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Winter Books:
Bookshelf
By WILLIAM C.
GRAHAM
In the Isnt that something? category, let me
share an E-mail message I recently received from a priest friend who lives in
Rome. He comments on the availability of the recently indexed writings of
Jesuit Fr. Anthony DeMello: When I was in the vicinity of the Vatican a
few days ago, I saw copies of DeMellos writings in the windows of two
bookstores spitting distance from the Holy Office (I still like that name).
Brings to mind that old adage that they make the rules here at the Vatican,
expect the world to follow them and then conveniently ignore them here at
home.
Forever Your Sister: Reflections on Leaving Convent Life,
edited by Benedictine Sr. Janice Wedl and Eileen Maas Nalevanko, (North Star
Press, P.O. Box 451, St. Cloud, MN 56302, 141 pages, $12.95, paperback, phone:
1-320-253-1636.), is, I think, a very touching book. I picked it up and read
straight through, very much appreciating the insights of the 22 women who share
their journeys into, out of and beyond St. Benedicts Monastery in St.
Joseph, Minn., shaped always by Benedictine values.
There is an absence of bitterness and an abundance of tenderness
and treasure in these tales, which can be read not just as personal reflections
but as an important piece of the social history of life in the United States
and the Catholic church in the tumultuous 1960s and 70s.
Benedictine Fr. Albert Holtz took a sabbatical year after 30 years
in Newark (N.J) Abbey and traveled alone from the Swiss Alps to Brazil to
Hungary, coming to enjoy a close friendship with the God of pilgrims and
exiles. He met many unheralded saints, including folk dancers in Catalonia,
kite-flyers in Normandy and a catechist in rural Bolivia. His collected
reflections, A Saint on Every Corner: Glimpses of Holiness Beyond the
Monastery (Ave Maria, 167 pages, $8.95, paperback, phone: 1-800-282-1865.),
is an interesting read and a fine snapshot of the holiness both of the author
and of the creature world.
There are few, I think, who listen to the morning traffic in
downtown Newark and hear murmurs in the distance like the swish of surf
on a sandy shore. Holtz knows order, rhythm and purpose, and is attentive
to harmony as a path to Gods reign.
I sent The River: Reflections on the Times of Our Lives, by
Donald X. Burt (Liturgical Press, 103 pages, $8.95, paperback, phone:
1-800-858-5450.), to a colleague who is taking some weeks off to endure surgery
and mend.
Burt attempts to come to an understanding of some of the moments
of human life with reflections that are sometimes personal and sometimes
suggested by St. Augustine whose image of human life as a river contributes to
the title.
Then I sent off Guiding Children Through Lifes Losses:
Prayers, Rituals, and Activities, by Phyllis Vos Wezeman, Jude Dennis
Fournier and Kenneth R. Wezeman (Twenty-Third Publications, 67 pages, $9.95
paperback, phone: 1-800-321-0411), to another colleague whose 9-year-old is
recuperating in the hospital after a serious bike and car accident. The
activities in this guide are designed for teachers and classes, but a boy who
is healing while others are playing and studying may well appreciate the
prayerful considerations and activities that these authors suggest.
The Pursuit of Happiness -- Gods Way: Living the
Beatitudes, by Dominican Fr. Servais Pinckaers, translated by Dominican Sr.
Mary Thomas Noble (Alba House, 204 pages, $5.95 paperback, phone:
1-800-343-2522), is a fine introduction to the beatitudes as a path leading to
the happiness of God. Pinckaers sees morality, as does Augustine, as a search
for happiness. The blunt realism of the gospel is not about glowing dreams or
imaginary Edens but insists that the believer face the inevitabilities of life:
poverty, tears, hunger, thirst. Out of this is shaped the beatitudes, and
therein is the essence of the response of Jesus to the human desire for
happiness. A very interesting consideration by this moral theology professor
from Switzerlands University of Fribourg.
Those seeking an introductory text for catechumenate or discussion
groups, perhaps even high school students, might consider Sacraments
Revisited: What Do They Mean Today?, by Fr. Liam Kelly of Derby, England
(Paulist, 173 pages, $10.95 paperback, phone: 1-800-836-3161). His reflection
questions at the end of each chapter will help personalize the material and the
experience of study and celebration.
The Ministry of Reconciliation: Spirituality &
Strategies, by Precious Blood Fr. Robert J. Schreiter (Orbis, 136 pages,
$16 paperback, phone: 1-800-258-5838), is certainly a text that will encourage
thoughtful and scholarly consideration of what he sees as necessary both today
and tomorrow: With both spirituality and strategy, the church must work
with all people of good will to bring about the healing and transformation that
shattered societys need.
Schreiter understands reconciliation in the light of the
resurrection, which does not forget the past but transfigures it. Seeking
reconciliation in families and communities is evidence that God is with us, and
the message of the resurrection is that hope, rooted in the peace of Christ, is
possible.
For Men Only: Strategies for Living Catholic, by Mitch
Finley (Liguori, 128 pages, $11.95, paperback, phone: 1-800-464-2555), would be
a good present for a young dad on the occasion of his daughters baptism.
Finley has a sensible and inviting approach to living the mysteries.
Forgetful of Their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society, ca
500-1100, by Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg (University of Chicago Press, 587
pages, hardbound, phone: 1-800-621-2736), is an impressive study not just of
saints and sanctity but also considers larger questions about changing
attitudes toward women, various opportunities available to them in the church
and society and some of the commonalities of female experience across six
critical centuries in history. At work on her impressive project since 1970,
this professor of history hopes her book will serve to encourage further
questions, debate and additional research in medieval history and society. It
certainly should.
