Recommended Reading
To complement the short articles offered on our blog we will, from time to time, provide some titles for recommended reading. We’re conscious that there are so many resources available and it’s difficult to know what to choose and why to choose it! We hope that the titles recommended here may go some way towards bridging that gap for you.
Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings
The only book by the brilliant second Secretary General of the United Nations Organisation, Markings was Hammarskjöld’s personal journal, kept over some four decades until his untimely death in 1961. A mixture of prose reflections, poetry – many in the Japanese form of haiku – and intimate glimpses into his relationship with himself and with God, Markings reveals Hammarskjöld as a man who rarely saw his professional life separated from his interior life. His acute awareness of God’s presence and his own searching response to God’s will in his life singles him out as a mystic in the troubled events of the last century.
Michel Quoist, The Christian Response
Although written in 1965, this beautiful book goes to the heart of the Christian vocation in the modern world. Fr Quoist, whose other books inspired countless souls to reclaim a prayer life for themselves, leads us to reflect in a way which allows our Christian faith to be, once again, personal and joyous.
Georges Lebebvre osb, God Present
Father Lefebvre’s little book, simple but filled with a vision of peace found in the presence of God and under his loving gaze, develops two insights – that God acts to draw us all into life-giving union with himself, and that our faith-filled response to his call in utter and complete simplicity translates our belief into prayer. He presents his reflections in two sections: a clear, essential theology of God’s indwelling presence in human history, followed by a move beyond discussion to personal prayer. Such a book supports the urgent contemporary search for an individual and personal prayer that is both rooted and free.
Jean Corbon OP, The Wellspring of Worship
Fr. Jean Corbon explores the meaning of the Liturgy as the “wellspring” or source of the Church’s life and worship of God. The Liturgy itself is a sharing in the mystery of the Triune God and in the Incarnation, Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus. Corbon writes that it is “the mystery of the river of life that streams from the Father and the Lamb,” into which believers are to be drawn. In this way, the divine river waters their entire lives, renewing and transforming them.The Wellspring of Worship is a masterful reflection on the mystery of God’s Trinitarian life and how the Church’s members participate in that life through the Liturgy.
Ronald Rolheiser omi, The Restless Heart
In The Restless Heart, Fr Ronald Rolheiser identifies different types of loneliness and discusses the dangers and opportunities they represent in our lives. Using contemporary parables from literature, film, and his own life, he shows that loneliness can be a tremendously creative and even valuable force when it is recognized, accepted and used as a dynamic catalyst. With his trademark clarity of vision, honesty, and intelligence, Rolheiser offers a distinctively Christian approach to living an examined, involved life and presents suggestions that will free readers to discover greater meaning and fulfillment in their own lives.
-Bethlehem Abbey Cistercian Family-
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Bethlehem Abbey Cistercian Family 