What are you currently reading?

[Bonaventure]

Just finished Huxley's Brave New World.  What a depressing read (especially the ending).

Was this your first read?

[Maximilian]

Yes, I have never read anything by Fr. Faber, but I am very definitely going to have to add one of his books to my reading list; any recommendations, Max? (Hopefully nothing to do with Scotsmens wearing kilts, Har!).

Drop whatever you're doing, stop wasting your time reading speculative theology, and pick up Fr. Faber's "Growth in Holiness." It is the ideal thing for someone like yourself. You can read it on-line for free, but it's worth the investment to buy a paper copy. I bought a used hardback ex-seminary some years back on Ebay or Amazon (or maybe Abe Books), and it's the best money I've ever spent.

Based on his experience being a spiritual director, Fr. Faber knows exactly why you and I are not progressing in the spiritual life, and what we should do about it. He has mastered all the medieval spiritual manuals and condensed them into a single, readable volume that is very accessible to the modern man. He is so personable that you feel that you know him as a good friend after reading some of his writing.

As traditional Catholics today, one of the problems we face is the lack of spiritual direction. Priests are simply too worn out with their excessively demanding schedules. And at no time in history were the majority of priests ever suited or qualified for spiritual direction, and today is probably the worst time in history, with so few priests to start from.

Fr. Faber's "Growth in Holiness" can fill this lacuna in your soul. He can be your spiritual director (up to a point of course). He will get you past many of the hurdles that we would never be able to figure out on our own.

Also good is Fr. Faber's "Spiritual Conferences." However, as the name implies, the work is not a unified whole, but rather a collection. An excellent collection that is well worth your time and investment to read. But "Growth in Holiness" has the superior virtue of being a finished work, with a beginning, a middle and an end, and it has a telos -- to get the reader to take their spiritual life seriously and to succeed where others have failed.

And after reading it, you will finally come to understand the brilliant profundity of the "no true scotsman" fallacy." (lol - No, that's asking too much, even of Fr. Faber.)

[Pheo]

Just finished Huxley's Brave New World.  What a depressing read (especially the ending).

Was this your first read?

Yep.  Somehow I avoided it till now.  I suppose as a warning it was interesting, and he had some prophetic insight into the dangers of rampant materialism and consumerism, but John's final act of despair seemed really out of character.

Edit: I'd say it's more applicable to our situation - at least in the West - than something like 1984 is, but I found it difficult to get around a few far-fetched aspects of the plot.  And it's probably not fair to look at it in contrast to my favourites by Orwell and Benson.

[Michael Wilson]

Max,
Thank you so much! I will indeed buy a copy of Fr. Faber's book and read it. I don't like to read things online (except for post on discussion forums of course! Ha!); I like to make notes in the back of my book on different ideas in the book that strike me as important.
I might even have a copy of Fr.'s book in my book shelves.

And after reading it, you will finally come to understand the brilliant profundity of the "no true scotsman" fallacy." (lol - No, that's asking too much, even of Fr. Faber.)

Har!

[Michael Wilson]

Pheo stated:

I thought it was vindicated in the end (the long quote from Cardinal Newman was neat), but the part that bothered me most was how Christianity only ended up existing in a syncretist form.  Although to be fair, we find out about those independent islands at the end, so who knows what happens on them.

I liked John (the Savage) for most of his appearance.  He displayed self-mastery, virtue, and intelligence...until that strange ending.  It really seemed out of character.

I now remember little about the book, as I read it in High School (40 yrs ago). It made a bad impression on me at the time. I remember that it didn't offer any hope to the reader of a real alternative to the corrupt system of society in place.
The other horrible books that we had to read at our nominally Catholic High School were: "Catcher on the Rye" (horrible). "1984" (ditto). "Lord of the Flies"; this last one was a little better, but still none of them could be classified as "Catholic literature", or really appropriate for High School students.
Some of the literature books that we had to read, and that I did like were: "Fahrenheit 451". Arthur Clarke (an atheist) a future distopia, where the fire department burns books!!. "Anthem" by. Ayn Rand (another atheist). on individual freedom vs. a future colectivist/egalitarian distopia. " Alas Babylon". (a nuclear war survivors novel; very entertaining).   

[Arun]

Daughters of Juarez by Teresa Rodriguez

[Clare]

Yes, I have never read anything by Fr. Faber, but I am very definitely going to have to add one of his books to my reading list; any recommendations, Max? (Hopefully nothing to do with Scotsmens wearing kilts, Har!).

Drop whatever you're doing, stop wasting your time reading speculative theology, and pick up Fr. Faber's "Growth in Holiness." It is the ideal thing for someone like yourself. You can read it on-line for free, but it's worth the investment to buy a paper copy. I bought a used hardback ex-seminary some years back on Ebay or Amazon (or maybe Abe Books), and it's the best money I've ever spent....

I'll have to get that too.

I read All For Jesus in Lent. That was very good. Kindness was great too, but I should have got the Spiritual Conferences which includes it.

[Bernadette]

All For Jesus WAS good! I read it so long ago that it's probably time to read it again. I have Growth in Holiness, too, and it's probably time to revisit that as well. The Blessed Sacrament is also excellent.

[Kaesekopf]

How is "Rulers of Russia" by Fr ...  Fahey?

[Maximilian]

I have Growth in Holiness, too, and it's probably time to revisit that as well.

Reflecting more about "Growth in Holiness," I think one reason why it is so good and so useful for us modern people is that the central heart of the book is the section where he deals with "Understanding the Human Spirit," and then "Overcoming the Human Spirit." Previous spiritual writers, no matter how wonderful and holy and inspiring they were, did not have the experience to deal with this primary obstacle to progress in the spiritual life the way that Fr. Faber did because they did not experience this in the same way due to the progress of history.

It's true that the Human Spirit has been present ever since the fall of Adam and Eve, but during the 500 years since the Renaissance, it has grown unimaginably larger and more powerful than it was during the Middle Ages, for example. And so a man like Fr. Faber living in England in the 1850's is a witness to these new modern phenomena, and was able to address them in his spiritual direction, whereas the men coming for spiritual direction to St. Bernard or the women under the spiritual direction of St. Theresa of Avila were very different creatures in their psychological makeup.

Fr. Faber was living in the time and the place (London) that were on the cutting edge of these developments in his day. He was, for example, appalled by what he read in the "Life of Charlotte Bronte," metaphorically exclaiming, "O brave new world which has such people in it," and which inspired him to revise a few sections in the second edition of "Growth in Holiness" to account for this new modern spirit.

[Michael Wilson]

Max,
thanks for your additional comments on Fr. Faber's book. I just ordered it from Amazon. If you don't mind, would you keep posting more comments on Fr.'s book?

[GeorgeT]

I just started reading Catholic Home Schooling by Mary Kay Clark, just in case. I just finished the first volume of The Fatima Code (who's title has changed, yet again).

[tradne4163]

I will be starting a book that is actually two books in one: The Dogma of Hell by Father F.X. Schouppe, S.J., and How To Avoid Hell by Thomas A. Nelson. I'm already somewhat familiar with the first one, but never heard of the second one.

[Kaesekopf]

Dogma of Hell made me want to go to confession after turning every page.

[Bernadette]

Dogma of Hell made me want to go to confession after turning every page.

This is why I don't read it. What was that someone said about how reading certain things being like pouring acid on an open wound?  So scary...