Catholic Thought discussion

Welcome Kate, welcome twofold. First for joining our book club and second for coming into our wonderful faith. I am so glad you found us. Those are two great writers. One of these days we should do one of their works.

We are currently reading Thomas à Kempis' The Imitation of Christ. Discussions haven't started yet. They start tomorrow. You can find the book online for free or get an inexpensive ebook such as from Kindle. It reads fast.

Feel free to look around our boards. If you have any questions, feel free to ask on the boards or send me a PM.

Peace in Christ
Manny

Kate, welcome! I've been where you are and know how hard to sneak in book time--I was finishing my Master's in English with two babies 14 months apart. The oldest was never very keen on sleeping! But I managed most of the time to put them down at 9 and grab my book, reading a few pages before zzzzz. Set aside some big-time and good that you read to them--treasure those moments. My three (yep, a few years later) were all early readers. Now I'm a bit sad that my grands have outgrown those cuddly book times. One bonus--sharing and discussing books with them later.

Oops. How does auto-correct justify changing my word "you" to "big"?

Madeleine wrote: "Oops. How does auto-correct justify changing my word "you" to "big"?"

Madeleine, there should be an "Edit" hyperlink om the lower right of your comment box. Click it and you should be able to edit. Then click save or "Edit Post" and it should save.

By the way, I always spell you name wrong. I thought it was "i" before "e" except after "C." I guess your name is an exception. :)

‘Madleine’ is the original French spelling. I always liked the name.

Not a Catholic but a big fan of Richard Rohr's work. As such I now want to dig into Teilhard de Chardin's work. Any suggestions on where to start? His writings or perhaps a scholar who can get me started on his thought?

Marilyn wrote: "Not a Catholic but a big fan of Richard Rohr's work. As such I now want to dig into Teilhard de Chardin's work. Any suggestions on where to start? His writings or perhaps a scholar who can get me s..."

I am traveling for a graduation and unable to discuss further, but many Catholics are wary of Richard Rohr and Chardin...

Marilyn wrote: "Not a Catholic but a big fan of Richard Rohr's work. As such I now want to dig into Teilhard de Chardin's work. Any suggestions on where to start? His writings or perhaps a scholar who can get me s..."

Welcome to our book club Marilyn. I have not read those writers but if any other club members have they may help you with them.
We've had a few members in the past that were not Catholic. We are open to all. I hope you will learn as much as possible about Catholicism. We are currently reading The Imitation of Christ, which happens to be popular even with non-Catholics. We are only in the first week and the book is available for free on the internet. Here's one translation:
http://www.catholictreasury.info/book...
And you can find our discussion board here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...

If there is anything you would like to know about Catholicism or our book club, feel free to ask on the board or you can send me a private message. I'm here to help.

Marilyn wrote: "Not a Catholic but a big fan of Richard Rohr's work. As such I now want to dig into Teilhard de Chardin's work. Any suggestions on where to start? His writings or perhaps a scholar who can get me s..."

Hi Marilyn,
I have not read any Richard Rohr yet, but am interested. I have met many Catholic folks at retreats who really like his works. Also interested in Teilhard de Chardin, and I started with
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: Writings Selected with an Introduction (see my review). I have a few other books by and about him on my list, including Teilhard's Struggle: Embracing the Work of Evolution, published this year.

Manny wrote: "Marilyn wrote: "Not a Catholic but a big fan of Richard Rohr's work. As such I now want to dig into Teilhard de Chardin's work. Any suggestions on where to start? His writings or perhaps a scholar ..."

Thanks, Manny. Don’t know if I’ll get to it right away, but Imitation of Christ is definitely on my to-read list.

Pam wrote: "Marilyn wrote: "Not a Catholic but a big fan of Richard Rohr's work. As such I now want to dig into Teilhard de Chardin's work. Any suggestions on where to start? His writings or perhaps a scholar ..."

Much appreciated, Pam.

Marilyn, Welcome. I read Teilhard de Chardin many, many years ago and found him very thought provoking. But, I can't even recall the titles at this point. They are probably still on my book shelf. I should re-read him. I have not read much of Rohr, but the little I have read I have had mixed reactions to, enjoying his earlier writing more than his more recent things. But, I have to admit that I have read so little of Rohr that I can't make a fair assessment.

