9 Spiritual must-reads (that aren't the Bible)

A Year With C S Lewis – 365 Daily Readings From His Classic Works

By C.S. Lewis

Megan James's choice

The beauty of C S Lewis is that his writing, no matter how deep or profound the subject matter may be, it is always written in such a digestible and accessible way. It doesn’t matter which book my daily extract comes from, I always find beauty, truth, and something new to ponder or relate to within what he writes. In an extract from Mere Christianity that I read yesterday, Lewis talks about ‘Finding Comfort’, and I think this really helps sum up the whole book. He says:

 ‘All I am doing is to ask people to face the facts – to understand the questions which Christianity claims to answer. And they are very terrifying facts. I wish it were possible to say something more agreeable. But I must say what I think true. Of course, I quite agree that Christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable comfort. But it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay I have been describing, and it is no use at all trying to go on that comfort without first going through that dismay.’

If you want to commit a little, but learn a lot, then this is definitely the book to get stuck into this year.

Transformation in Christ

By Dietrich Von Hidebrand

Ben Hince's choice 

‘Transformation in Christ’ is my top spiritual book that I'd like to recommend to each of you! It’s written by Dietrich Von Hildebrand, and it’s a modern spiritual classic! Hildebrand was a remarkable philosopher, and whilst that is evident in this great work, it is nonetheless still very accessible, and doesn’t require a philosophical formation to understand the simple and beautiful aim of the book: the transformation of our soul in Christ.

It’s a big one - But it’s worth it! And it's been well divided into bite size chunks, which makes it easy to reflectively read just a few each day.

‘Transformation in Christ’ is a book that will change your outlook on many things that you encounter each and every day within yourself and within the world around you; and it will open them up to be illuminated by the divine light of Christ, and inspire you, as you respond to the call of Christ, to become new men and women in Him.

Your Sacred Yes 

By Susie Larson

Eleanor Hill's choice

If your life is anything like mine, it's full of to do lists, unread emails, a jam packed diary and not much ‘rest time’, and although my time is filled up doing supposedly good ‘Godly’ things, this isn’t really the life God wants me or you to lead. Last summer, God made me realise that I have an inability to say no, that my yes to different things was leaving me drained and that by running myself ragged, I was sacrificing time with friends and flatmates, which was where God was calling me to be, and he did this all, through me reading the book ‘The Sacred Yes.’  

This book helped me to see the importance in rest; ‘we are not called to a busyness that drains us; were called to an abundance that trains us’, that my time is a precious gift; ‘we are called to run the sacred race, not the rat race’, the danger in doing more and as a result ‘telling ourselves the lie that his presence is not enough’ and finally, that if ‘the devil can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy.’ For anyone who is overwhelmed, busy and has too many to do lists and commitments, this book will transform you, your yes and how you see the father.

Man's Search For Meaning

Viktor E. Frankl

Isaac Withers's choice 

A couple of years ago the question of suffering in the world and why God allows it became the dominant question in my life. Viktor Fankl's, 'Man's Search for Meaning' was then exactly the book I needed.

Essentially, it is an account of the Holocaust by someone who lived it. Frankl was also a professor of neurology and psychiatry, so his observations of human behaviour in the worst suffering is the thread that runs throughout the writing. Because of what this man endured, his words mean so much more than any theory on suffering. Describing the moment when remembering his wife elevated him out of his horrific surroundings, he writes something astounding.

'Then i grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved... For the first time in my life i was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in the perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory."

Love and Responsibility

St. Pope John Paul II

Emily Milne's choice

Backstory to the book: I like going to confession at Westminster Cathedral. Anyone who has been there knows that the queues can get pretty long. So one Saturday (JPII's feast day, coincidentally!) I went and saw the queue, and promptly decided to walk straight back out to the Catholic bookshop next door. I saw a copy of 'Love and Responsibility' on the shelf, the same edition that sits on one of my dad's bookshelves at home, and bought it.

Back in the confession queue, I was immediately engrossed in the book. JPII is so beautiful in his logic. He tells it how it is. And, as someone who has always loved logical argument, I so appreciated that he started by spending a huge (and hugely beneficial) amount of time defining terms. The first chapter is all about the verb ‘to use’, focusing on the question of what it means to use a person. So many relationships in our society involve one or both persons being used, and there is so much resulting unhappiness.

