
Oxford University Press, 2010, $28
Mark Massa, SJ has written a thoughtful book, heavily documented with footnotes. The thesis is that the “Sixties” – the decade of the Vatican II Council – witnessed the transition of the Catholic Church from a fixed “classical” posture (-- we never change and can’t change --) to accepting the view of “historicism” (--everything changes, Church has changed in the past, Church must and will change in the future).
Massa cites several American experiences to document his position. The 1964 changes in the liturgy were (for the most part) accepted quickly and enthusiastically by Catholics. The Council document on the Church blossomed into new practices like parish councils and married deacons.
Min the meantime, the 1968 encyclical renewing the condemnation of birth control (Humanae Vitae) was mostly rejected. The Catholic University’s 1968 support for dissident Charles Curran in the birth control controversy would have been unthinkable a decade earlier. So would the California IHM community’s decision to reform their rules and ministries in the face of opposition from their cardinal archbishop. The anti-war demonstrations of the Berrigan priests were always in the name of their religion – the heretofore very conservative Catholicism.
Pius X was able to hold back “modernism” for a half century. But it has now broken through and the old, reliable “natural law” theology of Aquinas has given way.
May 2011
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
The Church: the Evolution of Catholicism
Richard P. McBrien
Harper One Publishers, 2008, 496 pp., $17.99
The title of this book would suggest that it’s a history of the Catholic Church. It isn’t. It’s a history of Catholic ecclesiology, a history of the evolution of Catholic theology on the nature and role of the Church itself. If that sounds dull, it gets worse. McBrien starts out to create a textbook in a nitch of theological studies where there’s been no textbook. So you get the classroom approach here: “This is what I will tell you. I tell you. And then I tell what I told you.” And the non-theologian will need to be patient with some word-antics that make you want to say, “Huh?” Like on page 357, “The Kingdom is the redemptive presence of God actualized through the power of God’s reconciling Spirit.”
So why might you want to read it? Because it’s fascinating to follow what the grand old woman, the two thousand year old Mother Church, has seen in the mirror over that time. And it explains a great deal about the present – how the Church of Vatican II saw itself and where the growth pains continue to be felt.
McBrien starts with a section on what “ecclesiology” is all about, and follows that with sections on its look in the New Testament, then through the Eastern Schism and the Protestant Reformation, then from Vatican I until the eve of Vatican II, and finally since Vatican II.
April 2011
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
The Last Week
Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan
Harper One, 2006, 238pp., $14
The book ends by summarizing: the two messages of Easter are (1) Jesus lives (and we with him) and (2) Jesus is Lord (and not Caesar or whoever the powerful are who have control in any era).
Borg (Lutheran) and Crossan (Catholic) are scripture scholars who follow Jesus in the gospel of Mark through each day of Holy Week from Palm Sunday to Easter. They probe the meaning of the familiar events with some startling insights.
Mark wrote his gospel forty years after the death of Jesus and his account is “like all the gospels, a combination of history remembered and history interpreted.” (p.ix) By history remembered the authors mean actual events and spoken words. By history interpreted they mean that the evangelist felt free to rework the Jesus story in such a way that its significance could be understood by the faith community that read it.
The book offers some scholarly, intelligible – and serious – reflections for Lent, Holy Week, and Easter!
March 2011
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
Neither Poverty nor Riches: A Biblical Theology of Material Possessions
Craig L. Blomberg
InterVarsity Press, 1999, 300 pp., $25
This book is a serious challenge. It addresses the topic of wealth as it is treated in the scriptures. Five conclusions emerge from the material.
1. There is nothing wrong with riches in themselves. Jesus himself was poor but he occasionally enjoyed a costly – sometimes extravagant – celebration.
2. Ownership of wealth creates a serious risk that the person will become preoccupied with protecting it and amassing more. The scriptures – and especially the message of Jesus – would instead have us focus primarily on pursuing the kingdom of God.
