Catholic Thought discussion

Group

I wanted to provide a calendar for the near term events. First this is the last week of Mark Twain’s Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc. I’m sure by this time you are aware of the folder. Of course you can comment there on the book at any time, even years from now. Starting next week is the discussion for Mother Teresa’s Heart of Joy, which will run three weeks. There is a folder there for that discussion, and I will add topic files for each of the three weeks of discussion.

After Heart of Joy will be our first short read which should run two weeks. Kerstin has picked the Gospel of Mark as our short read to dovetail with the new Liturgical Year, which will be B, which is primarily focused on Mark. There is already a Bible Study folder, and I will create a file for Mark’s Gospel. Mark has sixteen chapters, and so if you want to budget your time I’d consider eight chapters per week.

In parallel with the short read will be nominations and voting for our next read, which will be a regularly priced book. So the schedule for the next two months looks like this:

24 Sep–14 Oct -- Heart of Joy
1 Oct-14 Oct -- Nominations & Poll for Next Read
15 Oct—21 Oct Time to Purchase New Read
15 Oct-28 Oct -- Gospel of Mark (Short Read)
29 Oct—TBD – Next Read

Of course we can modify this as we go along if a need arises. Hopefully we won’t tie and need a runoff poll again.

Any issues, let me know.

Thank you Loretta. :)

Like the schedule! Helps to know what's coming.

Nope :)
Anyone can read the Bible they have at hand and/or the translation they prefer. Different translations make for great conversations.

The reason I used this one is two-fold:
1) It is the official translation the USCCB uses
2) One can't find a copy of the Gospel of Mark by itself. Both Manny and I tried. I imagine that goes for just about all books of the Bible, so we'll use this icon instead.

Loretta wrote: "Hmm, just noticed that for our upcoming read on the Gospel of Mark you uploaded The New Revised American Bible. I use the Douay-Rheims bible. Hope that won't be a problem."

Loretta, if our discussion is so scholarly that it depends on translation I would be amazed. :)

Kerstin wrote: "Nope :)
Anyone can read the Bible they have at hand and/or the translation they prefer. Different translations make for great conversations.

The reason I used this one is two-fold:
1) It is the o..."

I am planning on reading the Navarre Commentary, which in English is based on the RSV-CE, with parallel New Vulgate (since I don't read Latin, I'll be ignoring that bit) and commentary by the Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarre, which was founded by St. Escriva.

Loretta wrote: "The Navarre commentaries are a very good resource John. Will be interested to see what additional information you can provide for us. "

Yes, I really like them. I read the full set the first time I read the entire Bible. My morning scripture reading is now from Biblia de Jerusalén, which I am reading in part to try to improve my Spanish. But if I add a heft dose of Evangelio Según San Marcos to my regular efforts, it would just take too much time.

Yikes, I messed up the calendar. Gospel of Mark was to be discussed after Heart of Joy. I got confused and started discussing the short read. So we'll do both in parallel. Sorry about that.

Loretta wrote: "Manny wrote: "Yikes, I messed up the calendar. Gospel of Mark was to be discussed after Heart of Joy. I got confused and started discussing the short read. So we'll do both in parallel. Sorry about..."

LOL, it used to be a lot simpler going from one read to the next. ;)

Group

Because the latter chapters of Augustine's Confessions are difficult, Kerstin and I decided it might be best to extend our read an extra week. So instead of ending on December 9th, we'll extend discussions to December 16th.

So here's what we have after that. We have to vote for the long, recurring read. As a reminder and for those that are new, if you go to our thread "A Plan for Short and Returning Reads" (https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...), our next read will be the long read, returning read. We'll need a week for nominations and a week for voting and a week for acquiring the book. So that's a three week gap that will get filled with a short read.

Short reads were to be picked at the discretion of the moderator (we don't want to waste time nominating and voting) and given we are coming off a "heavy" read and given the Christmas holiday, I wanted to make this a light, fun read.

But I'm having a little difficult time finding something appropriate. Dickens has a number of Christmas stories and they are all online. However, other than A Christmas Carol - which we've probably all read - I don't know if those other stories are any good. So I'm open to suggestions. Is there anything light and appropriate to the Christmas season and relatively short?

