Wednesday 22 April 2020

Quarantine reads: Our book recommendations (Part 1)


A Y2K Collaboration Blog

As many of us continue to stay at home to save lives, now would be a good time to pause the Netflix binge and pick up a book instead! Reading Christian books can help us keep the fire of the Spirit alive within us and strengthen our relationship with God. As a starting point, we’ve put together some recommendations from fellow young Catholics:



Rooted: The Hidden Places Where God Develops You by Banning Liebscher recommended by Daisy Vanderputt

I am currently re-reading this book by the founder of Jesus Culture. It is making the perfect quarantine read, as it is all about how God develops us and grows us in the secret places of our lives. For many of us, we have experienced a sudden change in our lives, being inside for more of the day than we are used to. However, this book has been speaking into how God wants to meet us here and now, in the deepest parts of our hearts to help us grow in trust of Him. He writes:

“Whatever your age or season of life, it takes immense courage to slow down enough to let God grow a root system in your life so that you can bear fruit that remains. You are where you are because God has planted you there. Discover what it looks like to embrace His process so you can do what He has called you to: change the world.”

I had felt like God had maybe taken a pause on any spiritual growth He had planned for me due to quarantine, yet this book is an incredible reminder that He is constantly moving and wanting to use every season of my life. This book is really easy to read, however on every page you can find yourself wanting to stop and pray about what has been spoken. I would definitely recommend this book to everyone, for deeper insight and vision into the depths of relationship that God is calling you to as a Christian.

The Jeweler’s Shop by Karol Wojtyła (St Pope John Paul II)
recommended by Georgia Clarke

This is a beautiful play written by St John Paul II, who had a deep love for the theatre (having established the Rhapsodic Theatre in 1941 and still being involved right up until he became Pope). In a more pastoral phase, Bishop Wojtyła wrote two works, The Radiation of Fatherhood – A Mystery and this one, The Jeweler’s Shop, though written under his pseudonym Andrzej Jawien.

It’s poetic, meditative, and reveals such beautiful truths about the nature of marriage, human love and union. “The future depends on love” is a fruitful reminder from the First Act. I’d particularly recommend reading each Act (there are three in total) alongside this wonderful commentary: https://www.deogratias.co.uk/post/the-jeweler-s-shop-act-one.

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis 
– recommended by Brittany Moster

I read this book on the recommendation of my spiritual director. It's a short book and is easily digestible. Its simplicity makes its intensely human, wholly Christian message more potent: that the love we share on Earth should prepare us for the inconceivable love of heaven.

Lewis writes about love in four manifestations: affection, friendship, romantic love, and charity. All of these, Lewis writes, but not any one in isolation, bring us closer to God. He writes beautifully about the value of each of these types of love as being manifestations of human connection that, when they are good, enhance our connection with God. For example, he writes that friendship 'is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself..."' We've all felt the sudden heart-tug of joy at finding someone who shares our beliefs, and who understands us on a deeper level than most. Our ability to love, Lewis says, and the joy of fellowship that it entails, is a tiny foretaste of the joy of heaven.

This book is not a lesson in love; rather, it's a celebration of the types of love which God made humans capable of practicing in preparation for knowing him, and a warning against those connections which may seem like love, but aren't. Especially in these days of self-isolation, Lewis' message about love rings truer than ever: we need others to teach us the love of God.

Holy Daring: The Fearless Trust of St Thérèse of Lisieux by Fr John Udris
-recommended by Charlotte Evans

We all know and love the Little Flower, but this book explores her characteristic trait – her trust in God. The book breaks down St Thérèse’s trust into a few narrower categories, making it great for examining the areas of our lives in which we find ourselves not quite acknowledging God’s power and providence.

I found this book easy to read without being simplistic, and it helped me to bring my awareness back to the part of faith that is regularly shaken up and challenged. Fr Udris takes his cue from the Greek word ‘parrhesia’, which can be translated and used various ways: it can mean speaking freely, plainly, with confidence, or even daring to call God our Father as we do in the Lord’s Prayer. Each chapter takes a facet of St Thérèse’s confidence in God’s goodness and looks at examples from her life that show her becoming more like Christ by acknowledging her weakness and trusting in Him. ‘If we allow Thérèse to tutor us in the gospel,’ Udris writes, ‘we may rejoice to find ourselves being taken into her confidence – literally.’

I would recommend reading this quite slowly, leaving some time to think and reflect after each chapter, but its engaging and pithy style makes it an ideal book for busier people, as a few pages can go a long way towards enriching your spiritual life.

Alive in God by Timothy Radcliffe 
– recommended by Bill Dallman

This is a cracking lockdown read! In brief, the book asks how Christianity can touch the imagination of our contemporaries, when ever fewer people in the West identify as religious, arguing that we must show how everything we believe is an invitation to live fully. It's a beautifully rich tapestry of stories, quotations, anecdotes and so much more which has helped me, particularly in lockdown, to develop a deeper appreciation of the world around me, and how we can use this to truly live, and to live abundantly.



Happy Lockdown Reading!


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