Review: Reflections on the Sunday Gospel: How to More Fully Live Out Your Relationship With God

 

Reflections on the Sunday Gospel

About the Book:

Pope Francis illuminates a new, vibrant way of experiencing the Gospel through moving, intimate, and deeply meditative reflections that encourage us to live fully with meaning, purpose, and strength.

We live in an unprecedented time that has threatened to upend our daily rhythms, our work, our homes, even our faith. More than ever, we need books like Reflections on the Sunday Gospel to stir us to hope, to comfort, to peace. We need to remember what we live for and how good God is.

These reflections—published in English for the first time, drawn both from homilies given by Pope Francis and readings from the Fathers of the Church, including Saint Augustine, Saint Jerome, and Saint Ambrose—do more than offer a way to enter into the liturgical year with weekly readings to enrich your devotional time. They offer Christ, and the power of His resurrection. They offer His words of assurance: “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33, ESV).

Ultimately, as Pope Francis guides us through these timeless words, we will glean how even the giants of the faith needed God as much as we do, and how we can draw near to a good and faithful God no matter where we are or what season we’re in.

My Comments:

Usually when I get a book on NetGalley, the publication date is within a few months.  Generally publishers ask us to hold our reviews until about thirty days before publication.  I just noticed that the publication date for this book is November, 2022, which at first raised my eyebrows, but then got me thinking.  

If you are not familiar with the Catholic Lectionary, it is the book that contains the readings for Mass that day.  While there is some flexibility on weekdays, if you go to Sunday Mass anywhere in the world, you are going to hear the same Scripture readings as all other Catholics.  The Lectionary presents these Sunday readings in a three year cycle with each year focusing on a different synoptic gospel.  This year that gospel is the Gospel of Matthew.  When Advent begins, we start another church year and will move on to a different Gospel.  This year's cycle is the same as the one starting in November, 2022.  

So, now that you've had a quick lesson on Scripture in the Catholic Mass, what about the book?  As noted, it contains writings of Pope Francis about the readings each week.  This week's readings are here.  

 

In case the link doesn't work when you are reading this, the First Reading is from Exodus and tells the Israelites not to oppress people. The Second Reading is from Thessalonians and Paul is praising them for showing his preaching by their lives.  The Gospel is Jesus saying you shall love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself.  

 

Chapters in the book begin with Pope Francis' reflection.  In this case he points out that the loving God and loving neighbor are inseparable as people are made in the image of God.  He also states that we cannot separate prayer and devotion and service to others.  He says "In the middle of the dense forest of rules and regulations--the legalisms of the past and present--Jesus makes an opening through which one can catch a glimpse of two faces:  the face of the Father and the face of the brother. He does not give us two formulas or two precepts;  there are no precepts or formulas.  He gives us two faces , actually, only one real face, that of God reflecte din the many faces, because in the face of each brother...there is God's own image.  

 

Following the Holy Father's teaching is a reading from the Fathers of the Church, in this case, St. Maximus the Confessor, who in this excerpt talks about love.  This does not appear to be one long teaching but rather excerpts from a variety of things, based on the ellipses and brackets.  One quote I liked was "He who loves God cannot help but love every man as himself, even if he abhors the passions of those not yet purified". 

 

I'd say the teachings from Pope Francis are pretty much the type of things he is known for--don't judge, love, care for the poor etc.  If Pope Francis is like fingernails on a chalkboard to you, you probably won't like this book.  If he is "your" Pope, you will.  I like him, so I'm giving this book a B+

Thanks to Image Books: Mega Advent Giveaway

Image Books' package arrived today and contained three books:

The Joy of the Gospel: Evangelii Gaudium

About the Book:

This special edition of Pope Francis's popular message of hope explores themes that are important for believers in the 21st century. Examining the many obstacles to faith and what can be done to overcome those hurdles, he emphasizes the importance of service to God and all his creation. Advocating for “the homeless, the addicted, refugees, indigenous peoples, the elderly who are increasingly isolated and abandoned,” the Holy Father shows us how to respond to poverty and current economic challenges that affect us locally and globally. Ultimately, Pope Francis demonstrates how to develop a more personal relationship with Jesus Christ, “to recognize the traces of God’s Spirit in events great and small.”

Profound in its insight, yet warm and accessible in its tone, The Joy of the Gospel is a call to action to live a life motivated by divine love and, in turn, to experience heaven on earth. 