Perhaps Jesuit Fr. Philip Sheldrake is already a participant in
the dialogue. In Spirituality and History (Orbis, 248 pages, $20,
paperback, phone: 1-800-258-5838), he concludes that the equality of all people
and their experience before God, without consideration of gender or culture or
lifestyle, is fundamental to the gospel and must be the bedrock on which the
Christian spiritual tradition rests. Sadly, he writes, this
has often been obscured as the result of conditioning by other social
values. His book documents the path to that conclusion.
Clashing Symbols: An Introduction to Faith and Culture, by
Jesuit Fr. Michael Paul Gallagher (Paulist, 170 pages, $11.95, paperback,
phone: 1-800-836-3161), is about how to reflect on culture from a Christian
perspective. Gallagher tries to alert people to the power of culture, which can
influence for good or ill, and suggests ways to find a certain serenity of
faith within todays complexities. He aims to provide what he sees as a
double theology of nonpanic and liberation, reading situations with spiritual
wisdom but without complacency. This is an important book with which I intend
to spend more time.
Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof, by
Markus Baum, (Plough Publishing House, Route 381 North, Farmington, PA 15437,
301 pages, $14, paperback, phone: 1-800-521-8011), was written to witness to
Gods faithfulness and intervention in human history. It is the story of
Eberhard Arnold, a contemporary and dialogue partner of Karl Barth and Martin
Buber.
Arnold was a German theologian, speaker, farmer, pastor, father,
educator and founder of the Bruderhof, a community of faith. He was a voice of
protest in Germany as Hitler rose to power and left sharp warnings for American
culture and church. Those who want to know more will find it in this handsome,
well-documented volume.
Mysticism and Prophecy: The Dominican Tradition, by
Dominican Fr. Richard Woods (Orbis, 168 pages, $14 paperback, phone:
1-800-258-5838), is one of the Traditions of Christian Spirituality Series,
which seeks to make the riches of selected Christian traditions available to a
contemporary public. This introduction to the Dominican order and its spiritual
traditions is readable and interesting and is going straight into the library
at the Dominican College at which I teach.
Franciscan Sr. Marie Therese Archambault teaches at Sitting Bull
College in Fort Yates, S.D. I drove by there one summer day on my way to
Sitting Bulls grave, in the shadow of which the small junior college
sits. If Archambault can reach from there to Gods face, then her book, in
my view, deserves a read. Black Elk: Living in the Sacred Hoop (St.
Anthony Messenger Press, 104 pages, $7.95 paperback, phone: 1-800-488-0488)
honors the integrity both of the Lakota and Catholic traditions, drawing from
each to seek and pray for wisdom to bridge the two ancient traditions that both
begin with the great mystery of God.
Black Elk shared his wisdom in hopes that those who heard him
would be brought back to the Good Red Road of spiritual understanding. This
retreat invites a practice of the Lakota virtues of humility, wisdom,
generosity and courage in all relationships both with creatures and the earth.
Here is a path to the unity for which Jesus prayed, that all may be
one.
As is my biannual custom, I have invited graduate students in the
Caldwell Pastoral Ministry Institute to take a look at a newly arrived crate of
review copies, selecting one to comment on. These students, already immersed in
exciting ministries, are an extraordinary bunch. As ministers, they are
routinely called on to make judgments, so I asked them to judge some books for
NCR readers who also are busy doing well by doing good.
Caldwell Dominican Sr. Patricia ODonnell serves as a
pastoral minister at St. Catherine-St. Margaret Parish in Spring Lake, N.J. She
chose Daybreak Within: Living in a Sacred World, by Rich Heffern (Forest
of Peace Publishing, 143 pages, $11.95, paperback, phone: 1-800-659-3227),
noting that the author suggests that his book is about the daybreak
within that occurs when we let the realization sink in that the divine works
within us, within all things, and that our living is truly sacred
adventure.
Quoting sources as diverse as Thomas Berry and Merle Haggard and
drawing on experiences from friends lives and his own, as well as from
movies and books, Heffern proposes a cosmos-connected spirituality
for the weary for a glimpse of the holy.
Starting from Matthew Foxs statement that we have lost our
sense of the sacred, Heffern offers a spirituality that reconnects humanity
with nature. ODonnell finds him a gifted writer who is able to call up
vivid images in lyrical language to show his readers that crucial to their
journey to God is accepting the secular and sacred in their lives, seeking
justice, caring for and about each other and helping to heal the planet.
Adam Rewa, originally of Cannonsburg, Mich., is the pastoral
associate for St. Francis de Sales Parish in Paducah, Ky. He chose
Ponderings from the Precipice: Soulwork for a New Millennium, by James
Conlon (Forest of Peace Publishing, 143 pages, $11.95, paperback, phone:
1-800-659-3227), and comments as follows: Conlon writes as the third millennium
rapidly approaches and Christianity develops a growing sense that our
relationship with creation is badly damaged and in need of healing. Those who
sense this same alienation and search for ways to mend it will appreciate his
book, which ideally should be read a few pages at a time in order to properly
savor the suggestions. Many interesting quotes from various mystics and writers
are included in the margins, though some may find their placement
distracting.
Conlon looks for a planetary Pentecost that will bring
an outpouring of the Spirit as a guide toward a Geo-Justice, that
we might live fully and with a passionate responsibility for the Earth
and every species. Moving toward Geo-Justice, he offers a series of
ponderings, personal reflections on key questions relating to the
health of our relationship to the earth. These are followed by suggestions for
soulwork, specific actions to increase awareness of the problems
facing us and creative ways to deal with them.
Fr. William C. Graham is completing Sacred Adventure:
Beginning Theological Study, coming soon from University Press of America.
He can be reached at NCRBkshelf@aol.com.
National Catholic Reporter, November 6,
1998
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