Catholic Caucus: Ecce!

self | 8 April A.D. 2002 | father_elijah

[father_elijah]

Our thread in search of a patron saint for Catholic FReepers was a marvelous revelation. We have such a rich heritage as Catholics, that the possibilities are limitless. Although it is strictly unofficial (and no one elected me Pope) I would like to declare that we do indeed have a patron saint:

Mary, Queen of All Saints

[fatima]

Yes,Yes Yes,Hi Mom most beautiful Mother, watch over your forum here on Free Republic and thank you Jim.Jim you gave us everything and spoil us.Thank you Father,you picked the best ,smart priest,I only work with the best,I say that humbly Father and I am proud of my humility.Today is a special feastday of Our Lady.Maria Queen of All Saint's pray for us,Viva Maria

[ELS]

Thank you! I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the work of Waterhouse. I admit to having a bias towards art of the Italian Renaissance.

[ELS]

You're welcome. Glad to hear you have your house keys back. Botticelli is one of my favorite painters.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Great gallery. Keep it going.

Dante Rossetti's The Annunciation (1849-50)
Tate Gallery, London

[father_elijah]

ping! Take heart!

Mary, Queen of All Saints, pray for us!

[father_elijah]

ping! Take heart!

Mary, Queen of All Saints, pray for us!

[father_elijah]

I believe it is good to have a variety of books to read -- some long, some short, some scholarly, some anecdotal.

There are two books I think every lay Catholic should read immediately, and they are both by Scott Hahn: The Lamb's Supperand Hail Holy Queen. I also recommend Mother Angelica's mini-books (some are available from the EWTN website). Then there is Fr. Benedict Groeschel: The Cross at Ground Zero, Arise from Darkness, and most especially Healing the Original Wound: Reflections on the Full Meaning of Salvation.

Preparing Yourself for Mass by Romano Guardini is a really helpful work for cradle Catholics, converts, reverts, and even cradle Episcopalians (who ought to be Catholic...LOL).

Now here I will show tremendous bias: get ahold of the Paulist Press's one volume on the writings of St. Francis and St. Clare. Also read St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Therese of Liseux, and read St. Faustina's Diary.

Patrick Madrid has written some books that may be helpful in the area of apologetics. And I think everyone should read Bud Macfarlane Jr.'s novels available through www.catholicity.com.

I would also recommend subscribing to a few good Catholic magazines like Crisis, Magnificat (a wonderful monthly compendium of all of the texts for the Liturgy of the Hours, Daily Mass together with a wealth of information), New Oxford Review (which has published in the current issue a most excellent short story by our own Dr. Brian Kopp, ....

I offer those as beginning ideas, and encourage you to read the Scriptures alongside any other reading you do -- especially read the Psalms daily. Now I've gone from suggestin' to meddlin'. God bless you!

[father_elijah]

Please see posts #47 and #48, and recommend titles to sandyeggo. I'm sure others would benefit from your suggestions.

Peter Kreeft's works are immeasurable aids too. For a beginner the Summa of the Summa is a good intro. to St. Thomas Aquinas and Thomistic thought.

And I can't help but recommend Michael O'Brien's brilliant novels especially Father Elijah: An Apocalypse.

[Romulus]

It is so hard to answer questions like this because people are very different, and respond differently to what's out there. If you're looking for devotional or instructional texts, I can't contribute anything beyond what's already been mentioned. But there are those (and I am one) who approach faith and the Church from an aesthetic and symbolic POV. I have enthusiastically promoted the collected letters of Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being (edited by Sally Fitzgerald), and recommend them to you as well. O'Connor is neither mystic nor saint, but she is a first-rate Catholic apologist who's in touch not only with the Church's official doctrine, but with the wider, imaginative view of the Church as conduit of a terrible, transforming grace that would shock to the core those devout but rote believers who defend her and from whom she is defended in turn.

[Askel5]

Theology for Beginners

Ah ... Sheed's very cool. Sr. Mary Jude introduced me to him.

If you can find it, Frank Morriss's "The Divine Epic" is a must-read.

