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Books Two gentle, friendly, basic books
THE SEVEN GIFTS OF
THE HOLY SPIRIT By Mitch Finley Liguori Publications, 130 pages,
$12.95 |
SEVEN LAST
WORDS: LENTEN REFLECTIONS FOR TODAYS BELIEVERS By Alice
Camille ACTA Publications, 93 pages, $6.95
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REVIEW By MARY VINEYARD
Here are two gentle, friendly, basic books. Neither is heavy on
sophisticated concepts or intellectual challenges. Each looks at a standard
list of spiritual ideas and provides some simple starting points for
meditating, not just for Lent and the Easter season, but throughout the
year.
Alice Camille is a storyteller and a teacher of preaching and
proclamation at the Franciscan School of Theology at Berkeley, Calif. One can
hear those gifts in her written voice. Reading Seven Last Words felt
like listening to seven homilies, rhythmic, lyrical, comforting, encouraging.
Woven in among the words is a feeling of warm exhortation, something that
induces a desire to turn toward God -- which is what good preaching does.
With her excellent descriptive skills, she makes each scene come
alive, and the reader becomes present to and with Jesus in his passion. On the
final page of this little book she writes, One holy person is worth all
the sermons on holiness we might ever hear. Something about her positive,
kindly, direct style makes that statement seem true and makes such personal
holiness seem possible.
In The Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Mitch Finley
displays his ease and experience in writing in this list-based format. He is
systematic and orderly and seems happy arranging complex and mysterious
material into neat rows and tidy piles. He shows a wonderful sense of humor and
shares some deliciously inspiring quotes from various authors, teachers and
poets, including Anne Lamott, Kathleen Norris, Mark Van Doren and Thomas
Merton.
Being fairly nonlinear myself and always more interested in
looking for connections rather than separations and contrasts, I sometimes find
lists unsatisfying. And so I confess that even after attentively reading
Mitchs careful explication of each gift of the Spirit, I couldnt
necessarily describe the differences between the gifts of wisdom and knowledge,
or between understanding and counsel or fortitude or piety or fear of the Lord.
But I certainly enjoyed and appreciated the reminder of the presence and the
power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and I very much liked his insistence
that it is the Spirit who makes possible all relationships, including
especially our communal life as the Body of Christ.
I did find tedious his repeated emphasis on the Catholic Catechism
and a kind of preachiness about the superiority of Catholic teaching. But those
very qualities might make this a good text for individuals entering the church
or those desiring some basic adult religious education. He generally does a
good job of demonstrating how and why certain Catholic positions are
gospel-based and Spirit-led.
Both of these books could be used either for individual prayer and
reflection or for small-group discussions. The authors are clearly grounded in
their faith and eager to share their insights and inspirations with others.
Mary Vineyard lives in the woods in Downeast Maine. Her e-mail
address is mkvine@aol.com
National Catholic Reporter, April 27,
2001
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