Since coming into the Church I have heard references to Hans Urs von Balthasar, but had never read any of his works. I knew he was quite admired by many including Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. Well I just read his Heart of the World
Signs and Mysteries: Revealing Ancient Christian Symbols is the latest book by patristic scholar Mike Aquilina and a book I was looking forward to reading. In most cases we have some idea as to the root of some of the symbols that have been associated with Christianity, though we might not have the details of how this came to be and their significance in the early Church. Mike Aquilina looks the the symbols that came about in the first four centuries of the Church and does a chapter on each ones that explains their meanings and what historical information we have on them and where they were used. Included are plenty of drawings of these symbols throughout the book that show precisely how they were used.
When early uses of some symbols are more clouded in history he nicely gives some of the theories explaining their meanings. Often we also get references to writings of the Fathers of the Church along with others when it helps to illuminate how these symbols were used in liturgy or devotional practice. I really learned a lot from this book and while I had a general idea of meaning of many symbols I found a wealth of details. For example I will never look at the Ichthys when I see it on someone’s bumper the same way. I knew how it came about and that it was a Greek acronym and often used in the early Church, but I had no idea about the Eucharistic overtones and some of the other theological depths involved. Being an ex-Navy Chief I was also pleasantly surprised to see how the anchor was another common symbol used and it’s meaning.
This book is not meant to be an exhaustive reference of symbols used within the Church, but just the first four centuries. I enjoyed this book so much I would love to see another book in the same style that explains the symbols the Church used in later years and especially in the Middle Ages.
My one caveat about the book is not the content, but the color of the font used. The text is a dark brown color with a light font weight that I found more difficult to read. The color makes drawings turn out beautifully, but I would have much preferred they have had black text with the drawings being the color they used. Our Sunday Visitor has published books in recent years with multiple colors that made the book quite effective and I wish the same was done here. Though this is no real reason not to get this book.
This review was written as part of The Catholic Company product reviewer program. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on Signs and Mysteries-Revealing Ancient Christian Symbols .
After having no power since Thursday afternoon because of Tropical Storm Fay I am finally online again. I must say I much prefer Fay Wray to TS Fay, but there was a typhoon heading to Hong Kong and I wonder if their is a name connection there.
Though I did get a lot of reading done. I was able to finish Tim Power’s Earthquake Weather
Next up I read Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book
The next day I read Life of Christ
After that I read The Final Bow: A Novel
I am though really glad to have electricity and internet connectivity back. I was able to tweet my status one from a restaurant that had free wireless, but mostly I forcibly fasted from the internet and survived. I am also really thankful for LED book lights since they are really great for night reading for long periods of time without using a lot of battery power. My first instinct when a hurricane approaches to make sure I have batteries for my book light just in case.
I recently read Jesus
and First-Century Christianity in Jerusalem
Mcnamer and Bargil Pixner that
was sent to me for review by Paulist Press. The book starts with an
overview of the Essenes and then the Nazoreans and then goes on to give
a historical overview that includes Jesus’ public years and then
concentrates mainly on the Church in Jerusalem up to the year 135.
The overview of Jesus and subsequent resurrection is mainly
straight-forward account as is the subsequent years of the Church in
Jerusalem. The book uses as source materials text such a
the Protoevangelium of James and historians of the era such
as Jophesus and later Eusebius along with others of that time
period along of course with the Gospels. So there is a lot of
good information about the early Church specifically in regards to the
Christians in Jerusalem.
I was glad to see the retelling of Jesus’
public years was surprisingly
free of sneering skepticism and it kept to the facts as told in the
Gospels, though there were some exceptions. Such as “Jesus
may have had a life changing experience as he went to the Jordan near
Jericho as he was baptized by John the Baptist.” This
sentence made me laugh and sounds like the kind of stuff taught by
those who say Jesus was ignorant they were God and many of the authors
of some of the references do hold to such a view. Later on we
get a sentence questioning whether if some of the early presiders were
women and then a confusion on the role of women deaconesses.
