Book Archives — Quote, reflection, recomendation, or discussion about a particular book.
· 13 November 2006 | 63 words
From yesterday's entry in God Calling: Jesus, hear us, and let our cry come unto Thee. That voiceless cry, that comes from anguished hearts, is heard above all the music of Heaven. It is not the arguments of theologians that...
· 20 October 2006 | 372 words
In Come to the Feast, Fr. Richard Fragomeni uses a visual experiment to help describe the Mystical Body of Christ: In my hand I have a loaf of bread, can you see it? Look carefully at this loaf. What do...
· 19 October 2006 | 269 words
Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick...
· 10 September 2006 | 94 words
The prayer of listening makes things simple but it also makes us vulnerable, and that is frightening. Listening makes us open to Christ, the Word of God, spoken in all things: in the material world, the Scriptures, the Church,...
· 6 September 2006 | 256 words
There is a story of how, at the beginning of time, God decided to hide in the created universe, and God summoned three angels to advise on a suitable hiding-place. The first angel suggested that God might hide in...
· 26 February 2006 | 115 words
Throughout most of Lent, nearly all of the quotes that will appear in the "Quote of the Day" above come from a book I most highly recommend. The book is Peter Kreeft's The God Who Loves You. It is...
· 24 January 2006 | 396 words
I am not sure where I caught sight of this book, Letters from the Desert by Carlo Carretto, but it is a jewelle. Each facet of its short reflective chapters shines a different light into the mysteries of faith, prayer,...
· 6 December 2005 | 606 words
The second and last letter in the alphabet of Love: Just then she looked up at the cliffs above her head and started with surprise and delight. In a tiny crevice of the rock, where a few drops from the...
· 25 November 2005 | 280 words
The first letter of the alphabet of Love: On the last morning she was walking near the tents and huts of the desert dwellers, when in a lonely corner behind a wall she came upon a little golden-yellow flower, growing...
· 10 November 2005 | 138 words
Don't you know by now, that I never think of you as you are now, but as you will be when I have brought you to the Kingdom of Love, and washed you from all the stains and defilements...
· 30 July 2005 | 1496 words
I have wanted to write and recommend this book for well over a month now, but the words never seemed to come to me when I sat down to write. This book has become one of those cornerstone books for...
· 23 May 2005 | 733 words
An allegory: Many people never learn to float. They never manage to take the initial risk, to do the opposite of what their instincts tell them. They never learn to relax, to let their head be pillowed by the water,...
· 8 May 2005 | 255 words
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?" The only toy that was kind to the Rabbit was the Skin Horse. The Skin Horse had lived...
· 30 April 2005 | 418 words
From Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: There's no answer, no problem-solving, simply awareness. You cannot not live in the presence of God. You are totally surrounded by God as you read this. St. Patrick said, God beneath you, God in front of...
· 2 April 2005 | 912 words
At the beginning of March, a very dear friend gave me the book Against an Infinite Horizon by Ronald Rolheiser. The gift came out of the blue as a very pleasant surprise. I had intended to start this book after...
· 12 March 2005 | 916 words
The following story and commentary by Ronald Rolheiser, in Against an Infinite Horizon, has completely pushed my understanding of sin to new depths, depths that bring tears to my eyes in regards to my own sinful and broken nature. Fr....
· 19 February 2005 | 220 words
I must always remember that I can no more approach God than an infant can approach his mother. When the baby sees its mother several feet away, he tries to reach her by stretching out his tiny arms toward...
· 7 January 2005 | 62 words
Julie D. has posted a list of books that she got from someone else. The game is to remove authors who you do not have in your library and replace them in bold with ones you do have. Here are...
· 5 January 2005 | 274 words
We want to avoid a feast/famine pattern of prayer. It will not hold up under the influence of our constantly fluctuating feelings. Since late November, my prayer life has become rather inconsistent in intensity and frequency. (See this post). It...
· 4 September 2004 | 859 words
More quotes from Radical Hospitality: Benedict's Way to Love by Fr. Daniel Homan and Lonni Collins Pratt. See Part 4 We all have weapons to lie down and battles to call off before we can open up our hearts. It...
· 1 September 2004 | 772 words
More quotes from Radical Hospitality: Benedict's Way to Love by Fr. Daniel Homan and Lonni Collins Pratt. See Part 3 Hospitality starts at home, after all. And you do not become good at loving the strain of being together in...