The next section goes through what it means to love. JPII is unflinching here on the beauty of love and the tragedy of how it can be misused. By the time I got to confession, I had only finished a few chapters, but I felt so much lighter, and at peace about some choices that I was about to make in terms of my relationships. JPII isn’t the easiest to read, but he will change your life!

Discovering the Feminine Genius

Katrina Zeno

Eve Hirst's choice 

‘Discovering the feminine genius’ is absolutely one of the best books I have ever read. Based on John Paul II’s ‘Theology of the Body’ it is an incredibly empowering and inspiring book for women! I also highly recommend it to all men also, but it holds a special message for women (as seen in the title!).

Katrina Zeno draws from her own experiences and delves into what it means to be a woman and the universal calling that we all have to ‘spiritual motherhood’. If you have ever questioned the role of women in the church, or any of the church’s teachings on theology of the body, then this is absolutely the book for you! Or if you are searching for a little spiritual guidance towards your vocation, feel you have lost your identity slightly in being a mother, carer, friend and particularly if you are struggling with your self-worth, please give this book a read. And remember that you are so so loved!!

‘Never underestimate the power and fruitfulness of your ‘yes’ to God!’ 

Befriending the Stranger

By Jean Vanier

Kirsten Brown's choice 

This book will always have a special place in my heart and is certainly one of those which keeps pouring out wisdom no matter how many times I read it from cover to cover. It's quite unconventional - set out over 'six days of meditative reading' - drawing us into a closer awareness of the tender love Jesus has (and we are called to have) for those with disabilities or mental health conditions. 

Jean Vanier founded and still works at L'Arche, which are communities for people with severe mental and physical disabilities. The way he uses his incredible life testimony, and those of the people he cares for at L'Arche, awoke something really deep in me - the sudden realisation that what the poor in spirit and our less able brothers/sisters teach us is real, selfless love, one that requires your total commitment and cannot be returned since we are 'serving'. I don't mean this is a light, fluffy way - Jean Vanier talks much about the hardships in coming to understand each other's pain, in how years of marginalisation and isolation can harden a person's heart, and how difficulty in communication can make us feel lonely. But it is this shared effort to love through the difficulty which over time casts a small light into lives. What struck me and inspired me the most was the way in which he cherished every single person he cared for and his mission to 'love them back to life'.

Falling Upwards

By Richard Rohr

Paddie Denton's choice 

Adulting. Twenty something's are desperate to avoid it. Teenagers desire it. And (as I still like to call them) proper adults find little joy in it. 'Falling Upwards' doesn't tell you how to adult, it helps you to let go of the Ego of youth, but to embrace its simplicity and joy.

"The ego hates losing - even to God"

It can be a challenge to read as it forces you to truly access where you are in life and what you are refusing to do to move forward (we all have something).

"Sin happens when ever we refuse to keep growing."

Rohr puts it beautifully when he speaks about the spiritual halves of life: child and adult. The book's aim is simple to bring joy and fullillment or more providing you with the tools to find joy and fullillment in all you do and in who you are! Then you can adult, but like only a child can.

"When you get your,'Who am I?', question right, all of your, 'What should I do?' questions tend to take care of themselves"

God and the World

By Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger

Gina Geffers's choice 

Until my spiritual director suggested that I read Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's 'God and the World', I'd never heard of it. However, I immediately thought that it was not a good idea. After all, this 'guy' went on to become Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, so surely he knows everything related to the church and faith, and surely I wouldn't understand any of what he was saying. So I didn't read it. But when it still popped up in my head several months later, I decided to borrow it. Turns out, it's one of those 'novels' that you just can't put down. 

The book is a massive interview that was led by journalist Peter Seewald, a German, lapsed Catholic who was brought back to the faith by the answers cardinal Ratzinger gave to the questions. Whatever situation you're in, whether you feel comfortable with your prayer and spiritual life and faith or not or have other problems, this is an easy read with answers being short and direct. Latest, when I read a soon-to-be-Popes answer to "How do you know God exists?"  and I understood it, I knew why this book had been recommended to me.