But this type of stuff was mostly the exception.
Also included was the standard fare about
the Q document the mythical lost document used by Matthew and Luke.
Along with some rather late datings of the Gospels with for
example Luke being dated at 85 A.D with the phase “scholars say.”
“Scholars say” is used quite a lot in this book with no
mention that this is by no means unanimous. It really means
“scholars who I am inclined to believe say.” In fact whenever I see
this phrase it is a cue for me to dig deeper. So much of
historical-criticism denies miracles and prophesies and so they are
forced to argue for a much later dating after the year 70 when
Jerusalem was destroyed. That the prophesy of this
destruction proves that it had to be after the event. Though
I think this “later Gospel” phase is receding and much better
scholarship is being done now that puts them at a much earlier period
of time. Michael Barber in his excellent book book Coming
Soon: Unlocking the Book of Revelation and Applying Its Lessons Today
argues, I believe, persuasively for a dating of the Book of Revelation
pre-70 A.D. While this book dates the Gospel of John as being done
between 90 and 110. A.D. Well scholars say!
The biggest weakness of this book is that
it sees Essenes everywhere. “I see dead Essenes” could have
been the tagline of the book. While some of the conjecture was quite
interesting and some of it might actually be true. There was
just a bias to always interpret something to mean that it was
influenced from the Essenes somehow. Often we get this with
John the Baptist, but in this case it extended to the family of Mary.
Even the date of the Last Supper was suppose to be Essene
influenced which this books happened on Wednesday or on Tuesday night.
That the man carrying a jug of water that Jesus sent his disciples to
find must have been a Essene priest since only women carried water.
Or Acts 6:7 about a great number of priests converting to
the faith must have been Essene priests since it was doubtful that
Saducees would do so. This totally leaves out the fact that
there were about 2000 ordinary Temple priests in Jerusalem.
Everything is seen through Essene colored glasses with no
caveats. No doubt this is because one of the authors who is
an ex Benedictine Monk has worked as an archaeologist in the Essene
quarter. There are certain some interesting correlations
between the Essenes writings and some of what happened, but because of
the bias it is hard to tell objectively what role they played which in
this book is to a large extent.
This is a larger sized book with plenty of
beautiful pictures included relating to Jerusalem. Often
though the pictures seemed to be included just to have pictures and
didn’t really relate to the text on the page they were on. The book
piqued my interest into the early Church in Jerusalem, unfortunately it
makes me have to look elsewhere to fulfill it.
I received a paper copy of Heaven’s
Song: Sexual Love as It Was Meant to Be
Christopher West which will be published in September of this year.
Once again he has done a great job of teaching the Theology
of the Body as developed by John Paul II in an accessible manner.
The new book is based on the so-called
“hidden” talks of Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. These
undelivered addresses were discovered in the Vatican archive
and until recently were only in the Polish edition of “A Theology of
the Body.” Michael Waldstein translated these into English in
2006 in the book Man
and Woman He Created Them: A Theology Of The Body
The new material goes into the Song of Songs and
the Old Testament marriage of Tobias and Sarah from the book of Tobit
along with material that would have not been appropriate for
a General Audience.
The format of the book is that he starts
with short stories of real life people
and their common difficulties and then how they addressed using the
Theology of the Body and then goes on from there. Each
chapter also ends with a section
for reflections and a prayer. Christopher West then explains Pope John
Paul II’s teaching starting off with the Song of Song. This
Old Testament book is often passed over by many because we miss the
deeper meaning of the book and people can be put of by the erotic
poetry it contains. They mystics though often included the
Song of Songs as one of their favorites and wrote on it.
From St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, Saint Louis
de Montfort, St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguor and others were nourished by
these texts. Christopher West refers to these saints as he
expands upon the work of Pope John Paul II. Sometimes people are
scandalized by the comparison of the sexual union of man and life as a
metaphor for the relationship of God and man. Some
Protestants are scandalized by the writings of St. Alphonsus
Maria de Liguor and I have seen his writings quoted by anti-Catholics.