· 29 August 2004 | 501 words
More quotes from Radical Hospitality: Benedict's Way to Love by Fr. Daniel Homan and Lonni Collins Pratt. See Part 2. When we create a life surrounded by people just like ourselves, it is a very narrow life. We will not...
· 29 August 2004 | 763 words
More quotes from Radical Hospitality: Benedict's Way to Love by Fr. Daniel Homan and Lonni Collins Pratt. See Part 1. Genuine spirituality is not cozy, and seldom makes you comfortable. It challenges, disturbs, unsettles, and leaves you feeling like someone...
· 28 August 2004 | 833 words
I discovered a plethora of quotes in reading Radical Hospitality: Benedict's Way to Love by Fr. Daniel Homan and Lonni Collins Pratt. Each quote kind of stands on its own, but together they form a picture of Benedictine spirituality....
· 12 August 2004 | 307 words
From John Kirvan's book, Raw Faith: Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing make you afraid. -- St. Teresa of Avila It's amazing how many of us think that being anxious and worried is a sign that we are spiritual, that...
· 25 July 2004 | 274 words
To him who overcomes I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it. (Revelation 2:17) From a chapter on heaven, C.S. Lewis in The Problem...
· 25 July 2004 | 161 words
From a chapter on hell, C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain concludes: The doors of hell are locked on the inside. ...They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved: just as the blessed, forever...
· 9 July 2004 | 2020 words
Does God change? Did Jesus die on The Cross as atonement for God's curse of death on humanity?
· 10 April 2004 | 124 words
In the old days, on Easter night, the Russian peasants used to carry the blest fire home from church. The light would scatter and travel in all directions through the darkness, and the desolation of the night would be...
· 8 March 2004 | 629 words
Selected quotes from the book "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" by Mitch Albom
· 19 February 2004 | 293 words
In Henri Nouwen's book, Can You Drink the Cup?, the cup of life is a cup of sorrows and a cup of joys. It is a cup of blessings. The cup is your life. You are asked to drink it....
· 18 February 2004 | 533 words
An excerpt from Henri Nouwen's book, Can You Drink the Cup?: "Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?" When Jesus brought this question to John and James, and when they impulsively answered with a big "We...
· 5 February 2004 | 153 words
Community is like a large mosaic. Each little piece seems so insignificant. One piece is bright red, another cold blue or dull green, another warm purple, another sharp yellow, another shining gold. Some look precious, others ordinary. Some look...
· 4 January 2004 | 175 words
We are not begotten by God, we are only made by Him: in our natural state we are not sons of God, only (so to speak) statues. We have not got 'Zoe' or spiritual life: only 'Bios' or biological life which is presently going to run down and die. Now the whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have His way, come to share a life which was begotten, not made, which has always existed and always will exist. Christ is the Son of God. If we share in this kind of life we also shall be sons of God. We shall love the Father as He does and the Holy Ghost will arise in us. He came into this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has--by what I call 'good infection'. Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing more. -- C.S. Lewis, from "Mere Christianity"
· 26 September 2003 | 774 words
In my previous entry, I mentioned something about knowing that my faith had nothing to do with my feelings. Thomas Merton, in New Seeds of Contemplation, wrote the following about faith: First of all, faith is not an emotion, not...
· 23 September 2003 | 91 words
Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the good soil of freedom, spontaneity and love. -- Thomas Merton
· 26 August 2003 | 90 words
This list has been making the email circuit. It is the Bible condensed down to only 50 words. This list hits upon the Golden Thread that runs throughout the Bible, but at the expense of the beauty in the story....
· 13 August 2003 | 221 words
This quote about choices by C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, seems applicable to my previous journal entry: People often think that Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, 'If you keep a lot of rules I'll...
· 6 May 2003 | 354 words
I am currently reading the book Reaching Out by Henri J. M. Nouwen. In this book, Nouwen describes three type of movements or spectrums. Nouwen views our spiritual "ascent" as evolving in three movements. The first movement, loneliness to solitude,...
May God’s love,
peace, and energy
touch you in faith.
![[Jerusalem Cross with Heart]](http://cowpi.com/journal/grafiks/jerusalem-cross-heart.gif "Jerusalem Cross with Heart")