Members read a different book each month and then meet on a Sunday after Mass to discuss the book. The group chooses books that cover a wide variety of topics, from literary novels to Church history and theology. If you are interested in joining the conversation, please contact Fr. Mark at mpavlik@saintolaf.org or 612-767-6201.
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Treasure in Clay: The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen by Fulton J. Sheen
Sunday, May 20 at 1:00
Treasure in Clay provides a lifetime’s worth of wisdom from one of the most beloved and influential figures in twentieth-century Catholicism. Completed shortly before his death in 1979, Treasure in Clay is the autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen, the preeminent teacher, preacher, and pastor of American Catholicism. Called “the Great Communicator” by Billy Graham and “a prophet of the times” by Pope Pius XII, Sheen was the voice of American Catholicism for nearly fifty years. In addition to his prolific writings, Sheen dominated the airwaves, first in radio, and later television, with his signature program “Life is Worth Living,” drawing an average of 30 million viewers a week in the 1950s. Sheen had the ears of everyone from presidents to the common men, women, and children in the pews, and his uplifting message of faith, hope, and love shaped generations of Catholics.
Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Joseph Pieper
Sunday, June 17 at 1:00
One of the most important philosophy titles published in the twentieth century, Josef Pieper’s Leisure, the Basis of Culture is more significant, even more crucial, today than it was when it first appeared more than fifty years ago. This special new edition now also includes his little work The Philosophical Act. Leisure is an attitude of the mind and a condition of the soul that fosters a capacity to perceive the reality of the world. Pieper shows that the Greeks and medieval Europeans, understood the great value and importance of leisure. He also points out that religion can be born only in leisure a leisure that allows time for the contemplation of the nature of God. Leisure has been, and always will be, the first foundation of any culture. Pieper maintains that our bourgeois world of total labor has vanquished leisure, and issues a startling warning: Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for non-activity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will destroy our culture and ourselves.
Priestblock 25487 by Jean Bernard
July (date to be determined)
In May 1941, Father Jean Bernard was arrested for denouncing the Nazis and sent to Dachau’s “Priest Block,” a barracks that housed more than 3,000 clergymen of various denominations (the vast majority Roman Catholic priests). Priestblock 25487 tells the gripping true story of his survival amid inhuman brutality, degradation and torture.
In Memory of Me by Milton Walsh
August (date to be determined)
The Roman Canon, also known as the First Eucharistic Prayer, holds a privileged place among the texts used in the Mass. With the release of a new English translation of the Latin Roman Missal, Milton Walsh’s timely meditation on the Roman Canon can help priests, religious, and laity deepen their understanding of the text that for centuries was the only Eucharistic prayer used in the Roman Rite. Drawing on the biblical and liturgical scholarship of the twentieth century, Walsh provides spiritual reflections on each of the prayers that make up the Roman Canon. This ancient prayer took shape during the golden age of the Fathers of the Church, from the fourth to the sixth centuries, and it is rich in biblical allusions and theological meaning.
Snakebite Letters by Peter Kreeft
September (date to be determined)
Taking his cue from the new literary genre invented by C. S. Lewis in Screwtape Letters, Peter Kreeft has gathered together fifteen spicy letters from Satan’s agents below that allow the reader to spy into Hell’s inter-office communication. Now that it is becoming more and more obvious that we are at war — not only cultural but spiritual war — it is also more necessary to understand our diabolical enemy and his strategy. Combining satire, humor and devilish insights, these fifteen letters from Snakebite to his trainee, Braintwister, provide a complete Satanic strategy for corrupting American society, public and private morality, and the Church. Focusing especially on the critical areas of sex, media, liturgy, theology and religious education, these letters reveal the inroads that Screwtape’s satanic American counterparts of the 90s have made into subverting our modern culture. The Koran says: “Before shooting the arrow of truth, dip it in honey.” This genre of devilish correspondence allows serious this-worldly social criticism to take the form of witty other-worldly letters.