The total misunderstanding of sex goes
through all levels of society
from the secular to the religious. The book explores the
deeper meaning of sex as being sacred and how the Song of Songs relates
to this. This is really a wonderful scripture study of the
Song of Songs that opens it up and helps you see past the
prose that looks quite awkward through modern eyes. These
sections are worth the price of the book in themselves. Once
I first read the Book of Tobit it quick became one of my favorite Old
Testament books, but I certainly missed much of the meaning of the
book. Pope John Paul II’s catechesis relating to Tobit is a
treasure and one that all married couples and those preparing for
marriage need to be introduced this understanding.
Christopher West has a great talent in
presenting deep theology in such a way that you are not put off, but
are drawn deeper into it. His latest book is no exception and
like all of his book you don’t need to read anything of his beforehand
– they all stand alone. I highly recommend Heaven’s Song.
If Pope John Paul II ever becomes a Doctor
of the Church it will be because of The Theology of the Body which is a
great gift to the Church and one that the world certainly needs.
This review is part of the Catholic Company’s Product Review Program.
The last couple of days I have been immersed in two books that back to back kept me from doing much else then reading them.
Over the last year or so I had read about the upcoming novel Space Vulture by Gary K. Wolf and Archbishop John J. Myers. Gary Wolf is best know for his novels with Roger Rabbit and he was a childhood friend with John Myers who became the Archbishop of New Jersey. Now surely a Catholic and lover of SF such as myself would be intrigued by a SF novel co-written by an Archbishop. Now there have been some prominent Catholics in regards to SF. Saint Thomas More wrote one of the first SF novels Utopia, Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson wrote in the genre, and there have been great Catholic SF authors such as Walter M. Miller, Jr and of course the preeminent Gene Wolfe.
Space Vulture will not go down in the annals of SF as being great, but it is not meant to. This book is a homage to Space Hawk a book loved by John Myers as a kid and one he introduced to his friend Gary Wolf. This book attempts to capture the spirit of the Golden Age of SF and it mostly succeeds at this. Space Vulture is a space opera with a villain who is really bad (not misunderstood) and a hero who is really good with a strict moral code. Along the way the characters have their adventures and fights and it is all mostly predictable while still be a good read. Space Vulture is the equivalent of a Popcorn Movie, you don’t expect much but you still finish the book quite satisfied. At times the dialogue can be a little cheesy and you suspect that they were trying to copy the writing that so often appeared in Planet Stories and other and other SF magazines that specialized in swashbuckling adventure. Now you might wonder how an Archbishop being involved in this might affect the story especially when it comes to religion. Well Space Vulture does not hit you over the head with religion and sticks to moral themes so you get a lot of black and white when it comes to good and evil with some redemption along the way. I thoroughly liked the characters that kept from being stereotypes while at the same time being stereotypes.
I found this to be a quite fun book and I certainly enjoyed it and by the ending it looks like it is setup to have some future sequels to it. The cover design is also pretty good which gives you a sense of the era and making it look like the book is a little old. Though if they were going for the Planet Stories books they forgot to include the “glamorous brunette Spae-Babe” that John C..Wright proved is a necessary part of Science Fiction.
This book has received postive reviews from some interesting quarters. On one side you have Stan Lee and then you have people like Brother Guy Consolmagno, S.J. an Gene Wolfe.
