Book 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...
Read MoreBook Review: The Church and New Media
I’ll get to the bottom line first: Brandon Vogt has edited one of the most important books on Catholics in the online world — not so much because of its ruminations on the Church’s understanding of social communications (I’ll review that book on Wednesday); not because it shows how to set up a blog or Facebook page (it would quickly be out of date if it tried to to that); but because The Church and New Media: Blogging Converts, Online Activists, and Bishops Who Tweet will inspire a whole new wave of Catholic innovation, experimentation, and expansion in the...
Read MoreBook Review: Catechesis in a Multimedia World
This is my review of Mary Byrne Hoffman’s new book, Catechesis in a Multimedia World. The online resources for the book can be found on the Paulist Press web...
Read More5 Books for the New Year
Last year I offered five books I had read in the previous year that I recommended for the new year. If doing this two years in a row makes it a blog tradition — well , so be it! Here are five books that come with my highest recommendation: Doers of the Word: Putting Your Faith Into Practice, by Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan (2009) — In this wonderful little book Archbishop Dolan offers short reflections on Christ, the Church year, the saints, the Church, the Blessed Virgin, and other topics. His short, pithy stories are a great example of his ability to explain the faith clearly...
Read MoreBook Review: The Heart of Faith: A Field Guide for Catechumens and Candidates
Let’s get this out of the way: I’m a sucker for free books. Even given the pile of unread material sitting in a milk crate on my living room floor, I’ll take any opportunity to snatch up free books. So when I saw that Nick Wagner was giving away 20 copies of his new book, The Heart of Faith: A Field Guide for Catechumens and Candidates, in exchange for a written review, I quickly sent in my request. Interest in freebies aside, I can justify my request on professional grounds. To be sure, my interest in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) is fairly new. However,...
Read MoreBook Review: Branding Faith
“Marketing” is a bad word in church circles. It implies manipulation, impure intentions and other chicanery. This is not without reason; corporate marketing has become a science, with companies spending millions of dollars to understand the psychological and sociological impact of advertising. Many Christians, understandably, believe it would be unseemly — if not sinful — to employ modern marketing techniques on behalf of the Church. Phil Cooke‘s 2008 book, Branding Faith: Why Some Churches and Nonprofits Impact Culture and Others Don’t, seeks to change...
Read MoreFive Reading Picks for the New Year
There has been much written in the past few years about the “death of the book.” Certainly with the advent of the Kindle and new ways of conveying writing online we are changing the way we read. But I think it’s premature to write the book’s obituary yet. Instead I think we’ll see a shift in the way books are published – away from large publishing houses to smaller niches publishers. In addition, print-on-demand solutions will allow anyone to publish a book quickly and cheaply. To ensure that the book has a few more years of life, I’d like to recommend the following books that I...
Read MoreBook Review: Treasures Old and New
I’ve said before that one of the gifts post-Boomer Catholics are bringing to the Church is a reappropriation of faith traditions that were largely abandoned following the Second Vatican Council. While many of us never experienced the rosary, novenas or Eucharistic adoration as children, we are finding them invaluable practices as we grow into faith-filled adults. That today’s young faithful are rediscovering and embracing these traditions — in the context of their modern lives — completes, in many ways, the promises of ressourcement and aggiornamento that were the...
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