3. God is not calling us to somehow distribute wealth evenly. He is calling us to see our wealth as the happenstance of his gifts and take both personal and social responsibility for addressing poverty.
4. The “poor” that scripture holds us accountable for include an astonishingly broad range of people. It’s those who lack the means to provide food, clothing, shelter, health necessities for themselves and their children, of course. That would include the widows and the sick. But “poor” also includes anyone who is marginalized. So even from Old Testament times, the alien, the foreigner, the wanderer, were concerns of God.
5. In the Christian era, tithing is no longer an adequate norm for giving. The obligation is instead dictated by the needs. And most of us who consider ourselves “middle class” are, in fact, in the broad picture of things, really “rich”.
This book will, I suspect, invite you to the most serious conversion of your life, starting, he suggests, with building a budget to assess your lifestyle.
February 2011
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
Here on the Way to There
William H. Shannon
St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2005, 170 pp., $12.95
When Bill Shannon was contracted by St. Anthony Messenger Press to write this book, he asked them to survey their employees for the questions they had about death and the afterlife. He got many questions. Some were profound; some seemed superficial, even silly. He took them all seriously. The result is a book that is at once theologically solid and, at the same time, enormously practical.
Death is the transition point from the life we are familiar with to the life that God has promised in Jesus. For believers who profess faith in a risen Jesus and in “the resurrection of the body and life everlasting”, death has every reason to be a cause for joy. Monsignor Shannon examines the concepts of Christian death and resurrection. He rejects as bad theology (inherited from Plato) the notion that only our “soul” survives. No, like Jesus our person lives and we are creatures of body and soul.
The book includes practical reminders and advice on living wills, health proxys, DNR orders, etc. It says something about hell, purgatory, and limbo, and concludes with discussions of points on heaven. What will it be like? Will there be pets? Sex? Muslims? Babies?
January 2011
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything
James Martin SJ
Harper One Publisher, 2010, $27
James Martin feels that his life as a Jesuit gives him an enormous sense of freedom. This, his latest book, explains how you too can enjoy freedom by making use of some of the Jesuit disciplines.
Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits in the sixteenth century, was an ambitious soldier who was wounded, found serious religion in the course of his recovery, and became a remarkable genius in laying out a plan for others to discover the peace and purposefulness that marked his own life. He designed the thirty-day retreat (which we now can access in its more-practical “Nineteenth Annotation” format which Damian Zynda directs for our parish).
Martin’s book shows how a layperson can profit from religious-type focus without taking Jesuit vows. Poverty becomes simplicity. “Get rid of anything that prevents you from following God.” (p.180) Chastity reflects selfless friendship. “Compassion is the willingness to enter into the chaos of another person’s life.” (p.258) And obedience becomes openness to God. “This is what God is inviting you to experience at this moment.” (p.282)
The book is a “how-to” guide for people who feel it’s time to reassess the meaningfulness of their lives. His Jesuit stories and personal stories keep it light enough to read – but it’s a serious book!
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
Archbishop Oscar Romero: A Disciple Who Revealed the Glory of God
Damian Zynda
University of Scranton Press, 2010, 238 pp.
The doctoral studies of our Director of Formation, Damian Zynda, focused on the “conversion” process for the martyred Salvadoran archbishop, Oscar Romero. Bedeviled by scrupulosity and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD), Romero fought his personal struggle with rigidity, fear, and a judgmental attitude. At the end of his life, he’d won through to a warm relationship with Jesus and the people, especially the oppressed poor, in whom he’d learned to see the Lord. Romero said in one of his homilies (at Christmas four months before his murder), “We must not seek the child Jesus in the pretty figures of our Christmas cribs. We must seek him among the undernourished children who have gone to bed tonight with nothing to eat.” (p.113)
The book is a remarkable study of how grace builds on nature. The theology of Irenaeus of Lyons (second century) describes how God calls us to himself within the confines of our “real life”. Romero’s personality problems and the political situation in El Salvador, Damian explains, become the context for God’s calling him to a warm faith, an intimate prayer-life, a love for his people the Church, and ultimately a heroic martyrdom.