Kerstin sent me a suggestion for a short read that has really captivated me for a Christmas read. It's by an Austrian writer, Adalbert Stifter and his work is the novella, Rock Crystal. You can read the reviews but it comes highly endorsed by the German Nobel winning author Thomas Mann and the American poets W.H. Auden and Marianne Moore.

Actually one of our Catholic Thought members (Dhanaraj Rajan) gave it a five star rating, so I know it must be a good read.

You can find the text online and Kindle has a free version as well, or you can purchase the paperback. It seems to be about 50 pages long, so that should easily hold us for the three weeks.

I've never heard of Stifter or this novel, but it sounds like a classic everyone should read. Great idea Kerstin! Let's go with it!

Thank you, Manny and Kerstin. I just ordered a copy from Amazon. The reviews of the book are excellent.

My library has this and I've placed a hold - I am number one in line and it is on the shelves, so it should arrive at my library within a week or so.

I requested Rock Crystal. Anything Thomas Mann and the other fine people endorse must be good reading.

Well, online Catholic magazine, Crises, has an article on "10 Christmas Stories Every Father Should Read to His Children" by Sean Fitzpatrick. It did not include Rock Crystal. He probably never heard of it, like me until Kerstin mentioned it. Here's the article:
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2017/10...

Here we're familiar with mostly English language Christmas stories, the ones in other languages are probably not often translated, especially if you have an author that is not as well known outside the native language.

Since our last move I've been organizing our books a little better, and came across some Christmas books my family had given me over the years, all full of poetry, novellas, and novels suitable for the season. Here I find Paula Dehmel, Theodor Fontane, Theodor Storm, Ludwig Bechstein, Karl May, Karl Heinrich Waggerl, Rainer Maria Rilke, etc., etc., names that may not be familiar to many.
I've begun reading in these collections, and I must say that I find some of these stories not at all edifying. What some literati make of Christmas is rather strange.

Kerstin wrote: "Here we're familiar with mostly English language Christmas stories, the ones in other languages are probably not often translated, especially if you have an author that is not as well known outside...

I've begun reading in these collections"

Yikes, you have time for more reading. I'm still stuck on Book XI of the Confessions. ;)

Ah, they are mostly lighter reading, so when my brain can't handle St. Augustine's deeper thoughts I grab one of those :)

Just a note on the upcoming schedule. This is the last week for discussing St. Augustine's Confessions. Next up is the long term, recurring read. And let me define that again. Given that book clubs seem to have an endurance of about six weeks of discussion at the max for any given work before interest dies out, a large book can only be handled in segments that recur. So we would read for about a months length of time to a convenient stop in the book, and go one to our next reads and then pick back up with the recurring read when it's turn comes up. We would do this for as often as required to complete the book.

So the schedule is:
Dec 17 - 23 for nominations,
Dec 24 - 30 for voting,
Dec 31 - Jan 6 for getting the book.
Jan 7- 13 first week of reading
Jan 14 - 20 first week of discussion.

I'll set up a discussion topic to start brainstorming conversation about the long term read. We can start official nominations on Monday. This does give us a breather.

But don't forget, we start our short read next week, Rock Crystal. I've started reading and I'm enjoying it.

Manny wrote: "But don't forget, we start our short read next week, Rock Crystal. I've started reading and I'm enjoying it. "

Ooops. I should have double checked the schedule. I also started reading this week after picking it up from the library on Sunday. It is a beautifully written story, and I'm enjoying it greatly, though I'll put it to one side now. and finish next week. It really is a very quick read.

John wrote: "Manny wrote: "But don't forget, we start our short read next week, Rock Crystal. I've started reading and I'm enjoying it. "

Ooops. I should have double checked the schedule. I also started readin..."

Yes, I'm reading it now as well. Nicely written and reads very fast. i'm enjoying it too,

Here's our near term schedule. We're supposed to finish up with Dante's Inferno next week on the 17th. That means while we will still be posting comments on it the week of 19th through 24th, we can be getting ready for the next read. So here's what I propose. We can start nominations for the Lenten read immediately, and I will open a folder right after this. We can nominate through Tuesday the 13th, and voting will begin on Ash Wednesday, the 14th. We can hold voting through Sunday the 18th, and use that week to acquire the book. Reading can start the week of the 25th of February.

