Book Review: Quiet
Shy. Weak. Unmotivated. These are some of the words that might come to mind when the average person thinks about introverts. Most of us think of them as immersed in their own worlds, unable to cope with social situations, and less likely to contribute ideas and innovation compared to their extroverted counterparts. Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking seeks to explode these myths about introverts by examining the overlooked gifts that they bring to the office, the classroom, and society at large while understanding the underlying science...
Read MoreFive Books for 2012
As I have done the past two years, I’d like to offer five book selections that I read the previous year to “jump start” your reading pile! These books come with my highest recommendation. (Of course, I’ve also been told that I have strange tastes, so your mileage will vary!) Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life, by Fr. James Martin, SJ (2011) – I can’t imagine anyone else having written this book. Fr. Martin’s signature wit and gift for bringing spiritual topics to the masses makes this not...
Read MoreBook Review: The Catholic Briefcase
How Catholics live their lives in the public square is one of the hot button issues in the Church. For evidence one need only look at the recent USCCB General Assembly, where issues of religious freedom and political pressure where at the forefront of the conversation. And while these macro-level conversations are vital for a Church that does so much public good, I sometimes wonder if we aren’t missing the boat by failing to talk about how the average Catholic lives their faith when they aren’t at Sunday Mass. Fortunately, Randy Hain’s The Catholic Briefcase: Tools for Integrating...
Read MoreBook Review: Raised Right
Alisa Harris’ Raised Right: How I Untangled My Faith from Politics and Learned to Start Living the Gospel is an interesting look into the evolving beliefs of young evangelicals raised by the now-aging members of the Religious Right and Moral Majority. The book charts Harris’ conversions from the fundamentalist Protestant religion of her youth to the triumphalist Republican politics of her adolescence to the more uncertain, searching faith of her early adulthood. The book flits back and forth between different periods in Harris’ life, making it hard to construct a...
Read MoreBook Review: Catholicism
It is very difficult for me to review a book like Fr. Robert Barron’s Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith. Years in the making and heralded by a healthy dose of promotion across the Catholic corner of the internet, it can be hard to separate the hype from the thing itself. I also have the nagging feeling that I’m not Fr. Barron’s primary audience for this work. I say that less as someone who works full-time for the Church, and more as someone who prefers systematic theology to philosophy. (Fr. Barron’s masters degree is in philosophy and he is an...
Read MoreBook Review: Between Heaven and Mirth
The nicest compliment I ever received came from a Catholic deacon at a parish in Iowa. My family and I were getting ready to move out of the area (my one-year fellowship at the local Catholic hospital was ending) and he was explaining why our family would be missed: “It’s been so nice having you here. You and your family live the faith joyfully.” This compliment came back to me while reading Jesuit Fr. James Martin’s new book, Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life, which hits shelves today. Fr. Martin has...
Read MoreReview: Be An Amazing Catechist: Sacramental Preparation
Lisa Mladinich (amazingcatechists.com) has written an excellent and engaging resource for catechists and catechetical leaders involved in the sacramental formation and preparation of youth and children. Be An Amazing Catechist: Sacramental Preparation (OSV, 2011) bills itself as “a guide for teaching the Seven Sacraments accurately and vibrantly” and it delivers on that promise. Mladinich offers a variety of reflections, activities, tips, and tricks for catechists to use in their sacramental prep programs, beginning with some nice reflections on what it means to be a catechist. I...
Read MoreBook Review: Will There Be Faith?
Whenever I engage in conversation with my catechetical colleagues, certain questions and themes arise again and again: What would catechesis look like if it followed the pedagogical model used by Jesus? What if we sought to not just teach about the faith, but help the faithful (both young and old) learn from and be transformed by our rich Catholic tradition? How can parents be more intentional about passing on the faith? Thomas Groome’s new book, Will There Be Faith? A New Vision for Educating and Growing Disciples, seeks to answer these questions by proposing a life to Faith to...
Read MoreBook Review: Saints Preserved
Thomas J. Craughwell has written a very interesting book: Saints Preserved: An Encyclopedia of Relics. It consists of entries on various saints with a little history of their relics: the saints’ possessions or body parts that have been preserved. In the early Church, the mortal remains of martyrs were taken for burial, and Masses were celebrated at their tombs on the anniversaries of their deaths. Over time great churches were built on these spots (St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome is a good example) and soon even non-martyrs recognized for their virtue and holiness were honored in...
Read MoreBook Review: Infinite Bandwidth
One of the (good) problems about the Church is that she has a lot to say about a lot of things. This is good because the Church is concerned with many things and brings to bear the Gospel message on all facets of human life. It is a problem because wading through all the writings on a single topic — and walking away with a systematic understanding of that topic — can be time consuming and overwhelming, even for those of us used to reading ecclesial language. Infinite Bandwidth: Encountering Christ in the Media does the work for you by condensing and systematizing the...
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