It’s an encouraging book, especially for those seeking prayer and intimacy with God in a life of frantic demands and frenetic schedules.
November
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
The Future Church: How Ten Trends
Are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church
John L. Allen
Doubleday, 2009, 469 pp., $28.
The author, who recently spoke at Nazareth College as part of the William Shannon Lecture Series, identifies ten trends that he believes will shape what happens to the Catholic Church in the new century. For each, he lists facts that identify the trend, gives insights into their significance, and guesses at more and less probable impacts that they will have on Church. He sees the center of Catholicism shifting from “North” (Europe and North America) to “South” (Latin America, Africa, India, and Asia). Also among his trends are the impact of Islam, biotechnology, ecology, and Pentecostalism on the Church.
It’s an easy book to fault. The statistical data is often dated and boring. The impact guesses run from obvious (the Church will have to deal with new ethical issues) to whimsical (maybe an African pope will move the Vatican to Goma in the Congo). But the net effect is to provoke some creative thinking outside of the box of current, often petty, concerns about the Church and its future.
Finally, his last chapter deals with what the trends “might mean for the Church’s contribution to the great challenges facing the human family in the twenty-first century. The chapter is designed as a stand-alone summary of the main ideas of this book.” (p.428) The chapter is thirty pages; maybe you could read it standing in the bookstore!
October
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
What Is the Point of Being a Christian?
Timothy Radcliffe OP
Burns & Oates, 2005, 218 pp., $19.95
“In this book,” the author writes, “I wish to reflect about what difference faith might make to how we live.” (p.4) The book struck me as a series of essays on disconnected topics: freedom, happiness, courage, sexuality, truth, community, false goals, and conflict. I wish Radcliffe had better connected the dots of his topics. But certainly inferred is that religion helps us to appreciate our identity and destiny. In Christianity we can find a rationale for life that makes it possible for us to live in joy, understand our priorities, and feel a sense of freedom in what can be the oppressive vagaries of life.
I recommend the book as intriguing food for thought. Forget the title and take each topic as a separate challenge. I particularly appreciated his treatment in a later chapter on the tensions that have built between liberal and conservative Catholics. That tension is not new. Paul was the liberal; Peter was the conservative. They confronted each other in Antioch. They died with each other in Rome. And “The Church thrived because it just, by the skin of its teeth, hung on to that dynamic tension.” (p.176)
September
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
The Gift of Spiritual Intimacy:
Following the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius
Monty Williams, SJ
Novalis Press, 2009, $24.95
“We are all mystics,” the book begins. “Our truest sense of our selves is inseparably rooted in God, and our identity stems from our lived awareness of that union.” (p.11)
The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius are a time-honored blueprint for searching for God through reflection and prayer. The “thirty-day retreat” and its more stretched-out version in the “Nineteenth Annotation” are popular modes for entering this Ignatian experience.
In this book, Father Williams has presented the “Four Weeks” journey of The Spiritual Exercises in forty-nine meditations. This is not a book to read. It is a book to pray. Each meditation follows the same format. There is a scripture reading, a quote from the Spiritual Exercises, a “grace to be prayed for” in the meditation, a text by the author about the topic, and a series of questions for reflection.
For a reader who’s been through the Exercises, this book offers a structure to fruitfully revisit them. For someone who has not previously “done” the exercises, my fear is that attempting to follow these meditations without the support of a knowledgeable spiritual director would risk confusion and discouragement.
August
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions
Marcus J. Borg and N. T. Wright
Harper One, 1999, $15.99
Over the last few decades, scripture scholars have been conducting a search for the “historical Jesus”. Since the gospels were written up to seventy years after the crucifixion and were never intended to be a historical account of the life of Jesus, there is intrigue in the effort to sort out what in the narratives are actual words and actions of Jesus and what are additions by the early Christian communities to communicate the substance of the “Jesus of Faith”.