How does that sound?

Sounds good to me, Manny.

Just want to announce the near term schedule. We are wrapping up with Cardinal Sarah's The Power of Silence and will be transitioning to the second part of the long term read, Dante's The Divine Comedy. The second part will be his middle section, Purgatorio.

But to transition from one deep work to another deep work, I thought we needed a breather or better put a palate cleanser. So while I wasn't thinking about a short read since there was nothing to vote on, Kerstin recommended we do. I think that's a good idea.

So for a short read, I was thinking of a few religiously minded poems. How about three poems by Gerard Manly Hopkins over a two week period? Each poem probably takes ten minutes to read, though Hopkins can be a bit difficult to get. But I'll walk you through them and if you are like most, you will find each poem to be a prayer in itself. And best yet, his poetry is free on the internet.

So the three poems I pick, in order of difficulty, are the following:
"The May Magnificat"
"God's Grandeur"
"The Windhover"

You can google each of these poems. You can find his biography on Wikipedia and you can learn a little bit about his poetric style at Poetry Foundation, here:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poet...

So the near term schedule goes as follows:
June 17 - June 23: The Power of Silence, discussion of chpt. 4, read to end.
June 24 - June 30: Discussion of chpt 5 & conclusion of The Power of Silence; read Hopkins three poems.
July 1 - July 7: Discussion of first two Hopkins poems.
July 8 - July 14: Discussion of "The Windhover." Read first five cantos of Dante's Purgatorio.
July 15 - July 21: Discussion of first five cantos of Dante's Purgatorio.
Thereafter we will read and discuss six subsequent cantos from Purgatorio. We should finish with Purgatorio around August 25th.

How does that sound?

If you want to, we can start with Purgatorio July 15th or any date we finish the poems. In order to have our next major read show on the home page I had to pick a starting date, which I can easily change.

Kerstin wrote: "If you want to, we can start with Purgatorio July 15th or any date we finish the poems. In order to have our next major read show on the home page I had to pick a starting date, which I can easily ..."

July 15 is fine for it to come up on the home page.

Now that we’re winding down with reading Dante’s Purgatorio, Kerstin and I wanted to put together an upcoming schedule for the book club.

The week of September 17th is the last week of reading Purgatorio. Of course we can still comment on it afterwards. Hopefully by the end of this weekend (or perhaps a bit more) I’ll have the last summary up.

On the week of the 23rd of September we are going to take nominations for our next read. One week for nominations and then one week – the week of the 30th – to vote for our next read. This time up in the cycle is the inexpensive read, which means we want to select a book that has an option for purchase at under $5. Usually this means books that are on the public domain, but not necessarily so. Amazon used books can be relatively inexpensive. The week of Oct 7th will be a time set aside to acquire the new book.

While we nominate and vote and acquire the new book, we will also have a short read. Kerstin has picked “The Writings of Clement of Rome” as the short read for the down interval. It’s probable we can get this off the internet. More on this as we move closer to the date.

The new read will start the 14th of October, and depending what it is, should take us to mid to end of November. At that point we will have another short read while we prepare for the next book. Last year I got so much out of reading the Gospel of Mark as a preparation for the liturgical year B that we will do the Gospel of Luke as the short read to prepare us for the liturgical year C.

I hope that sounds satisfactory for everyone. I hope you’re still with me on Dante’s Purgatorio. It has taken longer than I anticipated. If you can tell by my comments and summaries, it’s been a real joy for me. Dante is the greatest.

This sounds excellent Manny. I’m sorry I’ve been MIA but life has kept me busy - primarily a move across the country from Pacific Northwest to North Carolina. And we we lucky enough to have been spared from the wrath of Florence, thanks be to God. I look forward to participating with this group again in the coming season.

Kristen wrote: "This sounds excellent Manny. I’m sorry I’ve been MIA but life has kept me busy - primarily a move across the country from Pacific Northwest to North Carolina. And we we lucky enough to have been sp..."

