I recently finished Peter Kreeft’s “Jesus-Shock.”
When I read Wisdom and Wonder꞉ How Peter Kreeft Shaped the Next Generation of Catholics this was one of the books frequently mentioned by others.
Peter Kreeft’s diagnosis is spot on in that one of our sins is that we have made Christianity boring. We are complicit in our complacency. Our lack of wonder and joy shows that we don’t know Jesus. We are fighting about the little things instead of proclaiming the great things.
Kreeft writes that Jesus was never boring and his wonderful chapter detailing so many instances of Jesus-Shock in the Gospel points this out. There was constant astonishment regarding him wherever he went. There were no neutral reactions regarding those who met him.
Kreeft has such a great ability when it comes to a turn of phrase and his eloquence helps you stop and think. For me to stop and pray and wonder and rejoice.
A small sample of what I highlighted:
God appeared to Job, but not to the three friends (42:5). And He said that the three had not “spoken rightly” of Him, but Job had (42:7). Why? Because Job had practiced God’s presence: he prayed. He alone talked to God as present even though he did not feel that presence. The three “friends” were deists. Most theists are deists most of the time, in practice if not in theory. They practice the absence of God instead of the presence of God.