In this easy-to-read book, two recognized scholars present the “liberal” and “conservative” views on eight of the key issues. They include Jesus’ birth, death, resurrection, and second coming. The conservative side is taken by Anglican bishop N. T. Wright; the liberal side is explained by Lutheran scholar Marcus Borg. They are personal friends and each is a man of great faith.
Catholics who grew up in a tradition slow to change are likely to find both sides of the presentations to be “liberal”. Fundamentalists who want to see the gospels as history in the ready-for-the-evening-news sense will be shocked at where scripture scholarship has gone. Most people of faith will find this exploration of the gospels helpful.
May
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
Compass Points
Margaret Silf
Loyola Press, 2009, 235 pp., $13.95
The tutoring we have received in faith over the years tells us that God is everywhere. We can find him in the sunrise or the sunset, in the soaring birds or in the tiny blossoms, in the still woods or in the busy streets. The face of Jesus, we are told, can be seen in those we love, in the poor, in the stranger, even in the “enemy”.
Compass Points is a lesson in learning to see God in the comings and goings of our lives. Margaret Silf uses 137 brief personal stories to build a mosaic that leaves the reader saying, “Wow! That’s easy! I could do that!”
Like her discovery one day that the crunch beneath her feet was last year’s chestnut husks. “They reminded me of a cave in a garden in Jerusalem. Above the cave is the inscription: He isn’t here. He is risen.” (p.213) And with him, our own hopes. “An empty cave warns us not to search for our heart’s living dreams in yesterday’s graves.”
April
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church – Memoirs of a Catholic Archbishop
Rembert G. Weakland, OSB
Eerdmans Publishing, 2009, 429 pp., $35
Ask any historian of Catholic life in the United States in the last decades of the twentieth century, “Who were the pace-setting liberal bishops?” and Rembert Weakland will be on everyone’s short list.
Weakland’s vision for the church often put him at odds with the Roman curia – the pope’s bureaucracy. “The council documents were clear that a bishop was not to be seen as the pope’s vicar, but possesses his powers by reason of his ordination.” (p. 230) “But the trend toward centralization during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II was now clear and unrelenting. Everything would have to be referred to Rome.” (p.319)
Here is an autobiography that honestly presents Weakland’s accomplishments and his sin, his enthusiasm for the changes made by Vatican II and his confrontations with Rome.
“Christ did not come to found a perfect society here on this earth, but a society of struggling sinners.” (p.421). We often fall short of the expectations we have for ourselves. But we are pilgrims on a journey, seeking God in our lives. This book will entertain anyone who is fascinated by the political dimensions of our Catholic Church. Even more so, the book will edify anyone – all of us – who are “Pilgrims in a Pilgrim Church”.
March
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
Wrestling with Our Inner Angels
Nancy Kehoe
Jossey-Bass, 2009, 149pp., $19.95
This book grew on me. At first I thought it was irrelevant and even a bit amateurish. But I grew to appreciate it as another perspective on my own messy search for God.
Nancy Kehoe “wrestles” with the impact of spirituality on the lives of people suffering with mental illnesses. A sister in the Society of the Sacred Heart, she has spent much of her ministry as a psychologist working with people who often live day to day on the brink of suicide. It pains her that her profession tends to write off their search for God as a symptom of their illness rather than an effort to see providence in their pain.
Truth and insight often emerge most clearly when circumstances drive us to our limits. That’s why we can learn from the experience of the mentally ill like Sister Nancy’s Beverly. “The struggles between doubt and belief and between God’s goodness and her sense of evil were the dominant themes of Beverly’s inner journey.” (p.30) “In a world with so many burdens to bear, those who have borne theirs with so much grace and dignity and resilience have much to teach us all.” (p.18)
I’d guess the book should be required reading for mental health professionals. For the rest of us, it’s helpful to learn from others whose search for God is infinitely more complex that our own.