I am the author of a new sequence, "Sonnets for Christ the King," which is one of the most significant collections of traditional lyric verse of Catholic inspiration to appear in our century. Dr. Joseph Salemi of New York University and Hunter College has referred to it as "a liturgically mediated conversation with God."

I would like to please invite members to consider reading my book and listing in the Listopia lists (Best Poetry, Best Lyric Poetry, etc.)

It is very hard for Catholic poets to advance, while the worst poetry manages to get support, so your help would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

Sonnets for Christ the King

Joseph wrote: "I am the author of a new sequence, "Sonnets for Christ the King," which is one of the most significant collections of traditional lyric verse of Catholic inspiration to appear in our century. Dr. J..."

Hi Joseph, and welcome! It is wonderful to have a poet here among us! And I agree with you, we don't get exposed to much good poetry today. There is awful "poetry" especially in popular Catholic hymnody, emotionalist paplum that makes me cringe anytime I have to sing it.

Welcome Joseph. Are you here in our book club to participate or just promote your work? Most people don't appreciate being used. If you are here to participate, I'll let your comment stand. If not, I'm going to delete it.

hi! i am Ines, i am from Milano , Italy. I am a wife and mother of 5.
i am proud catholic, hope to find suggestions order to read new inspired catholic books and meet new people!
Ciao

Welcome Ines! Oh, I've always wanted to visit Milan! I've been to Italy many times, I grew up in southern Germany, but for some reason never made it to Milan.

Welcome Ines. I've been to Milano. You have a wonderful cathedral. It's the one city in Italy that kind of reminds me of New York City. I hope you find more than suggestions here. I hope you join us in book discussions.

Hi my name is Chris and I was wondering what book you will be reading next?

Christine wrote: "Hi my name is Chris and I was wondering what book you will be reading next?"

Welcome Christine. As soon as we finish our current read, The Imitation of Christ, we will be taking nominations for our next read. That should be in another week or so. It looks like the book club just voted to add a Catholic fiction read into our cycle of books, and since the summer is an ideal time for fiction, we might as well take up the fiction read next. So nominations for a week, voting for a week, and then we give everyone a week to obtain the book. So in about a month from now, we will be reading our next book. We don't know what it is because it requires a vote. I hope you will vote and participate.

Now while we nominate, vote, and take time to get the book, we usually have a short read in the interim. We haven't picked that short read yet. We're considering a papal encyclical or maybe a book out of the Bible.

Again welcome and I hope you will enjoy our book club.

Thanks for the information. Look forward to participating.

Hi Friends
How are you? Hope you're having a lovely day!
I'm Emily from Australia, a devoted Catholic and an avid reader so thank you for running this group as I am looking forward to the bookish chats and reading recommendations.. can't wait! Hope to speak to you all again soon.. happy reading journeys to all! :)

Emily Kate wrote: "Hi Friends
How are you? Hope you're having a lovely day!
I'm Emily from Australia, a devoted Catholic and an avid reader so thank you for running this group as I am looking forward to the bookish ..."

Welcome Emily. I'm so happy you joined us. Perhaps it's a perfect time. We are in the middle of a vote for our next read. It's our first vote for a Catholic fiction work. Perhaps you can join us. You can vote here:
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/list/4...

Voting ends on Wednesday. We'll take a week plus for everyone to get the winning book and then start reading after that.

Thanks Manny for the warm welcome... I have cast my vote for our next read, can't wait to see what it will be... happy reading! :)

Emily Kate wrote: "Thanks Manny for the warm welcome... I have cast my vote for our next read, can't wait to see what it will be... happy reading! :)"

You're welcome. And it's a pleasure having such a bright, smiling "bookish" girl with us. :)

Hello. I'm Pop from Sweet Home Alabama. I am Catholic by conversion more than 50 years ago. However, just in the last 5 or 6 years have I wanted to learn more about the Church, other than just going to Sunday Mass. This looks like a place to find those reads that I would not find otherwise in my random looking.