When I first read about The Tripods Attack! (The Young Chesterton Chronicles) the concept fascinated me. Though I really wasn’t expecting
that it would deliver what it would promise by the concept. In a alternate timeline a young Gilbert Keith Chesterton sets out on a adventure that includes a similar young H.G. Wells, Fr. Brown, and a person known as the Doctor. In this Edwardian timeline the world is much different where mechanical difference engines are the prime technology along with steam. So what we have is kind of a steam-punk novel with G.K. Chesterton. Great and fun concept, but could it be done right? Well after two days with a 360 some page novel I whole-heartily say yes! Now I truly love the writings of G.K. Chesterton so I had a bias in wanting to like this novel, but since it was classed as young adult I was quite skeptical at first. This though is no Hardy Boys adventure and I certainly am no longer a young adult. Though I think a young adult audience would enjoy it. Each chapter begins with a short quotation from G.K. Chesterton, but the young Gil is not yet at the height of his philosophical powers. As the characters progress throughout the story we do get treated through to the world of Chesterton prominently thorough Fr. Brown, but also through the young Gil. Conversations between the Fr. Brown, Gil, Herbert Wells, and the Doctor give ample opportunity into exploring our own timeline’s G.K. Chesterton. Though this isn’t a book that hits you over the head with his ideas, but manages to seamlessly weave them into the story so the novel in no ways seems like a lecture.
There is plenty of action and adventure along the ways as they deal with the Tripods and the events that go around them. I found this to be a fully satisfying book. Well written, great characters, and plot with some nice turns. I was happy to read after finishing this novel that this will be a trilogy. To which I can only say hurry up and finish the next instatement John McNichol!
Soul and the City is a book by Marcy
Heidisk which subtitles itself “Finding God in the Noise and Frenzy of
Life.” This is certainly a worthwhile and much needed topic when the
spiritual life is often drowned out by just pure busyness and activity
after activity. This book though is both hit and miss in
giving answers to this topic. Where the book succeeds is when
the author describes the struggles of people she knows to life a
spiritual life. Especially good were some of the stories from
when she worked in a homeless shelter of the people within and their
efforts at living a life of prayer. This book comes under the
category of “Christian Living” and so is rather generic when it comes
to a specific charism of spirituality. The author seems
widely read among Catholic and Protestant sources and much of the
advice given is solid such as working to see Christ in others among the
busy streets. Of seeking quiet and simplicity while also
giving of yourself to others. Not exactly surprising themes
and mostly an application of the Gospel in the specific context of city
life.
I found most of the advice as being too
generic such as visiting museums and cultural events to nourish the
spiritual life. Certainly seeking beauty through the arts is
quite necessary, but she offers no caveats as to the type of art we
will often run into in modern life. My main complaint with
the book is that it is rather too broad. While it does not
fall into the “I am spiritual, but not religious” trap, inadvertently
it comes close to it when it speak of spirituality. While
certainly the book is Christian spirituality to me at times
spirituality comes before Christ. The chapters of the book
are also rather inverted in that worship Of God and gratitude for his
grace are the last two chapters in the book. Though there are
references to the Gospels throughout and the Psalms.
Despite these deficiencies I would have
seen this book as somewhat worthwhile for beginners in a life of pray
but for the references to centering prayer. The author
herself recommends it and quotes Fr. Pennington throughout the book.
Maybe this explains the shallow spirituality of the book.
Centering prayer can turn into self-centering prayer and
their are plenty of horror stories of disaster to someone’s prayer life
who have entered into this type of prayer as it can become a form of
self-hypnosis. Not that everybody will have problems such as
these since some just practice centering prayer as a form of quieting
yourself to enter into prayer. I also wondered throughout the
book exactly whether the author was Catholic. Lutheran, or some other
form of Protestanti. She seem to go to Mass and other
services on a regular basis and this adds to generic spirituality of
the book.
Also lacking was any concept of growing in
holiness, of overcoming faults, and personal sin which is a major fault
for any book addressing this topic. A growing love of God and
neighbor will only highlight our own faults and advancement in the life
of prayer requires more than the simple advice this book gives.
I also found that this book needed some editing since I
sometimes found mistakes in it such as using “Jesus’s” for the
possessive. In fact one mistake in the book had me laughing.
“Holy people aren’t necessarily found
among the canonized saints.”