Looking forward to you joining us Kristen. And thank God Florence - on of my favorite names by the way - was not as devastating as predicted. Keep safe nonetheless.

Kristen, So glad that you are safe. The news reports of the flooding from the coast is horrendous. The loss will be catastrophic. I don't know how communities rebuild.

Group

Let's plan the next few weeks. We have two weeks left with Robert Hugh Benson's Confessions of a Convert. Then we will need to nominate, vote, and acquire our next read.

While we do that, we can have a short read. Last year at this time we did the Gospel of Mark as a short read in preparation for the upcoming transition to Liturgical B calendar. I thought that was great and helpful as we read the Gospel of Mark throughout the year. The upcoming year is Liturgical C, which is the Gospel of Luke. So let's read Luke's Gospel as our short read.

Here's the schedule, laid out in weeks:

28 Oct - 3 Nov: Benson, Confessions, Chapters 4 & 5
4 Nov - 10 Nov: Benson, Confessions, Chapters 6, 7, 8
11 Nov - 17 Nov: Nominations for next read; Luke, chpts 1-8
18 Nov - 24 Nov: Voting for next read; Luke, chpts 9-16
25 Nov - 1 Dec: Acquiring book for next read; Luke, chpts 17-24

How does that sound?

Slight adjustment to the near term schedule I posted right above this comment. I would like to extend the discussion of "Benson, Confessions, Chapters 6, 7, 8" one more week. I have not added my comments to those last three chapters, and I do want to. Plus Kerstin is away. She is off attending the Christening of her first grandchild - God bless! - and though she said to go on without her, perhaps she may want to add some more comments to Benson's Confessions of a Convert also.

So if you have finished Confessions, you can start reading our short term read in between reads, which in this case is The Gospel of Luke. We'll start discussing Luke next week.

So that we keep on pace, we still will be taking nominations for our next read. I've set up a file in the Nominations folder.

With this being our last week of our read of Scott Hahn’s Joy to the World, I wanted to provide a near term schedule. Our next major read is a return to our long term read, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and we’re up to the last of the three canticles, “Paradisio.” But Kerstin and I want to have two short reads before we start that up.

First up is something a bit different. It’s an essay by Mortimer J. Adler, “How to Mark a Book.” Amazingly this is actually a controversial subject. Some people believe a book should never be written in and others (such as myself) write almost all my thoughts on the margins as I read. The great Liberal Arts professor provides his insights from a famous essay he published in 1941 on how to mark up a book. This could provide a lively discussion. You can find Adler’s essay, here: http://academics.keene.edu/tmendham/d...

Second up, in coordination with the Feast of our Lord’s Baptism (Jan 13th), Kerstin would like to read a short document from the Church Father, St. Hippolytus of Rome, “The Discourse on the Holy Theophany.” St Hippolytus lived from 170-235 AD, and the “Discourse” provides an early understanding of the Holy Spirit. You can find the essay here: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0523...

Both essays are free on the internet and only a few pages long. So here’s where I see the schedule:

30 Dec – 5 Jan: Last week of Joy to the World
6-12 Jan: “How to Read a Book”
13-19 Jan: “The Discourse on the Holy Theophany”
20-26 Jan: First week of Dante’s Paradisio

I’ll have a full schedule of Paradisio (I expect it to take 6-8 weeks) when we start. I hope you’ll join us on these reads.

Just an update. While I finish up on Dante's Paradiso, I think it makes sense to push forward with our next read. Kerstin will announce a short read we can find on line and then we can start The Imitation of Christ. She'll announce the schedule.

As for Dante, we're not finished. But because of my work schedule, which had suddenly become overwhelming, and the difficulty of the read, I am behind on the forecast reading plan. If you're reading along with me, don't worry. I'm not going to skimp on my comments. But I think for those who can handle more than a read or those not reading Dante or finished with Dante, we can move on in parallel.

Just an update. While I finish up on Dante's Paradiso, I think it makes sense to push forward with our next read. Kerstin will announce a short read we can find on line and then we can start The Imitation of Christ. She'll announce the schedule.

