Summer Reading: A Form of Renewal

Bring on the sunshine. Dig your toes into the sand or the grass or the creamy foam of the morning ocean. Open the zany beach umbrella or the table umbrella on your patio or in your backyard. Or simply languish on the squeaky porch swing or the rocker or the chaise lounge. But, for heaven’s sake, have a book with you. 

See if you can silence the phone and even the radio and iPad.

Sip the iced tea, the diet beverage, and lean back. Drink in the air, blest with sea salt, and crack open a book you’ve been wanting to read. Summer readers tend to be frothier and more upbeat, less serious, but still selective in their choices of books. It’s time to read for enjoyment they think. Because I read constantly—as most writers do—I tend to keep the same subjects I read all year in politics and spirituality and sundry topics for my summer reading but there is one tradition I have been following for several years and I like it very much. I pick a classic I have never read but I know I should read.  Sometimes I pick one to re-read as I did a few years ago selecting Huckleberry Finn and learning much more from it than I did from my teen years. Another process I practice is to read reviews of the book I might choose or to take a commendation from a friend whose reading I respect. Major magazines and publications like The New York Times Book Review are excellent sources of guidance. You can browse these in almost any local library.

So, what can I advise you to look at this summer? I will keep my remarks within the confines of religious or spiritual subjects because that’s what this blog handles. Father Bernie Owens, SJ, my colleague, has written a very fine book connecting the meaning of St. Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle to Ignatian spirituality. He writes, “I want to describe the process by which God draws out our good and better desires until we realize our deepest and best ones.” I have just started reading Owens’s book, Realizing Our Deepest Desires: Journeying into the Joy of God, but I think it is a good choice for spiritual book clubs and is easy to understand; it is not a theological polemic. Each chapter ends with discussion questions. It assists in understanding the depths to which the average person is called and is seeking. I have read Jesuit James Martin’s latest tome, Come Forth: The Promise of Jesus’s First Miracle, and I highly recommend it for its scholarship and interesting detail about the story of the raising of Lazarus. Martin is not a theologian, but he is a prolific writer and an editor at America magazine. Plus, he is all over the world giving workshops and retreats. I cannot understand where he gets the time to write. To his credit, Martin relies on outstanding theologians of different faiths who give their research on the story of Lazarus. He employs archaeological discoveries as appropriate to the story and refers to ancient art as well. I simply loved this book which was a choice of a book club to which I belong. 

I don’t usually recommend a book I’m not reading or have not read, but there are two which have received excellent reviews of late; they are Touch the Wounds by Tomas Halik and Come to Breakfast by Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, Ph.D. Halik is a Czech priest who crafts a masterful analysis of the story where Thomas, the Apostle, asks Jesus if he can touch his wounds in order to believe Jesus did, in fact, visit the apostles when Thomas was not there. Father Halik says, “Thomas wants to know that the suffering of Jesus on the cross was not wiped away by the resurrection, that Christ’s suffering was real, in some way permanent, and it mattered.” For Halik “faith is …wounded, pierced, yet constantly questioning and seeking,” a faith, he adds, “that is crucified and resurrected.” He adds, “almost nothing has aroused in me such a thirst for meaning as the absurdities of the world, and such a thirst for God as the open wounds of sorrow.” Like St. Thomas, says the reviewer, Malik’s book “does not shy from the ‘agonized question’ of the wounded world.”  

Finally, Elizabeth Johnson, professor emerita of Fordham University has just published a tidy book of essays on the religious experience of the apostles—and those of you and I—in the post resurrection events. The gospel story of Jesus on the shore preparing a breakfast for his apostles is a delightful story, (Jn 21:1-24). Read it carefully and notice the nuances about faith and courage and going on in the mission. And the fact that Jesus, yes Jesus, cooked a breakfast for the apostles now coming ashore after a long night of fishing. I have read all of Johnson’s books and every one of them affirms my belief that she is one of the most outstanding theologians of our time.

Reflection

There are countless books out there for your spiritual and theological growth. I urge you to:

1. Visit a Catholic bookstore near you to peruse what they have and order what I have suggested here.
2. Visit a nearby Catholic retreat center to see what they might offer and make orders if you can.
3. Check out Amazon online. They can almost always get you anything.
4. Ask your spiritual director or a priest you may know who is informed and updated on newer publications of thoughtful content.
5. Don’t hesitate to ask me as well. I’m happy to help. mflannery39@gmail.com

And, yes, add spice to your reading. This helps in renewing and relaxing you. Mystery novels, history and biography, science and entertainment. Give them all time and you will be refreshed!!!

Happy summer. Happy reading! To all my Readers and Anonymous Angels!