1st Sunday of Lent
29 February 2004
Praised be Jesus Christ! Now and forever!
Dear Friends in Christ,
Lent is an ideal time to read good books about the interior life and the things of God. And since the publication last Friday of the reports by the National Review Board and The John Jay College of Criminal Justice, this Lent is also a good time to read books that help us understand the present circumstances of the Church in the United States. For these purposes, I recommend three books for your attention in these Forty Days.
Letters to a Young Catholic, a new book by George Weigel, the biographer of Pope John Paul II, is a tour of the Catholic world in fourteen essays that look at grace, prayer, sin, forgiveness, suffering, and love. Each essay employs a person, place, or thing to illustrate some truth of the Gospel, and the essay on liturgical prayer is illustrated with a description of our parish. Letters to a Young Catholic, published by Basic Books, should be available in book stores by the end of this week and would be splendid reading for Catholics or curious non-Catholics of any age.
The Courage to be Catholic is another book by George Weigel, first published by Basic Books in 2002 and now reprinted in a soft cover edition with a new conclusion. This is by far the best treatment of the present crisis in the Church, and if you did not read it when it was first published, I strongly encourage you to do so now. The new paperback edition should be available by the end of this week. Anyone who wants to understand how the Church came to be in this crisis and how we can find a path to genuine Catholic reformation should read this book.
Lord Have Mercy: The Healing Power of Confession is by Scott Hahn. This book was published by Doubleday in 2003, and it is a powerful exploration of the origin, nature, and purpose of the Sacrament of Penance. Using Biblical, patristic, and liturgical texts, Hahn explains both why and how Catholics receive the forgiveness of sins in this most misunderstood of sacraments. I encourage everyone to read this book as a preparation for the fruitful use of the Sacrament of Penance in this Lent and beyond.
Father Newman
Our Lady of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pray for us.