Welcome Pop! Work has taken me down to Huntsville, Alabama a few times.

Yes, we do read a variety of Catholic literature and it will certainly help you learn about the faith. Our reads spans theological, Biblical, papal documents, biographical, devotional, historical, and now we have added literary. I think in time you can get a real understanding of the faith from the various genres we read.

Currently we are reading Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop, a fictional work, but we are in our last week. In another week we'll be starting Mariette in Ecstasy. If that is still too short notice, right after that, which should take us about three weeks, we will be voting for our next read. We'll take nominations and we'll have a book club wide vote.

I hope you will participate in the nominations, the vote, and of course the read. It's great to have you.

Welcome Pop! Glad you found us!

Hello everyone!

My name is Joanna and I just started a Goodreads. :)

Joanna wrote: "Hello everyone!

My name is Joanna and I just started a Goodreads. :)"

Welcome Joanna. It's nice to have you as a member. I see you like to read theology and philosophy. We do that here! Currently if you're interested in joining us, we are reading Fulton Sheen's autobiography. Here is the folder for the reading schedule and discussion:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...

But if you're really into theology and philosophy, we just completed Pope Pius X's encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis. I'm still not finished, so I may still comment there. It's not that long a read but it is a heavy read. If you like, you can join that discussion here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Welcome Joanna! Glad to have you with us!

Hello! I just started using Goodreads and I'm so happy I found this group. I read a lot of Catholic thought so I think I fit right in.

Welcome Lizzy! I am sure you will fit in perfectly. I hope you can join us in reading Fulton Sheen's Treasure in Clay: The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen which we just started to discuss this past week.

Welcome Lizzy. Kerstin mentioned what we're currently reading Fulton Sheen's autobiography. If you're having trouble navigating through our folders, just send me a note and I'll do what I can to help. You can find our folder with this discussion here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...

We have the reading schedule in the Introduction.

I also see you are currently reading The Noonday Devil: Acedia, the Unnamed Evil of Our Times. We read that some three years ago. You can still see that discussion here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Manny wrote: "Welcome Lizzy. Kerstin mentioned what we're currently reading Fulton Sheen's autobiography. If you're having trouble navigating through our folders, just send me a note and I'll do what I can to he..."

Thank you very much, Manny!

My name is Bill, I am from Newington Connecticut. I am Catholic. A book a highly recommend is Padre Pio wonder worker. I had the honor to attend a mass of Pope John Paul II at the aquaduct race track in Brooklyn NY in 1995.

William wrote: "My name is Bill, I am from Newington Connecticut. I am Catholic. A book a highly recommend is Padre Pio wonder worker. I had the honor to attend a mass of Pope John Paul II at the aquaduct race tra..."

Welcome Bill. What a grace to have been at that Mass. I had the fortunate grace to have been in the audience at tge Pope Frances Mass at Madison Square Garden when he traveled to our country a few years ago.

That sounds like a worthy book for us to read as a group. Perhaps you can nominate it on our next vote for a regular read. Currently we are reading Fulton Sheen's autobiography Treasure in Clay: The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen. We are about half way. It reads fast. If you wish, i bet you can catch up. I
I
Thanks for joining us.

William wrote: "My name is Bill, I am from Newington Connecticut. I am Catholic. A book a highly recommend is Padre Pio wonder worker. I had the honor to attend a mass of Pope John Paul II at the aquaduct race tra..."

Hi Bill and welcome!
I had the privilege as well to see Pope John Paul II in person in 1994, I believe it was. This was long before my conversion. My husband went to Rome on a business trip and I tagged along. We had a few days sightseeing and on one of the days of his meetings I went back to St. Peter's since it is so awe-inspiring. Lo and behold the entire square was packed with pilgrim buses from Poland, 120 of them (I counted), and it took forever to get past the security into St. Peter's, which was packed. Intrigued I found a place on the side right behind the pews, stood and waited. It ended up being a mixture of Polish folklore dances and a general audience with the Pope. They turned on all the lights in the Basilika, and I was so awe-struck! It gave this sacred space such a different ambience. I didn't understand a single word of what he said, since he obviously spoke in Polish, but I did understand the Our Father's. No matter which language it is spoken, the cadence of the words is the same. And after the prayer and a few words of farewell everyone filed out again.