Lifting some of my favorite apologists and defenders as linked in the comments section of this post: Deconstructing the Western Mind: Gramscian-Marxist Subversion of Faith and Education

• ARCHBISHOP NORBERTO CARRERA RIVERA (Mexico City)
            (But first ...) A CALL TO VIGILANCE: Pastoral Instruction on "New Age"
            (To combat ...) A Sense of Being Adrift (JPII)

• FRANCIS J. CANAVAN, S.J.
            A Horror of the Absolute
            Nearer to the Heart's Desire
            Why Anything Goes
            Eschewing Obfuscation ... Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
  

• WHITTAKER CHAMBERS
            Moritur et Ridet (on St. Benedict)
            WITNESS (on militant atheist communism)
            Big Sister is Watching You

• G. K. CHESTERTON
            The Western Energy that Dethrones Tyrants ( Orthodoxy )
            No Hitting in the Holy Places ( Orthodoxy )
            The New Revolutionary ( The Outline of Sanity Works Vol. 5)

• ALAN KEYES
            Why Arent't We Winning?
            Slavery and the Black American (for Henri Brooks)
            The American Heart ... The American Faith
            Imposing Whose Morals?
            That Pro-Life Schtick (Excellent discussion within on the Declaration)

• E. MICHAEL JONES
           Eyeless in Gaza: Sexual Liberation as Political Control

• PETER KREEFT
            Who's the Number One Deconstructionist? (Excerpted at end of reply)
            What Are We … Spouse, Child, Citizen … to Make of Christ?

  How to Save Western Civilization (from C.S. Lewis for the Third Millenium )
            Part One: A Philosphy of History
            Part Two: Four Stages in History
            Part Three: Three Psychological Principles (and Possible Solution)

• C.S. LEWIS
            The Inner Ring: On Making Good Men Do Bad Things

            A link to Lewisania -- Including " First and Second Things " (as cached at Google)
            and "We Have No Right to Happiness" -- as posted by Askel

            Screwtape Proposes a Toast (as posted by Betty Boop; other Screwtape threads )

            Goetz Von Berlichingen's distillation of Lewis's Tao (from The Abolition of Man )
            as posted on Cornelis's What's Left, What's Right and What's a Value?

• ALBERTO LUZÁRRAGA
            Who is Antonio Gramsci? You Better Learn

• WILLIAM E. MAY
           A Perverse Idea of Human Freedom (John Paul II on capital punishment)

• THOMAS MOLNAR

            The Incarnation: Why the Church Cannot Disengage from Public Life ( The Latin Mass )

            The Transition Period to Utopia (from "Schools Install Unisex Bathrooms")
            The Transition Period According to Marx / Welfare State as Transition to Utopia
            (from "Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil")
  
            "Utopia. The Perennial Heresy" by Thomas Molnar (Sheed/Ward 1967)

  Post 1 -- Utopianism, A Permanent Thought-Pattern; Immorality of Utopianism; Nightmarish Re-shaping of Life; Mechanization of Change
  Post 2 -- Prediction and Utopia: A Distinction; Constant Elements in Utopian Thought
  Post 3 -- Philosophical Motivation; The Historical Motivation; Permanence of the Utopian Temptation

            The Liberal Hegemony (posted by Cornelis)
            On Communist Utopians and Evil (from "Like Hitler, Like Stalin" posted by Covenantor)
            Coalesced Mankind
            The New Man (On Fake DNA Day)
            On Evil Government (For OWK)
            Utopian Stumbling Blocks: Government & Property (... for OWK & Untenured)

• ANNE ROCHE MUGGERIDGE
            The Desolate City: Revolution in the Catholic Church
            God/ess: Sounding the Note of True Revolution </A

• JOSEPH RATZINGER
            Faith and Knowledge

• DOM HUBERT VON ZELLER
            The State and the Soul

  
  

[Salvation]

Lots of reading here -- New Advent, Catholic Encyclopedia. I love reading the stories about the saints, because it gives me ideas about the direction to take (asking God's guidance, of course) in my own life.

[Askel5]

you are a force to be reckoned with

Well ... once I've finished all the books I've ever started, maybe. =)

Until then, I'm just trying to catch up, like you.

The forces who reckoned with me and put me back on the right path are out there ... many of them posting on this thread! =)

[neocon]

Since you ask for a single book, I would say that one's most important task in the Christian life is to develop an ever-deepening relationship with the Lord. All apologetics, charitable work, ministry of any kind, and even intellectual development must arise from a profound interiority if they are to be fruitful. Toward that purpose, I can think of nothing better, or more concise, among the classic texts than Thomas à Kempis' The Imitation of Christ.

Hope this helps with your lectio divina!

[Salvation]

PetersNet.net

[Salvation]

All apologetics, charitable work, ministry of any kind, and even intellectual development must arise from a profound interiority if they are to be fruitful.

So true.

Even evangelization is an inward and then an outward process. We must believe in our Church and then we can talk to others and invite them to take a look.