“Praying the Rosary for Intercession” is a new book by Catherine M. Odell published by OSV. This book like so many that came before it has a standard format. \u00a0A history of the Rosary followed by meditations for each mystery and lastly specific instructions on praying the Rosary along with guidelines for intentions.<\/p>\n
The reflections are mostly pretty good and on target.<\/p>\n
What makes this book stand out for this type of book is both its strength and and its weakness. \u00a0After the scriptural reference and reflection on the mystery follows a section called “The Rosary in our lives”. \u00a0This section includes personal stories on how the Rosary has affected the lives of people. \u00a0There are modern conversion stories along with stories on the Saints and their devotion tot the Rosary. \u00a0This puts the Rosary in the context of people’s lives and thus would be quite helpful for the audience of this book.<\/p>\n
The weakness of the\u00a0\u00a0“The Rosary in our lives” is not the actual content of it, but the references to some dubious sources and apparitions.<\/p>\n
For example four of the stories in this section relate to\u00a0Medjugorje. \u00a0The introduction to one of these stories refers to\u00a0Medjugorje as a place where “some people” think Mary is appearing. \u00a0Now there is a lot of controversy regarding this alleged apparition and I am definitely in the skeptical if not outright thinking it is a fraud camp. \u00a0Regardless I think a writer who brings up\u00a0Medjugorje has a duty to say more than that “some people” accept them. \u00a0They have a duty to note that both Bishops of\u00a0Medjugorje have not approved them and that the Bishop’s conference of Yugoslavia also did not approve them. \u00a0 I believe that there are true conversion occurring in\u00a0Medjugorje since wherever there is the Mass and the Sacraments and people looking for God there are conversions. \u00a0Even apparitions that were condemned by the Church had movements of conversions surrounding them. \u00a0So I have no problem with printing stories of conversion regarding\u00a0Medjugorje, I just think there should be a firm disclosure regarding the current status of\u00a0Medjugorje in relation to the Church.<\/p>\n
The dubious sources I refer to is in one example referring to\u00a0Dutch professor Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx O.P. in glowing terms. \u00a0Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a caution in 1986 that his theories regarding the laity were at odds with the teachings of the Church. \u00a0Under Cardinal Ratzinger this was somewhat cleared up in interactions by letters to explain himself, but\u00a0he was drop the reference to lay ministry from any subsequent publications. \u00a0 This is just one of he controversies surrounding him. \u00a0Fr. Rolheiser is also referenced and I find that he certainly flirts with heterodoxy with an oversexualization of everything. \u00a0For example he writes on St. Therese who he calls a a very lonely person\u00a0“More deeply than we long for a sexual partner, we long for moral affinity\u2014our deepest longing is for someone to sleep with morally.<\/a>” \u00a0Really that is our deepest longing? \u00a0So much for “Our hearts our restless until they rest in you.”<\/p>\n I certainly might be too critical on this in that the use of material from these two men were not problematic in themselves. \u00a0People can read this book to their good, though if it interests them in\u00a0Medjugorje or the writings of these two men in my mind that is not to the good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “Praying the Rosary for Intercession” is a new book by Catherine M. Odell published by OSV. This book like so many that came before it has a standard format. \u00a0A…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12738"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12739,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12738\/revisions\/12739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}