I may have overdone it.

I devour books. Not literally of course. But I love to read.

Recently on my birthday, I was given gift cards and cash earmarked specifically for books. And like a shark on a feeding frenzy, I couldn’t control myself when I went shopping. Now, I have a rather intimidating stack of nearly a dozen books. And not just small books either. Some are in the 400-700 page range:

• Dialogue Concerning Heresies by Thomas More
• Ignatius Catholic Study Bible (1John-Revelation) by Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch
• 101 Questions and Answers on Deacons by William Ditewig
• The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism by Louis Bouyer
• Because God is Real by Peter Kreeft
• Not by Scripture Alone by Robert Sungenis
• Prove It! – Church by Amy Welborn
• The Fathers by Pope Benedict XVI
• Charity in Truth by Pope Benedict XVI
• The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton
• A History of Apologetics by Avery Cardinal Dulles

This is like being given a giant dish of your favorite dessert and told that you can eat it all yourself. If you consume it too fast, you might get sick and never want to eat it again. But if you pace yourself, it will be oh so fulfilling.

Now, with which one shall I begin?

When I’m not using my Bible study software, the actually-printed-with-ink-on-paper Bible that I most frequently use is the Ignatius Bible – the mercifully shortened name for Ignatius Press’ Revised Standard Version – Second Catholic Edition.

The cover features icons that most Catholics will recognize, since they also adorn the cover of the Book of Gospels used in the Catholic liturgy. However, many people, including some Catholics, might not understand what these icons represent.

The quick explanation is that the cover shows Christ the Teacher surrounded by the Four Evangelists (i.e., the writers of the four gospels). Here’s a more detailed explanation of what they represent:

• Christ the Teacher – the large icon in the center depicts Jesus blessing the viewer with his right hand and holding a Bible in his left. The Bible shows His words from John 8:12: “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” This icon is commonly called “Christ the Teacher,” although it is also called “Christ Pantocrator” meaning “Christ, Ruler of All.” Also in the artwork are the abbreviated Greek words for Christ (abbreviations are indicated by the horizontal lines above the letters; Iota and Sigma (which look like IC) represent the first and last letter of the name Jesus in Greek; Chi Sigma (XC), the first and last letters of the title Christ).

Tradition has long associated the “four living creatures” mentioned in Rev. 4:7 with the four Gospels in the Bible:

• St. Matthew (upper left) – the winged “living creature with the face of a man” is the symbol for Matthew, since his Gospel narrative traces Jesus’ human genealogy.
• St. Mark (upper right) – the “living creature like a lion” is associated with Mark, whose Gospel begins with “the voice of one crying in the wilderness” (Mark 1:3), suggesting the roar of a lion.
• St. Luke (lower left) – the “living creature like an ox” is the emblem of Luke, since his account of Christ’s life emphasizes the atoning sacrifice of Jesus.
• St. John (lower right) – the “living creature like a flying eagle” symbolizes John, whose high-soaring narrative takes us to lofty heights in understanding Christ’s nature.

More interesting insight into the Four Evangelists can be found on Wikipedia and Catholic Resources.

I just saw on Twitter that a free e-book is now available from Ascension Press to combat lies and inaccuracies in Angels & Demons:

Angels & Demons is a thinly-veiled, but brutal attack on the Catholic Faith that will again shake the faith of potentially millions of people who know little about Catholic teaching and Catholic and Western history. It is full of half-truths, historical inaccuracies, and outright lies.

Answering Angels & Demons, by Mark Shea is an electronic book provided for free to help you answer the errors contained in the book and movie. Please feel free to download this resources and share it with your friends, family and neighbors.

Just go to http://answeringangelsanddemons.com/ to get it (PDF, 23 pages).

A few months back, I started doing most of my Bible and Catechism reading on my computer. I find that it’s especially helpful while traveling, but even at home, I get great benefit from the search capabilities and other features.

I’ve been using Accordance, a Macintosh program. (It supposedly also works on Windows with an emulator program, but I haven’t tried that.) I like how this company offers a Catholic Collection of products, with the Catechism, the Order of Mass, the Documents of Vatican Councils I and II, etc. Accordance is also endorsed by a well regarded Catholic writer Jeff Cavins.

They even have a try-before-you-buy program, so check it out.

Much has been in the news lately about Rick Warren being slated to deliver next week’s presidential inaugural invocation. As a result, interest in Pastor Warren’s best selling book The Purpose Driven Life is no doubt on the rise among Christians who may have not read the book when it debuted in 2002.