Includes a foreword by Robert Barron, author of Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith and James Martin, SJ, author of Jesus: A Pilgrimage

My Comments:

So many books; so little time....This one really looks like a read a paragraph or two and meditate on it type book rather than a read it through for hours type.

The Feasts: How the Church Year Forms Us as Catholics

About the Book:

Every day is a holiday in the Catholic Church. In their latest collaboration, Cardinal Wuerl and Mike Aquilina examine the history and traditions behind both favorite and forgotten holidays, from Christmas to Easter, from the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity to the Feast of the Holy Angels

Catholic faith is festive, and the Catholic faithful count their days by celebrating the mysteries of Jesus’ life. There is a message to be found in the passing of days, weeks, and seasons. Through the feasts, ordinary Christians learn the life of Christ, share it, and come to imitate it.

This book continues the work the authors began in their books The Mass and The Church, exploring the meaning and purpose of the most basic and beloved aspects of Catholic life. Each chapter uncovers the biblical origins and development of one of the great feasts or fasts — Advent, Epiphany, the Holy Angels, all the Marian feasts, and even this very day. The calendar can be a catechism for Catholics who know how to live it.

“The feasts form us,” write the authors, “They help to make us and remake us according to the pattern of the life of Jesus Christ. We number our days as we walk in his footsteps, from his birth to his baptism, from his passion to his resurrection, from his Ascension to his sending of the Spirit to make us saints. We do this faithfully every year, and it defines us as who we are.”

“Cardinal Wuerl and Aquilina show us the transformative spiritual power in the Church’s original and most ancient feasts. This is a book to be prayed with and meditated on. Because when we understand the meaning of the Church’s liturgical feasts, we know better the great dignity and destiny we have as children of God.” 

- Most Reverend José Gomez, Archbishop of Los Angeles

My Comments:

My quick perusal of this one confirms that like the other books by this duo, it is easy to read and written in an instructive style.  

Joy to the World: How Christ's Coming Changed Everything (and Still Does)

About the Book:

What could be more familiar than the Christmas story -- and yet what could be more extraordinary? The cast of characters is strange and exotic: shepherds and magicians, an emperor and a despot, angels, and a baby who is Almighty God. The strangeness calls for an explanation, and this book provides it by examining the characters and the story in light of the biblical and historical context. Bestselling author Scott Hahn who has written extensively on Scripture and the early Church, brings evidence to light, dispelling some of the mystery of the story. Yet Christmas is made familiar all over again by showing it to be a family story. Christmas, as it appears in the New Testament, is the story of a father, a mother, and a child -- their relationships, their interactions, their principles, their individual lives, and their common life. To see the life of this "earthly trinity" is to gaze into heaven.

My Comments:

I think that given the season, this one is going to the top of my TBR stack.  Hopefully I'll get a review up this week.  

Review: On Heaven and Earth

On Heaven and Earth: Pope Francis on Faith, Family, and the Church in the Twenty-First Century

About the Book:

For years Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, archbishop of Argentina, and Rabbi Abraham Skorka were tenacious promoters of interreligious dialogues on faith and reason. They both sought to build bridges among Catholicism, Judaism, and the world at large. On Heaven and Earth, originally published in Argentina in 2010, brings together a series of these conversations where both men talked about various theological and worldly issues, including God, fundamentalism, atheism, abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, and globalization. From these personal and accessible talks comes a first-hand view of the man who would become pope to 1.2 billion Catholics around the world in March 2013.

My Comments:

When Pope Francis was first elected, publishers seemed to rush to print anything they could to tell the world about this man.  This book is one of those efforts.  It is interesting to see the Jewish perspective on moral issues of our day and religious issues in general and to see how they compare and contrast to the Catholic views of the man who is now Pope Francis.  Both Bergoglio and Skorka and respectful of the positions of the other and yet firm in their own beliefs.  Topics discussed include prayer, women, euthanasia, education, money, politics, same-sex marriage, abortion, divorce and more.  

While this book has its interesting points, the variety of topics covered and the two separate views make it hard to remember who said what about what.  If comparing and contrasting Jewish and Catholic beliefs is of interest to you, this book would be right up your alley. It's not really a theological treatise and it doesn't go deeply enough into any one subject to be an authoritative text, but it is highly readable. 

I'd like to thank the publisher for providing a complimentary review copy through the Blogging for Books program.  Grade:  B-