February
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
Forward in Hope: Saying AMEN to Lay Ecclesial Ministry
Bishop Matthew H. Clark
Ave Maria Press, 2009, $11.95
Anyone who knows Bishop Clark will not be surprised at the gentle, pastoral sensitivity of his just-published book on lay ministry. He notes the confluence of two elements that have driven the movement of lay ministry in church. One is the theological insights of Vatican II which defined church as the People of God (not primarily a clerical institution) and baptism as giving a share in the priest-prophet-king roles of Jesus.
The other driving influence has been the diminishing availability of priests.
Bishop Clark’s gratitude for the ministry of lay people is everywhere evident in his book. And he surfaces some of the problems that lay ministers face in taking on their responsibilities. Among them:
• Parishioners feel cheated not to have a priest and withhold their support and loyalty.
• Dioceses pay for the priests’ education but rarely for lay formation.
• Everyone assumes that the job is temporary. If a priest can be found, the lay help is fired.
• Salaries and benefits are marginal or non-existent.
The book is a short, easy read. And it’s encouraging to hear a bishop repositioning the place of lay people in what has been a clergy-dominated church!
January
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
Heroic Living: Discover Your Purpose and Change the World
Chris Lowney
Loyola Press, 2009, $22.95
Jesuit trained Chris Lowney provides here an outline for how to arrive at a plan for your life and how to pursue it in an organized fashion. He writes at the end, “This book has largely revolved around reclaiming control of our lives in a big, complex, changing world that is largely beyond our control. A powerful tool for reclaiming control is the simple act of developing and being accountable to our own success standards each year, guided by our own vision and purpose.” (p.169)
Lowney uses his own experience as a manager at J.P. Morgan to create examples for what works and doesn’t work in the pursuit of meaning in our lives. Each section of the book is followed by two or three practical questions that could easily give form to personal meditations about life and its goals.
The author’s thinking is shaped by Ignatian spirituality and many of the practical suggestions are taken from the Spiritual Exercises. This would be a book to take on an eight day retreat to shape the flow of one’s prayerful assessment and planning.
December
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
What Happened at Vatican II
John W. O’Malley
Belknap-Harvard, 2008, $29.95
This book revisits the ecumenical council of 1962-65. It describes the riveting conflicts that characterized the theological debates and political machinations between the two factions that emerged. The conservatives were led by the Curia’s cardinals like Ottaviani and Siri. The more liberal group was led by cardinals like Suenens (Brussels) and Bea (a German Jesuit).
O’Malley identifies three dominant “issues under the issues” in the sixteen documents that emerged from the Council: “The circumstances under which change in the church is appropriate; how authority is distributed between the papacy and the rest of the church; and the style (top-down vs. collegial) according to which that authority should be exercised.” (p.8)
On these three battlefields, the conservatives – who were (to everyone’s surprise) a vastly outnumbered minority – fought to preserve the status quo in the church. They lost the initial skirmish. In the Council’s first document, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Latin lost out to the vernacular as the language of the mass. But the concerted effort to reach decisions by consensus worked to a remarkable degree. Most of the final votes on documents – after many rewrites – were 95% favorable.
We worship in a post-Vatican II church. This is a fascinating account of how we got there.
November
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
Speaking with Authority: Catherine of Siena
and the Voices of Women Today
Mary Catherine Hilkert, O.P., PhD
Paulist Press, 2008, $15.95
Have you noticed that, whenever a priest even remotely hints in a homily that maybe the church ought to give some thought to using women more overtly in worship service, some of the congregation will stand and applaud while others will rush to the phone to report him to the bishop as a scandal?
Seven centuries ago, the church was floundering. The popes were living in scandalous luxury in France and the Italian city-states were provoking interdicts that deprived their people of the sacraments.