I don’t want to pile on in this review,
but the book left me unsatisfied. Here was a great premise of
Soul in the City as a play on Sex in the City and giving what could
have been a popular treatment of the spiritual life in Christ amongst
the hustle and bustle of everyday life. A promise made but not fulfilled.
After reading Anne Rice’s Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana I thought a lot about the consciousness of Christ and wanted to read up on the subject. I had remembered in my various readings several references to a recommended book on the subject called “The Consciousness of Christ” by Fr. William George Most. I was disappointed to find that the book was mostly not available until I was delighted to find all of Fr. Most’s works are available at Catholic Culture in the Most Theological Collection.
For those who don’t know Fr. Most was a theologian and scripture scholar who died in 1999. As I was coming into the Church I read many of his articles and posts since at the the time he was answering scriptural questions on EWTN’s forums. I think it is too bad that there are so many other theologians and scripture scholars who are much more well known than Fr. Most was. You would have never seen Fr. Most on the History Channel, Discovery, or TLC in just another one of the dumb shows talking about scripture and biblical history. Fr. Most was a faithful priest and that doesn’t make your scholarship too popular.
His book “The Consciousness of Christ” was exactly what I was looking for to answer the questions I had and to more fully understand what the Church teaches on this subject. The introduction to the book Can we Trust the Gospels? is an excellent essay on the subject in and of itself. Since their has been so much biblical criticism that seeks to deny so much of scripture this essay takes up the topic nicely. The end of the book even includes three appendixes which server as a in depth critique of form criticism and the way it has been used.
In the last century there has been much talk on the so-called ignorance of Jesus and the ideas proposed by Fr. Raymond Brown and others that Jesus did not know he was God. This idea has come to be accepted by many people and is routinely taught. Several scriptures form the Gospel appear at first to make this case such as when Jesus says he “does not know the day or the hour.” Fr. Most goes through the scriptures as to related to Jesus’ apparent ignorance, lack of foreknowledge, the knowledge concerning the Parousia. He details all of the scriptures often used to back up these assertions made by Rudolf Bultman, Fr. Raymond Brown and others. The then examines these scriptures in details and then examines them in their context. Later he looks a the Patristic evidence regarding these scriptural passages and how the Church came to interpret them. There is a definite development of doctrine that really starts quite early when it comes to these issues. The heresies that tried to rip the Church apart in the fourth century and beyond often came down to the view of Christ’s consciousness and the false divide trying to split the humanity and divinity of Jesus apart. After this he goes into what the Magisterium has officially taught about Jesus’ consciousness. It is quite clear from the Magisterial statements made that the human soul of Jesus enjoyed the beatific vision even from the first moment of His conception. Something many people who were taught novelties in their Catholic education might be surprised to hear.
I really found this book to be a great read and certainly not just dry theology. The concept of “accommodation” in the sense of what the Greek Fathers called oikonoma in what Pope Gregory the Great and others taught in regards to Jesus saying he did not know the day and the hour is quite illuminating. Many passages you wonder about are answered quite well in this book and taught in such a manner that even layman such as myself can easily digest it. Throughout the book he directly answers arguments primarily made by Fr. Raymond Brown and then others in a thorough manner. Though he does it in a scholarly and not polemic manner. I highly recommend this book to everyone.
Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins’ Case Against God is a new book book by Dr. Scott Hahn and Benjamin Walker. When Scott Hahn had heard that there were students at Franciscan University of Steubenville losing their faith after reading Dawkins’ The God Delusion he decided to write a book that specifically addressed Richard Dawkins’ arguments. Even though the arguments that Dawkins’ uses don’t hold up to much rigor he writes in such a way that many people will be convinced by them. Even some of his fellow atheists after reading his book had said much the same thing about some of his arguments. Fr. Benedict Groeschel is fond of saying that he could write a better book defending atheism than Richard Dawkins’ did. That being said many people just don’t have the background to see the logical and philosophical errors made and this book provides and excellent counterpoint to Dawkins’ contentions. While this book specifically addresses the arguments personally made by Richard Dawkins’ it pretty much applies to many of the arguments used by all of the “new atheists.”