'Why are you still silent?' : A Study of the Silence of God

By Isaac Withers

Over Christmas I really wanted to read, 'Silence' by Shusaku Endo. As you probably know by now, Martin Scorsese has followed up on 'The Wolf of Wall Street', with an adaptation of Endo's book about Jesuit missionary priests in Japan. Originally, I just wanted to contribute another blog to the conversation of this movie, so I picked up my Mum's copy of the book in our house, and within five days, I had finished it.

I need to make a point of how amazing that is.

I do English Literature as a degree, so suffice to say, I don't read for fun much any more. I probably hadn't finished a novel in... over a year before 'Silence', and I didn't really expect to be enthralled by it. But I was. 

The plot is basically: two priests (played in the movie by former Spiderman, Andrew Garfeild and current  Kylo Ren, Adam Driver) go to find the priest that mentored them (Liam Neeson). The rumour is that their mentor has been broken by the intense persecution that the Japanese government is imposing on Christians, and has given up his faith. He has also, been... uh, taken.

Sorry.

That's the starting point of the story, and the main question: why has this missionary priest given up on the faith? What tipped him over the edge? But for me, as I kept reading, the draw changed, and moved to the younger priest looking for him. His character, a well formed young priest, who knows all the theology in the world, is being shown intense religious persecution, people being killed in front of him for the Christian faith. And as you read his prayer life, it suddenly becomes very simple. A new question arises, that became what pulled me through the story. The priest continued to ask:

'Why are you still silent?'

This becomes his prayer, and it hit me hard. As my faith has matured, I've been angry at God, I've been confused by him, I've had times of serious doubt, but using the word silent to describe God was completely new to me. And it scared me, mainly because it felt very accurate to what I was living. An on-off prayer life, that felt like a one-sided conversation.

This appeared on my Facebook feed around all this... Credit to Catholic Memes.

So the book started a massive process in me, it was no longer 'hmm, I think this one will make a good blog', it genuinely threw me. And it threw me, because as the main character speaks, the question after, 'why are you still being silent?' is 'are you even there?'

Even scarier. It's the big question, and it can floor even a character of strength like this priest, it is the inevitable question that the silence of God takes you to.

So I don't really want to talk about the movie, I want to talk about that silence, why God would choose that, how we respond to that, and I don't expect to answer it myself. So I'm looking to those that went before.

Mother Teresa : A saint of darkness

As all this was flying around my head, the things I had heard about St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta's struggle with spiritual darkness came to me, and a few days later, a Bishop Robert Baron video about it appeared on my Facebook newsfeed. As always, it's insightful.

After her death, Mother Teresa's diaries were read and it was discovered that she had lived fifty years of spiritual darkness, at one point she even wrote down, 'is there a God?' This doesn't mean that she never experienced the presence of God, in her youth she had vivid experiences of him even hearing the voice of Jesus asking her to be a missionary to the poor. But then absolute spiritual drought. And yet it didn't stop any of her work, or her drive to serve. How? Bishop Robert Baron has a theory. 

'To be a saint, 

to put it in a quick little phrase, 

is to allow Jesus to live his life in you. 

So Paul says, ‘it’s no longer I who live, it is Christ who lives in me...' 

Did mother Teresa allow Jesus to live in her? Yeah, everyone saw that pretty dramatically. Well part of that is the crucified Jesus, living his life. 

The Jesus who said, 

'God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ 

To let him live his life. 

That’s what she had, the experience, all these years of abjection.'

The Song of Songs

Rocked as I was by all of this over Christmas, at the new year retreat I had a really long chat with a few good friends about it, and one recommended I check out the Song of Songs. If you're not familiar with it, it's a long romantic poem attributed to King Solomon. It's kind of known for being very open about the goings on of a bride and her beloved who are very much in love and... yeah all of that good stuff. But Rabbis in the late A.D.s started to read it as the relationship between the worshiper and God. 

At one point, the bride's beloved has left her, and she goes out in search of him. 'I sought him but I did not find him, I called to him but he did not answer me' (Song 5:6). And then, she falls upon some guards who beat her up and steal from her. Then they taunt her saying, 'What makes your Beloved better than other lovers?' (Song 5:9) But her response is something else.