Reminiscent of the Old Testament prophets, God sent a voice to call church and civil leadership to account and conversion. Remarkably the prophet was a woman! In the end, her success was modest. But the woman herself was amazing. In 1970, Pope Paul VI named Catherine of Siena a Doctor of the Church.
This book by Mary Catherine Hilkert puts Catherine and her ministry into its context. And she points out the need of the church today to hear the prophetic voices of women. It’s a thought-provoking read.
October
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus
Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg
Zondervan, 2009, $21.99
The subtitle of the book is “How the Jewishness of Jesus Can Transform Your Faith”. I think this over-promises, but it does suggest what the authors are attempting. Surely, in reading the gospels, it is helpful to have a feel for the culture and customs in which they are set.
A few examples.
For meals in Jesus’ time, people sat on the floor or, at special events, on couches. Who you ate with showed who you belonged to. So the Pharisees took notice that Jesus ate with poor people, sinners, and tax collectors. Eucharist for us takes on profound meaning against the background of that culture.
Jesus behaved like other famous rabbis, gathering a group of followers. They were his disciples or “talmidim”.
“Far from rejecting the rabbinic discussions swirling around him, Jesus actively engaged in them.” (p.168) He taught also like other rabbis; the difference was the authority he claimed which, the gospels tell us, amazed his listeners. “You have heard . . . but I say to you . . . .” And he demanded more of them.
His contemporaries were awaiting the restoration of God’s kingdom which they assumed to mean the overthrow of Rome. But Jesus instead “linked the kingdom to his works of healing and forgiveness.” (p.191)
In the end, “Jesus is calling us to be his disciples, his talmidim.” (p.204)
September
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
Practicing Catholic
James Carroll
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009, 322 pp., $28
James Carroll’s best-selling book Constantine’s Sword is an historical account of the two millennia long persecution of Jews by Christians. It has become a classic. This book is a much more personal narrative. It will appeal especially to Catholics who were around to wrestle with the religious questions of the tumultuous 1960’s.
In the contexts of war and peace, sexual morality, church discipline (celibacy and the ordination of women), and feminism, Carroll pleads that “dogma must be tested against ethics, and not the other way around.” (p.265) In other words, if a church position is creating bad consequences, perhaps it is time to reexamine its underlying assumptions. “Once we understand that doctrines evolved over time, we stop regarding them as timeless.” (p.12) In those first days of the church, the apostles, he notes, would not have believed in the divinity of Jesus.
Practicing Catholic takes us inside the life of an activist. More than that, it takes us inside the mind and soul of a man who loves the Church. And it takes us again into the heady days when “Catholics came to understand that they themselves – not their priests, bishops, and pope – are the Church.” (p.320)
June
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
The Divine Milieu
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ
New York: Harper and Rowe Publishers, 1968, $16
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest, was both a scientist (a geologist) and a theologian. His life (1881-1955) overlapped that of Einstein (1879-1955). It was a period of enormous discoveries about the universe. The scientific progress of that era moved him to greater faith and to a vision of all of creation that centered on Christ.
The Divine Milieu begins with an explanation that all human experience has divine undertones. Work, play, family, commerce – everything we do and everything that happens to us – is not different from (or an interruption of) our prayer and spirituality. It is all part of the whole of building God’s kingdom. In our human activities, “We serve to complete creation by the humblest work of our hands.”
In summary: “By means of all created things, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us.” “God reveals himself everywhere, as a universal milieu, only because he is the ultimate point upon which all realities converge.” “The immensity of God is the essential attribute which allows us to seize him everywhere, within us and around us.” And the tool God uses is Christ – his risen person, his Eucharistic presence (one communion through the ages), and his body the Church. “Christ acts as the center of radiation for the energies which lead the universe back to God.”
May
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
The First Paul
Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan
Harper One, 2009, 224pp., $24.99
A Lutheran theologian (Borg) and a Catholic theologian (Crossen) collaborate in this book to identify the main themes of Paul’s thinking. The focus is on the “radical” Paul who wrote the original seven letters.