As for Dante, we're not finished. But because of my work schedule, which had suddenly become overwhelming, and the difficulty of the read, I am behind on the forecast reading plan. If you're reading along with me, don't worry. I'm not going to skimp on my comments. But I think for those who can handle more than a read or those not reading Dante or finished with Dante, we can move on in parallel.

On Monday following Easter (4/22), we will begin reading Thomas à Kempis' The Imitation of Christ. So here's our discussion schedule. The book is divided into four parts, called "Books." Books 1, 2, and 4 are quite manageable as a single week reading while Book 3 is about double the others. So we can divide Book 3 into two weeks. As our custom, we read one week and discuss the second. Here's a list of the discussion weeks:

Book 1: 28 April to 4 May
Book 2: 5 May to 11 May
Book 3/1: 12 May to 18 May
Book 3/2: 19 May to 25 May
Book 4: 26 May to 1 June

Kerstin will provide sectional summaries. Of course you can discuss an earlier section after their assigned week.

The book is easily accessible online for free. There are several websites, but here is one:
http://www.literatureproject.com/imit...

I'll send out a message to all book club members, since not everyone has subscribed to email notices. You will see this same message in your mail.

Have a Blessed Holy Weekend.

Manny wrote: "On Monday following Easter (4/22), we will begin reading Thomas à Kempis' The Imitation of Christ. So here's our discussion schedule. The book is divided into four parts, called "Book..."

Cannot wait to read this book, it has been one of the books that I have not gotten around to read. I thought I had the book, but alas I did not. I will buying a hard copy at the first of the month, but so I can be a part of the discussion I found a decent eReader copy for my Nook for a good low price.

Let me provide an upcoming schedule. We are in the last week of reading The Imitation of Christ. So next week we can start nominations for our next read. Since we are now integrating a Catholic fiction read into our cycle, I figured with the approaching summer it would be ideal to start with our new category. We will take nominations during the week of June 2nd. We will vote on the nominations the week of June 9th. And we will take a week to acquire the book the week of June 16th. So reading will begin the week of June 23rd.

In the interim we will have a short read, and given we have three weeks to fill I thought it would be appropriate to read the three letters of John as we continue to make our way through the New Testament. So the week of June 2nd we will read and discuss 1 John; the week of June 9th, 2 John; and the week of June 16th, 3 John. All three of the letters are short, so this should be an easy and fun read. I hope you'll join us.

After this week we have one more week of discussing Mariette in Ecstasy, and I wanted to bring everyone up to speed with our near term schedule.

Our next read per our cycle is our open to anything (still must be Catholic oriented), any cost book of reasonable length. If we finish Mariette next week, we can start nominations on the Sunday, August 25th and have nominations lasting all that week. Nominations will close on Saturday night, August 31st, and voting will commence on September 1st. One week of voting will then end on September 7th. We give ourselves one week to obtain the book, which puts us reading on September 15th. At that point I will put out a reading schedule based on the organization of the book.

So we have the three week gap to fill with a short read. For those new to this book club, short reads are not subject to a vote because it would take three weeks to pick one. Moderators choose a short read, and Kerstin has chosen an important papal encyclical, Pascendi Dominici gregis, or in English, Feeding the Lord’s Flock put out by Pope Pius X in 1907. The encyclical is subtitled “On the Doctrines of the Modernists.” I’ve been wanting to read this myself because it is so relevant today. This document perhaps splits the Church in half. Those that wish to hold traditional views point to Pascendi; those that wish to move with the modern times are forced to reject Pascendi. Whichever your position, you ought to know what Pope Pius X was promulgating.

You can find the document on line either at the Vatican website or perhaps easier at New Advent. Here is the link at the Vatican:
https://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-x/...

And here is the link at New Advent:
http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs...

I hope you’ll join us in that read. It should be an interesting discussion.

I'll send out a PM to the entire book club since not everyone gets email notices or reads them all. I should also add, that printed out, the entire encyclical is only 25 to 30 pages long. It's not a burden to read.

There is a novena to Pope St. Pius X on the Faith and Family website, another email subscription I have, but there are others. I had the link written down but it has gone into hiding!