What is the Catholic view of this popular non-Catholic book? I’ve found two vantage points: one advising Catholics to avoid it altogether; the other suggesting that it can be advantageous provided there is Catholic pastoral guidance.

Don’t Go There

Catholic Answers’ This Rock magazine published a critique titled “Wrong Turn: The Purpose-Driven Life Gives Bad Directions” in its December 2005 issue. Written by Ronald J. Rychlak and Kyle Duncan, the article explains:

Warren is no anti-Catholic bigot. He accepts that Catholics are true believers, and he cites monks and nuns (including Mother Teresa) as Christian examples. …Nevertheless, Catholics should be aware that there are dangers on the Purpose-Driven road.

The article then points out several problems with The Purpose-Driven Life’s content, including Warren’s view of scripture, salvation, liturgy, sacraments and ecclesiology. The critique concludes with this advice to Catholics under the subhead “Don’t Go There”:

Whatever helpful personal encouragement Warren’s teaching might offer, the use of his books in any catechetical setting is a serious mistake. They are misleading and potentially profoundly confusing to poorly catechized Catholics. Moreover, while seeming to be ecumenical in approach, they actually undermine true ecumenism because they gloss over serious theological problems. …Catholics who follow the Purpose-Driven template are driving blind, and the road they follow is more likely to lead away from the Church than to a deeper practice of their faith.

More Agreement Than Disagreement

A second perspective on Warren’s book comes from Father Joseph M. Champlin, who penned a book called A Catholic Perspective on The Purpose Driven Life, published in 2006. The opening chapter begins:

Roman Catholic teaching and practice coincide with some parts of Pastor Rick Warren’s message in his book The Purpose Driven Life and clash with other points. There is, however, more agreement than disagreement. (p. 13)

Throughout the book, Father Champlin compares and contrasts the points in Warren’s book and Catholic teaching, to “affirm and enrich parts where the two seemingly coincide” and “explain and clarify points where the two apparently clash” (p. 13).

Having read Warren’s book when I was still a Protestant, I am finding Father Champlin’s book quite helpful (I’m about half way through its 106 pages). I think he does a fine job guiding Catholics who have read or are reading Warren’s book. In his Introduction, he explains that his book is ideally read alongside Warren’s:

For the most effective use of this study guide, I would suggest following Pastor Warren’s day-to-day approach for a particular section, then, after completing that portion, read the corresponding chapter in my book.

Although I’m not reading it in his recommended manner, I am finding it to be a worthwhile resource. Father Champlin is addressing the problem identified by the writers of the This Rock article: that poorly catechized Catholics could be confused and led astray by Warren’s book.

Catholic Writers May Be Better for You

If you are Catholic and are considering reading Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life, do so with caution and certainly with guidance. Father Champlin’s A Catholic Perspective on The Purpose-Driven Life is a highly recommended companion to Warren’s work.

However, instead of reading The Purpose-Driven Life, you may want to consider reading similar spiritual-growth books penned by Catholics. Matthew Kelly is one such writer, and you may find his books such as Perpetual Motivation, The Rhythm of Life, Rediscovering Catholicism, or Perfectly Yourself more enriching than any Protestant book.

Opportunity for Dialogue

Knowing how popular Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life has been over the past several years, I think that Catholics need to make themselves aware of the book’s messages in order to effectively dialogue with non-Catholic Christians.

Father Champlin’s work offers meaningful summaries of Warren’s points, and it provides appropriate Catholic insight, including references to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, scripture and noteworthy Catholic writers.

So, even if you never plan to read Warren’s book, Champlin’s A Catholic Perspective would be one way to equip yourself to charitably dialogue with those who have read The Purpose-Driven Life — and help show them that God’s plan for us all involves being part of the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic church that Jesus established.

We commemorated The Baptism of Jesus in today’s liturgy. While in mass today, I remembered the insights Pope Benedict XVI (writing as Joseph Ratzinger, rather than as Pope) shared in his book Jesus of Nazareth:

Looking at the events in light of the Cross and Resurrection, the Christian people realized what happened: Jesus loaded the burden of all mankind’s guilt upon his shoulders; he bore it down into the depths of the Jordan. He inaugurated his public activity by stepping into the place of sinners. His inaugural gesture is an anticipation of the Cross. He is, as it were, the true Jonah who said to the crew of the ship, “Take me and throw me into the sea” (Jon 1:12). The whole significance of Jesus’ Baptism, the fact that he bears “all righteousness,” first comes to light on the Cross: The Baptism is an acceptance of death for the sins of humanity, and the voice that call out “This is my beloved Son” over the baptismal waters is an anticipatory reference to the Resurrection. This also explains why, in his own discourses, Jesus uses the word baptism to refer to his death (cf. Mk 10:38; Lk 12:50).

- Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, Ch. 1: The Baptism of Jesus, p. 18.

Prior to reading this book, I had not deeply reflected on the connection between Christ’s baptism and crucifixion – that in both instances, Jesus stepped into the place of sinners.

Just thought this might server as a nice reflection today. Enjoy!

I’ve been reading Francis de Sales’ The Catholic Controversy for some time now. Actually, I found it so interesting that I immediately started re-reading it. What a cool book!

Francis de Sales was a young priest, who at the age of 27 – only about a year after his ordination – took on a daunting mission: to re-evangelize the Chablais region of France that had fully converted to Calvinism. He came to discover that the people there did not want to hear him preach, so he began writing pamphlets or tracts, which he posted on walls and slipped under doors. The technique worked. After four years, almost the entire region of 72,000 people had returned to the Catholic Church.

The tracts have been collected in a single volume and titled The Catholic Controversy. TAN Books has republished the 1886 translation. I highly recommend it, whether you are a Catholic wanting to learn more about your faith or a Protestant trying to understand why the Catholic Church didn’t go along with the so-called “reforms” of the 16th century.

I think that if I’d read this book years ago, I would have likely converted in my teens rather than in my late thirties.

Today is known as Reformation Day among Lutherans because October 31, 1517 was the date Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses — a date that historians consider to be the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

When I was a Lutheran (from my early 20s until my late 30s), I read the Augsburg Confession, which is the primary confession of faith for Lutherans, as well as the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, written in response to Catholic objections to the Augsburg Confession. I must admit that in reading these two documents, I did not understand why the Catholic Church objected to them. I had to deduce what the Catholic position was through the arguments made in the Apology.

Fortunately, I eventually was able to find the “missing link” — the Catholic rebuttal to the Augsburg Confession which prompted the writing of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession. This document is known as The Roman Confutation against the Augsburg Confession and is available from the Lutheran Project Wittenberg. If you are curious why the Church said “No” to many of the Lutheran positions back in the 16th Century, I encourage you to read this document (available as a free PDF). It’s only 24 pages, and it proved to be a powerful influence on me becoming a Catholic. If you’d like to study it alongside the Lutheran documents, both the Augsburg Confession and the Apology are part of the Book of Concord, also available as a free PDF online.

Even though I attended the Atlanta Eucharistic Congress this past June, I did not get the chance to hear Matthew Kelly speak. It’s been a few months, but I finally picked up a one of his books and now I wish I would have heard his presentation.

I’m about 70 pages into his book Rediscovering Catholicism which was published in 2002. I think it’s fantastic! It’s one of those books that if I tried to highlight my favorite passages, about 80 percent of the text would be soaked in yellow ink. Here’s just one:

The authentic life begins with the simple but profound desire to play the part God has designed for us in human history. The unfathomable adventure of salvation begins when we stop asking, “What’s in it for me?” and turn humbly to God in our hearts and ask, How may I serve? What work do you wish for me to do with my life? What is your will for my life?

Our modern times have revolted violently against the idea of “God’s will.” Desperate to maintain the illusion of being in control of their lives, many modern Christians have either turned their backs on God, or created a new spiritual rhetoric that allows them to determine selectively God’s will for their lives. And yet, it is the very surrendering of our own will to God’s designs that characterizes the whole Christian struggle. The interior life is primarily concerned with this single dynamic of turning our individual will over to God.

God calls each of us to live an authentic life. He has designed this life to perfectly integrate our legitimate needs, our deepest desires, and our unique talents. The more intimately and harmoniously these three are related, the more you become truly yourself.

God doesn’t call you to live an authentic life so he can stifle or control you. He calls you to live an authentic life so that, from an infinite number of possibilities, you can become the-best-version-of-yourself. By calling you to live an authentic life, God is saying, “Be all you can be.” (pp. 57-58)

This book is deep and thought provoking, but written in a style that is inviting and allows for a quick read. Highly recommend!