I've posted this before but since we have a number of new people, perhaps they might me interested of details from attending that papal Mass in NYC. I wrote this up on my blog at the time.

Here's how I got the tickets:
https://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot....

Here are pictures from the Papal Mass:
https://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot....

And here is my exegesis on the Pope's homily, which was particularly good:
https://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot....

And finally I bought the official Papal Mass rosary. Here's a post on that:
https://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot....

Hey everyone,

My name is Chad, I'm a 33 year old cradle Catholic from Catholic Southeastern Louisiana. I had a strong deepening of my faith in my high school years and have been heavily interested in apologetics since then. Over the last year I have seen my faith begin to shift more and more to the traditional spectrum, likely in correlation to the current situation in our church. In addition to reading about apolgetics, I also enjoy reading biographies of the Saints and church leaders, Councillor documents, and contemporary catholic pieces, as well as general history and historical fiction.

How wonderful! Welcome, Chad.

Glad to have a new voice!

Welcome Chad! Make yourself at home here, and we look forward to your participation. Right now we are reading the Gospel of Matthew in preparation of Year A in the liturgical cycle. At the same time we're looking for suggestions/nominations for our upcoming long read, which we'll vote on next week. This means a long work with 500+ pages which we'll break up into several reading segments so it won't feel like such a marathon and to keep the interest fresh.

Welcome Chad! You've come to the right place. With all due respect to the other Catholic book clubs on Goodreads, I consider us the more intellectual. ;)

As Kerstin points out, we are reading the Gospel of Matthew, and you can find that discussion here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

And as she also points out we are in the process of nominating our long term read. You can see what we mean by a "long term" read and you can nominate one yourself here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

We're glad you found us. :)

Welcome, Chad

Hello, all! I recently reactivated my Goodreads account started some 7 years ago . . . I clicked to follow Alice von Hildebrand and saw this group had discussions on her . . . I thought, "That is the group for me!"

So here I am! I'm Gwen Adams, a Catholic teacher, speaker, writer, and director. I'm interested in seeing your comments and recommendations on Catholic books, and also your recommendations for books in other fields. I hope it is okay to be in this group, even if I'm rarely able to keep up with the chosen books for the month. It's exciting to see people reading so many good books.

Right now I'm hunting high and low for a book for creatives on creative and relational marketing methods. If you don't want to use social media or email . . . what else is there? I want to find something analog, or if not analog, something digital which lets me engage personally with people, even if we happen to be interacting over a product or business matter. I have a website, but I never see or talk to anyone who visits it. Live events are my favorite -- opportunities for eye contact and real interaction. Is there anything else a little like that? I need a book. Maybe you have a recommendation!

The other kind of book I'm looking for is a book with ideas to help me structure my Catholic theater project on a better financial footing. Anyone have any ideas? There must be a book out there! I'm planning to look for these books in marketing and theater groups, lists, but it would be awesome to find a book recommended both by marketers, people in theater, AND Catholics.

Looking forward to the discussions!
Best,
Gwen

Welcome! I am a retired high school teacher--English and Theater Arts. I also taught a graduate class one summer at UTArlington on Creativity in the Classroom. I spent a few years in our city's community theater so I'm very interested in your work. I didn't find a Kindle edition of your book, but I'll try to get it on Formed.

Thank you, Madeleine! I will probably ask you for theater books and recommendations!

Welcome Gwen!

Gwen wrote: "Hello, all! I recently reactivated my Goodreads account started some 7 years ago . . . I clicked to follow Alice von Hildebrand and saw this group had discussions on her . . . I thought, "That is t..."

Welcome Gwen, nice to meet you! I am an Spanish writer and I also love theatre. I write plays and Christian genres (as examples you have my testimony "Pasos de gigante" and my play "La doncella de Orléans", about Jeanne D'Arc). I don't know about financial or economics, but it would be a pleasure collaborate giving you my advices and sharing my interests with you :)