A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a new looking used book at a local bookstore that piqued my interest. It was about five guys who entered a Carthusian monastery in England in the early 1960s. It's a pretty good read that gives some insight into the mindset and lifestyle of the men who are members of what the author claims is the most austere of all orders of cloistered monks. It's called "An Infinity of Little Hours" and was written by Nancy Klein Maguire. (As an aside, over the past 22 years of raising our children I've heard Jacquie say 50 times if I've heard it once, "I should have been a cloistered nun." She hasn't read the book yet - if she had I'm not sure she'd give up even those toughest child-rearing days for the cloistered life.)
For our birthdays, shortly after starting that book, Bill and Mary gave Jacquie and me a book called "The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality" by Ronald Rolheiser, a Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate priest. I read the first couple chapters of it last night. Wanting to know a little more about the author (who you all may know but who I have never read), I googled him this morning and see that he has a website where he posts a weekly column.
I viewed the archived columns and came upon one he'd written sometime back called "The Secret of a Monk's Cell". That brought me back to the book on the Carthusians. The monk's room in the monastery is called his cell and there were lots of references to those cells in that first book I mentioned.
To get to the point, the Rolheiser column about the monk's cell is good so I am posting the link to it below.
http://www.ronrolheiser.com/columnarchive/archive_display.php?rec_id=408
I know John and Nancy are pretty high these days on Franciscan priest Richard Rohr who I have not yet read much of and who I know little about.
And I know that Fr. Beaver thinks a lot of Peter Kreeft who Nancy has turned many of us on to through her gifts of his books at Christmas.
Does anyone in the family have any current favorite contemporary authors in the Faith development genre whose name or works you'd like to share?
(I have a list of 100 works called "A Lifetime Reading Plan" put out by a bookstore in Washington, D.C., called the Catholic Information Center that I'd be glad to share with any of you who might request it.)
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3 comments:
I am going to respond to this post a little later, I was in Chicago when I first read it and wasn't able to.
So glad that your are getting acquainted with a couple of my favorite authors. I have read several of Richard Rohr's works and get his daily quick meditation. I gave the Holy Longing to each of our kids for Christmas one year. Another of my favorites is Henri Nouwen. His "The Return of the Prodigal Son" is one I try to read each Lent. It is short, but so thought provoking. I appreciate the info on the Monks book.....and I would be interested to see the top 100 list....thanks Dan......LA
Great to see you, Jacquie, Jer and Maria this past weekend at Gonzaga's orientation weekend.
I love the books that you noted. I tried Richard Rohr, but couldn't get past how general his writing is. I found it to be a little superfical (but I have already been told by Johnnyboo that there is much more to him than I percieved...so I fear that something lacks in me instead of Rohr).
I'm with LA on "Return of the Prodigal Son", I have given away over a dozen copies and keep 3-4 on the shelf ready to hand out when the situation seems appropriate. "The Holy Longing" is the best and much of Rohlhieser is worth the time, although he has common themes that are replicated in most of his books.
A final suggestion is "The Jesus I Never Knew" by Philip Yancey....I found this book to be phenominal. Yancy tried to forget all that others had told him about Jesus and went back to the Scriptures to to get as close a first hand look at Him that he could, with some startling and exciting insights into the person of Jesus. I
believe that part of our "face to face" with God at our death will be a realization of how much time and effort we put into getting to know the person of Jesus and how well we did in acting out of that knowledge and friendship (as opposed to acting from a set of rules and dictates). I think that Yancy does a good job of opening up the process...
Great post,Dan...hope to hear more about this.
Bill
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