In a fascinating chapter, the authors contrast the thinking of this original “radical” Paul with the later letters which make concessions to the culture of Rome. For example, the original Paul sees wives and husbands as equals. The later Pauls write, “The husband is head of the wife.”
Paul preached that it is Jesus, not Caesar, who is the world’s ruler. Rome killed Jesus using the power of violence. But God raised Jesus up, sending a message that God is rejecting the power of violence. And while Caesar’s peace is achieved by war and subjection, the peace that Jesus brings is achieved by love: recognizing the dignity and needs of everyone – what we would now term “social justice”.
On the topic of “justification by faith,” the authors write, “Faith does not mean theoretical assent to a proposition, but vital commitment to a program.” (p.168) God invites us to accept a “Spirit transplant” which gives the Christian a new identity which Paul refers to as making us live “in Christ”.
This book offers a balanced look at the predominant Pauline themes.
April
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection,
and the Mission of the Church
N. T. Wright
Harper One, 2008, $24.95
This book, the author declares, is not about life after death. It’s about “life after life after death.” It’s about the time of Jesus’ second coming when God will make a new creation of the world and give incorruptible bodies to the elect.
Contrary to the popular way of speaking, our destiny is not to go to heaven; God’s plan is to bring “heaven” to earth. Wright explores the concept of resurrection as it was understood by Jesus’ contemporaries. “Within this world, the word resurrection in its Greek, Latin, or other equivalents was never used to mean life after death. Resurrection was used to denote new bodily life after whatever sort of life after death there might be.” (p.36)
Against that background, the resurrection of Jesus becomes the first stroke of God’s new creation. And “our task in the present is to live as resurrection people in between Easter and the final day.” (p.30)
Wright deals with purgatory, heaven, and hell and also with the implications of resurrection theology for church and its contribution to justice, beauty, and evangelism.
February
Book Review
Dan Brent M.Div., Reviewer
The Need and the
Blessing of PRAYER
Karl Rahner SJ
Liturgical Press, 1997, $12.95
Let’s first get
the bad news out of the way. Karl Rahner is a “heavy” writer. His sentences
are long – I counted 150 words in one on page 19. His paragraphs sometimes
go on forever. One that starts on page 75 finishes on page 79. Rahner was
writing in German but I regret that the translator didn’t take the liberty
of inserting a few more periods and breaks.
Having conceded that, there is much to recommend this book. Rahner was one
of the most respected theologians of the twentieth century. He was a peritus
– a theological expert – at the Second Vatican Council.
This book was developed from a series of Lenten sermons he gave in Munich in
1946. The surroundings – and the lives of his listeners – were in shambles
from the Allied bombings. They could relate to his image of the
“rubbled-over” lives that prayer helps to redeem. Here is some theory on how
and why the flawed human individual connects to the infinite, holy God.
Prayer is speaking with God. More than that, Rahner explains, it is living
with God – being conscious of his presence to us, his involvement in our
lives, his enormity and holiness, and our vulnerability and need. What
better book to
January
Book Review
Review by Dan Brent
The Sexual Person
By Todd A. Salzman and Michael G.
Lawler
Georgetown University Press (2008) $29.95
The Catholic Church holds that birth control is morally sinful. Well,
not exactly. The “magisterium” of the Catholic Church says so. Most Catholic
theologians and about 90% of Catholic faithful say not.
In The Sexual Person, Catholic theologians Salzman and Lawler (Creighton
University) present both sides of the Catholic debate on sexual morality in
general. One side, the “traditionalist” position, focuses on the sexual act.
(“Every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life.”—Paul VI)
The other, is the “revisionist” or “personalist” position, focuses on the
relationship expressed in the sexuality. Most theologians – including now
Salzman and Lawler – take the “revisionist” position.