She goes off on a long answer, listing all the things that she loves about the guy who has abandoned her. It's like twenty-five lines long, she means it. And it ends on a verse I love.

'His conversation is sweetness itself,

he is altogether lovable.

Such is my beloved, 

such is my friend.' 

(Song 5:16)

I love that. My beloved, my friend. So simple. In that place of darkness, she does the impossible. She chooses to praise in that place of absence, partly by remembering his presence.

I believe in the Sun

One final thought on all this. There's a pretty powerful poem about the silence of God, and it was uncovered in one of the darkest places. 

In a cellar in Cologne, Germany, where thousands of Jews once hid from the Nazis, an inscription was discovered after the end of World War II. Scrawled across a stone wall by an anonymous author, the words serve as a prayer against the evil of the Holocaust.

'I believe in the sun 

even when it's not shining. 

I believe in love 

even when not feeling it. 

I believe in God 

even when He is silent.'

.

***

The first friend I unloaded all this onto, looked back at me with a broad grin. He said something like, 'I'm sorry, I know it sucks for you right now, but I'm really excited for you. This is a deepening of faith.' And from here, I can see what they mean. I can see how it has given me a more authentic prayer, a simpler faith, a truer sense of where I am. The season of silence is not pleasant or fun, but like all other times, there's not much choice but to abide in it and discern what on earth is going on.

It's been such a comfort, to know that so many have gone before me into this particular struggle. And I'm not done reading up on this either, I feel I'm just skimming the surface when it comes to those who lived silence and wrote it down.

It's pretty incredible what reading a book can do for you.

My Vocation: More than enough

By Sr Rebekah Marie

'More than enough'

These are words my dad often likes to recall with a smile, reminding me of a conversation we had years ago at Walsingham. He was just coming to terms with the idea of my vocation and quoted to me St Julian of Norwich, ‘Jesus, you're enough for me’. To which I spontaneously responded, "Dad, Jesus is more than enough!"

This is where I want to begin these few thoughts on vocation. It's such a great joy belonging to Christ, I want to bear witness to this great reality which seems so well hidden! Vocation comes from the Latin word 'vocare' which means to call, to receive a divine call from God. This is how religious life and priesthood begin. To have this calling is not to be lacking or missing out, it's not like being on a strict diet where you're always hungry for something else or only just surviving... ‘The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.’ (Ps 23) ‘If God did not spare His own Son but gave him up for us all, will He not also give us all things with Him?’ (Rom 8) ‘To be near God is my happiness!’ (Ps 72)

Growing up, being a nun was really the last thing I wanted to do, because I didn't get what it was! I didn't realise that it was to live a life in greater proximity with the Lord. All I could see seemed negative - all the things I'd be giving up - family, friends, home, career, marriage, children, freedom... like a life-long lent! I didn't realise that it's like the gospel of the man who finds a treasure and gives up everything else to own it. I didn't see what I would receive. Life consecrated entirely to Christ can only be ‘life to the full!’

'Do not be afraid of Christ'

With regard to vocation, the first thing to battle against is our fear! ' If we want to be true disciples, true followers of Christ, we can't follow from a distance or half-halfheartedly. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, 'Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes away nothing and gives you everything!' Recently, my sister Miriam led a bible timeline group for young people at her parish in Winchester. When she asked them what stopped them reading the word of God, they responded very truthfully that they were afraid that if they read it God might call them to the Religious life or Priesthood!

How fear of the unknown can limit us in our friendship with Christ, in our call to holiness. ‘Do not be afraid of Christ!’ How can we fear someone who is all love and wants our happiness?  Let's be those who ‘follow the Lamb wherever He goes’(Ap7), trusting Him and knowing that the only necessary thing is to be with Christ, doing His will, and that there, and there alone, will we find our true joy.  Cardinal Newman speaks so eloquently of this:

‘God has determined ... that I should reach that which will be my greatest happiness.

He looks on me individually, He calls me by my name,

He knows what I can do, what I can best be,

what is my greatest happiness, and He means to give it to me.

My will & His will

We must have hearts that are open and willing! Often we think we know best, we think we know where our true happiness lies, but we are forgetting that God is God! He knows us better than we know ourselves, because He made us! Let's dare to ask Him to show us His will, and ask for the grace to love His way.