I have never read any of Dawkins’ books myself. When I was an atheist I didn’t read any atheist apologetics until I started to lose my atheist faith and wanted to save it. This book though quotes extensively from the arguments used in “The God Delusion” and some of his other books to fairly state them. You also get a good idea how polemical Dawkins’ book is from some of the statements quoted. This book though in contrary is not polemical towards Dawkins’. As is proper the arguments used by the authors stick to the realm of reason it does not rely on revelation at all. The focus of the book is not an apologetics work specifically towards Christianity or even atheism, but a direct response to Dawkins’ reasoning for atheism.
Since one of Dawkins’ main thrusts is to equate what is impossible as just highly improbable this book takes those arguments head on by showing how at times Dawkins’ minimizes the numeric improbabilities of things happening purely by chance. Though this isn’t done as Intelligent Design versus Darwinian evolution, but to answer certain claims that Dawkins’ uses as proofs. This section of the book uses the type of information that was influential in bringing influential ex-atheist Anthony Flew from atheism to theism. Anthony Flew has even praised this book by saying “Rarely, if ever in my many years as a procfvessor of philosophy did I hever have the opportunity to read such a compelling argument.”
The latter sections of the book deal to a large part with Dawkins’ philosophy and his grounds for morality. This is really where Dawkins’ case is weakest since he has such a poor grasp of real theological arguments and philosophy. In Dawkins’ world straw men evolve quite quickly. He never seems to realize how the arguments he uses to bash religion, especially Christianity in many cases could be more aptly used against his view of how evolution works. It is quite evident that his own worldview departs from his chance-based evolutionary scheme when he feels it necessary to do so and will not quite go along with the conclusions of what he preaches. He is obviously trying to prove at times that atheists can be good people – something I would totally agree with. My own experience was that when I did something morally good when I was an atheist it was not because of my atheistic faith, but often despite it.
Richard Dawkins’ also tries to show that religious believers have nothing to worry about from atheists such as himself while at the same time calling religion a “mind virus” and teaching religion to children as “child abuse.” The last chapter of the book is an interesting theoretical exercise in the consequences of what a society that had a King Dawkins at its helm and followed what he has said would be like. Not a pretty picture if you take seriously that teaching religious belief is “child abuse” and that euthanasia, bestiality, and infanticide are “moral” choices.
I found this to be an excellent book and Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker have really done their homework in answering Dawkins’ arguments in a very accessible way. Many of the arguments of the new atheists are not as strong as they appear and this book serves as a good inoculation to those arguments.
Our Daily Bread: Glimpsing the Eucharist Through the Centuries
The book is divided into chapters covering each century. At the beginning of these chapters a poem is presented. They are primarily written by the author of the book. I don’t have the capability to know whether they are good poems or not. There is very little commentary on introductions in this book. This is a good thing since he lets the texts speak for themselves. There were often quotes from the saints and others on the Eucharist I had not run across before and this certainly makes it a good reference. The last chapter goes on to quote from Vatican II and then Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. I am usually wary of books from Paulist Press and am glad that a couple of recent books from them are quite good and don’t undermine the faith. This book is an excellent collection of passages on the Eucharist.
John Paul II and the Meaning of Suffering: Lessons from a Spiritual Master
takes a close reading of Salvifici Doloris and the life of Pope John Paul II to write on the subject of suffering. The topic of suffering and why it exists is such a large one and one that often scandalizes people when it comes to faith in God. That there is a meaning to suffering is one of the more valuable things that the Church teaches. The writings by Pope John Paul II and especially his encyclical on suffering are certainly an excellent guide for the subject. The late Pope was certain a man of suffering while still living a life of joy. The author of the book has encountered his own sufferings which led him to further investigate the meaning of suffering which led him to write this book. If found it to be not only a good introduction on this topic, but a book that goes deeper into the topic.
My Visit to Hell
Odd Hours