Fire Within by Thomas DuBay
October (date to be determined)
This book is the fruit of Fr. Dubay’s many years of study and experience in spiritual direction and in it he synthesizes the teachings on prayer of the two great doctors of the Church on prayer — St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila — and the teaching of Sacred Scripture. But the teaching that Fr. Dubay synthesized is not collected from Teresa and John for contemplatives alone. It is meant for every Christian and is based on the Gospel imperative of personal prayer and the call to holiness. All the major elements of these great teachers are ordered, commented on and put in the context of their scriptural foundations. Here is an outstanding book on prayer and the spiritual life written by one of the best spiritual directors and retreat masters of our time, and based on the writings of the Church’s two greatest mystical doctors.
Saints are Not Sad compiled by Frank Sheed
November (date to be determined)
“The only tragedy is not to be a saint”, wrote the French novelist Leon Bloy. And St. Francis de Sales said that “A sad saint would be a sorry saint.” But what is a saint? One way to answer is to analyze sanctity, theologically and psychologically. Another way, which is the path Frank Sheed chose in creating this volume, is to show you a saint-or rather, since no two saints are alike-to show you a number of saints. In this book, you are shown forty saints. The saints Sheed chose for this collection are from various time periods: six before A.D. 500, seventeen from then to the Reformation, and seventeen from the Reformation to the middle of the twentieth century. Many are well known, like St. Anthony, Francis, Augustine, Patrick and Bernadette, while others are lesser known, for example, Columcille and Malachy. The same can be said for the various authors of these short biographies. Among them are the famous like Hilaire Belloc, Alban Goodier and G.K. Chesterton, as well as priests and laymen whose names may no longer be familiar but whose writing still brings to life men and women whose closeness to God gave them purpose, strength, and yes, joy.
Come, Lord Jesus by Mary Francis
December (date to be determined)
These Advent reflections by the abbess of a Poor Clare monastery, an accomplished spiritual writer, focus our attention on the coming of Jesus into our lives. There is a double movement to this coming; both our active preparation to be ready for him and our patient waiting for the Lord to arrive in his own good time. There is also an art to this simultaneous preparation and waiting, and no one knows better than the beloved Mother Mary Francis how to encourage us in our attempts to master this art. Meditating on passages from Scripture about the coming of the Messiah into the world and our hearts, Mother challenges us to persevere in overcoming our faults and keeping our eyes on the Lord who has called us to himself-for it is he, through the gifts of his grace, who will complete in us the work of sanctification which he has begun. Though written for Advent, the wisdom of Mother Mary Francis collected by her sisters is profitable at any time because a Christian life is one of constant growth into the very likeness of God.
39 New Saints You Should Know by Brian O’Neel
January, 2013 (date to be determined)
How will you — how can you — answer God’s call to holiness? The path to holiness is traveled step by step. The way of holiness is lived grace by grace. Your journey to God is nothing more, and nothing less, than that series of steps. But how do you take that step each day? How do you live that grace each day? How, each day, do you answer God’s call, God’s personal invitation to holiness? What Archbishop Timothy Dolan recommends, urges, reminds, and teaches is radical in the truest sense of that word: It is basic. It is at the roots. It’s fundamental. This solid theologian, noted Church historian, and natural-born storyteller goes first to the source: what Christ said and promised, what Scripture and Tradition tell us. Then, building on that firm foundation, here, too, is what the Church teaches; what the saints have discovered, lived, and shared; what the Fathers and Doctors of the Church have written; what “ordinary” Catholics — on that path, accepting those graces — have come to learn.
Interior Freedom by Jacque Philippe
February, 2013 (date to be determined)
Interior Freedom leads one to discover that even in the most difficult circumstances we possess within ourselves a space of freedom that nobody can take away, because God is its source and guarantee. Without this discovery we will always be restricted in some way and will never taste true happiness. Author Jacques Philippe develops a simple but important theme: we gain possession of our interior freedom in exact proportion to our growth in faith, hope, and love. He explains that the dynamism between these three theological virtues is the heart of the spiritual life, and he underlines the key role of the virtue of hope in our inner growth.
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