In this thoughtful and well researched book, the authors extend their study
to include homosexuality, premarital cohabitation, and artificial
reproductive technologies. In the end they come down on the “liberal” side
but only after extensive scholarly reasoning. The book is heavy reading with
persistent technical terminology and enough footnotes (1194 of them) to fill
54 pages! Yet, a worthy read on timely topics.
Read the complete Summary
Review
December
Book Review
Review by Dan Brent
Amish Grace
by Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt,
David L. Weaver-Zercher
(Wiley,2007, $24.95)
The Amish
lifestyle strikes us as strange. We’ve seen them creeping along a country
road in a horse-drawn buggy – the men with their odd beards and flat-brimmed
hats, the women in their plain, long dresses and bonnets.
In October, 2006, they were twice in the national news with two related
stories. The first was the mass murder of five young Amish girls in
Pennsylvania. The second was the astonishing account of the swift
forgiveness of the perpetrator and their reaching out to his family.
Amish Grace tells this story and accounts for the theological roots of their
behavior. Sprung from the protestant Anabaptist movement of the 16th
century, the Amish are persuaded that their salvation requires a simple
lifestyle and a willingness to forgive as Jesus taught and did.
For us who live in a fast-paced culture with hordes of conveniences and
gadgets, and who debate the efficacy of capital punishment, Amish Grace is a
thought-provoking glimpse into another perspective on the brief lives we are
given.
A GREAT BOOK FOR
ADVENT/CHRISTMAS TO ENHANCE YOUR DAILY PRAYER
Watch for The Light, Readings for Advent and
Christmas
(Orbis Press, $16)
Let me also
recommend Watch for The Light, Readings for Advent and Christmas (Orbis
Press, $16) if you are looking for a book to enhance your prayer during
Advent and Lent. The editors collected Advent/Christmas reflections from
Karl Rahner SJ, Thomas Merton, and Edith Stein to name a few, to help guide
our prayer and reflections, day-by-day through Advent and Christmas. -
Damian Zynda, ThD
November
Book Review:
Reviewed by Dan Brent
Armchair Mystic: Easing
into Contemplative Prayer
by Mark E. Thibodeaux S.J.
(St. Anthony Messenger Press,
2001). $11.95
Author Thibodeaux
builds this easy-to-read review of prayer around four stages of prayer
development: talking at God, talking to God, listening to God, and
contemplation. The overall movement is from Martha (busy prayer with
activity I can count) to Mary (quietly being with God bringing nothing I can
take credit for).
The book
encourages “rituals” around prayer: same place and time each day and same
beginning and end each time. The author visits such things as dryness in
prayer, and the ever-present temptation to ask, “am I doing it right?” The
book is replete with creative suggestions for prayer and intentional
Christian living.
The book finishes
with some suggestions for living a contemplative lifestyle. Like this story
on living simply. “A distraught businessman went to spend a few days of
retreat in a monastery. The kind monk who showed him his cell said to him,
‘If you need anything, let us know and we will teach you how to live without
it.’” (p.173)
October
Book Review
Reviewed by Dan Brent
The Shack
by William P. Young.
(Windblown Media, 2007, 248 pp., $14.99)
It’s rare that a
book with profound theological themes can be described as a “page turner”.
This book qualifies! It has been on the New York Times “Best Sellers” list
for several months.
The whole life of
Mackenzie Allen Phillips is overwhelmed by The Great Sadness. His youngest
child, five-year-old Missy, has been kidnapped and murdered by a serial
killer. Three and a half years later, God – or is it really God? – invites
him to a weekend at the shack where she was killed. What Mack gets is a
crash course in love, trust, relationships, and forgiveness. Author William
P. Young uses the fiction genre to write about a very real and personal God.
Young deals with incarnation, judgment, and redemption. And he does it with
imagination, tenderness, humor, and reliable theological insights. “You were
really stuck,” Mack is told, “and we wanted to help you crawl out of your
pain.”
This may be the
best book you’ll ever read on pain and evil in God’s world. And, along the
way, the God of your prayer comes alive.
Read
the complete summary review