For those interested: for our short read, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, in addition to the various single editions one can find free or to purchase, there is a compilation by TAN Books of papal documents that speak out on modern errors spanning from 1832 to 1950, The Popes Against Modern Errors: 16 Papal Documents.

And today is Pope St. Pius X feast day, the author of Pascendi Dominici Gregis, our next read.

Book club members, this is our last week to discuss Treasure in Clay and wanted to bring everyone up to speed on the upcoming schedule.

Our next read is scheduled to be our long term read. For those who are new, our long term read is a work that is large, so that it can be broken up into segments. The logic here is that since such a work would require several months, it would be tedious to be stuck with one book for such a long period of time. I’m thinking of works that are at least 500 pages. Depending how we would break this work up, we would read a segment, then move onto the next books in our cycle and return for the next segment when we’re back to the long term read. We did this for Dante’s Divine Comedy.

We are now in the cycle where we will have to vote for a new long term read. So one week, next week, for nominations. The following week for a vote. And the third week to acquire the work. And then we start.

While we do those three weeks, we would normally have a short term read, and with the transition to the Year A on the Mass readings for next year, we should read the Gospel of Matthew. For the past two years our book club at this time of year has read the Gospels of Mark (for the Year B) and Luke (for Year C). I personally have gotten so much out of reading the Gospel up front in its entirety. I want to continue this tradition. So we’ll read and discuss Matthew in the three weeks.

Now there has been another tradition here at Catholic Thought Book Club for December, and that’s a Christmas read. It’s usually fun and enjoyable and Kerstin and I think we should continue it. So after reading the Gospel of Matthew, which should bring us to December, we will take a break and have a Christmas read. Kerstin is trying to decide what that Christmas read should be. Perhaps you can give some suggestions.

To recap, the next three weeks will have these activities:

Week of Nov 10th:
(1) Nominations for long term read
(2) Read and discuss Gospel of Matthew chapters 1 thru 9.

Week of Nov 17th:
(1) Vote on long term read.
(2) Read and discuss Gospel of Matthew chapters 10 thru 18.

Week of Nov 24th:
(1) Acquire the long term read.
(2) Read and discuss Gospel of Matthew chapters 19 thru 28.

Beyond that we will start the long term read and at some point take a break for a Christmas read.

How does that sound?

Wow. Right now our parish Bible Study is in the middle of Ascension Press's study: Matthew: The King and His Kingdom.
I can handle this one.

Madeleine wrote: "Wow. Right now our parish Bible Study is in the middle of Ascension Press's study: Matthew: The King and His Kingdom.
I can handle this one."

Aren't you lucky! :-)

How about if we work sequentially. First lets get the nominations in for the long read, and after that's decided we'll focus on the Christmas read. I'll put some suggestions together and I am sure many of you will have ideas as well.

OK Kerstin.

Madeleine wrote: "Wow. Right now our parish Bible Study is in the middle of Ascension Press's study: Matthew: The King and His Kingdom.
I can handle this one."

Madeline, That's a good study. Our small group did that one a few years back, and just finished up the new Ascension Press Romans study, which is 5 star fantastic. We are now reading Grace & Justification: An Evangelical's Guide to Catholic Beliefs, which is a good summary of the idea of justification as understood in the Catholic versus Protestant traditions. Excellent book.

Ashleigh wrote: "Madeline, That's a good study. Our small group did that one a few years back, and just finished up the new Ascension Press Romans study, which is 5 star fantastic. We are now reading Grace & Justification: An Evangelical's Guide to Catholic Beliefs, which is a good summary of the idea of justification as understood in the Catholic versus Protestant traditions. Excellent book"

Ashleigh, I have to get that book. It's amazing how many arguments I have with Protestants over Justification. Sometimes I wonder if I'm correct. It's not something that's normally taught. I would love to read that book with the book club next time we have a new book to read. Unfortunately such theological books rarely get voted in. At least that seems to be my perception.

Manny wrote: "Unfortunately such theological books rarely get voted in. At least that seems to be my perception."

We have too many great choices each time we vote and our supply of good books seems endless :-)