There is a lot of confusion in discernment, and I often hear people dismiss the idea of a religious vocation because they feel drawn to marriage. It is important to realise that we all have a natural desire for marriage and family - it is what we were made for. However, to feel this way isn't a criteria for not discerning.

When I was discerning I remember saying to God, "I don't want to be a nun, but I want to do your will. I can't do something I don't want to do, so if you want me to do that you'll have to change my heart." And He did! It's been my joy to be a contemplative sister for the last ten years. ‘Bend my heart to Your will O Lord!’ (ps 118)

The call to religious life or priesthood goes ‘against’ our nature and so we would never be drawn to it if there wasn't divine intervention! This calling isn't natural, it is on a different level, it's on the level of grace - of our divine life - our supernatural life, hence why it implies real co-operation with God to discern. It's not our feelings which will show us if we have a vocation or not, we must ask the Lord His intention for us. "Show me Lord your way, that I may walk in your path." (ps 118)

Today’s world is in such great need of God, and needs, more than ever, men and women who are ready to lay down their lives and follow Christ in the priesthood and religious life. We are all important and necessary in God’s plan of salvation. Don't be afraid! God needs our YES. What is yours? Let's ask Mary to help us always respond as she did – ‘Let it be done unto me according to your word!’

***

As a community, we, the sister's of Mary the Morning Star, will be hosting an Aquinas Weekend (27th - 29th Jan) at our convent in Greyshott. If you are interested or have and other questions please get in touch - srsmarymorningstar@gmail.com

The Euston Retreat : Greater Things

By Paddie Denton

'You will see greater things than these!' 

John 1:50

2016, it’s over, and united in prayer and expectation we gathered in the centre of London to spend the end of the year together. Just four days after Christmas, the Youth 2000 team were setting up for the New Year retreat at Maria Fidelis Catholic Primary School, Euston. 

We gathered to explore our theme for the weekend, the 'Greater Things' in our lives, relationships, prayer and the one who saves. All of us who walked through those school doors and into the retreat will have had different ideas of what Greater Things we were expecting to encounter, in the fellowship, the praise, the Mass, the Healing, in God. But if everyone else had a retreat like me, what they received was the unexpected.

2016 was not the easiest of years for me. At different points I experienced heartbreak and loss. Over the year I lost my job, and then my home, and then my car was written off. And loved ones passed away. It wasn’t all bad though, and I received many blessings, especially from the struggles I had been through, but all this meant that I turned up to the retreat feeling a bit beaten from the experience of my year, and personally not feeling very expectant.

So, the retreat got underway, and Rebekah Curran from Westminster Youth opened up our retreat explaining how her putting more trust in what God could do in her life opened her up to receive even Greater Things. Putting more trust in God became quite a running theme. Our last speaker Brother Joshua Kidd summed it up as ‘none of me, all of him’.

This inspiration affected my prayer and the experience of my retreat in a big way, so that by the time I entered the healing service on New Year’s night, my prayer was simple: 'Not my will, but yours'.

No more holding on, through my stubbornness and pride, or through the pain and defeat of the year just gone. My heart moved to accepting that every moment of my life is a part of something that is much greater than me, and that every moment could be greater if I was seeking to live out God’s will in it.

You can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs. Well it turns out you can’t make a saint without breaking apart the sinner. And then the challenge becomes can I actually live out this new found knowledge when I return to the world? Can I be a Greater Thing than who I was when I arrived at this retreat? Of course we can only do this through faith and as John Withers stated in his talk on healing, it should be very easy. We only need to claim the victory over death and darkness that Christ has already won, we don’t need to win it for ourselves.

As always, it was not just in the talks and prayer that the greatness of God’s love was experienced, but also in the times of fellowship with all the retreatants. In the partying and the DMCs (Deep Meaningful Conversations). I felt like we were on such a shared journey together, a journey toward hope. Hope in a new year, hope in a fresh start, hope in the fact that no matter how bad or how amazing things have been this year, far greater things are always around the corner. So stop holding onto the pain and move on, seeking the Greater Things.

From all of us at Youth 2000, have a blessed New Year, and please do spare a prayer for our 2017. God bless.