Benedict Books

This is both a soothing and magical book about the transformation of a lonely cottage and a lonely man. Its simplicity will appeal to adults and children. Look for the animal characters in every large picture. You will find them all there. Once you read one Blathwayt book you know what to look for in his pictures. There is even a secret message in the picture of the lonely man standing on the seashore. Can you work it out?

The Little Red Train Gift Collection is a wonderful book of short stories and detailed illustrations. It's great for a "quiet time" read, such as at nap time or as a bed time story. We often play "I Spy" with the pictures in the book because they're so incredibly detailed. It's really a joy to read to the kids! Highly recommended!

My 3-year old boy absolutely loves this book. The repetition in the story line makes it predictable enough to understand for him, and he loves the illustrations and noises the train makes throughout the stories. It's his favorite bedtime storybook.

As slways, Father Groeschel has hit the mark in this presentation on living the call of peace in this less than peaceful world. This is an inspiration to those who have lost hope during the recent tumultuous years.

This is an excellent scholarly work written in plain English. Ashley brings together Scripture, the Catechism, virtue theory, and the sacraments. The book relates Catholic moral teachings to their biblical bases and to the sacraments that help us to live virtuous lives. This book is also a good companion to Pope John Paul II's encyclical, "Veritatis Splendor." Ashley's book is surprisingly easy to read despite the depth of the subject matter.

The first word of the Rule of St. Benedict is 'Listen'. This rule, composed centuries ago for Benedict's community, and continued by communities across the world to this day, is a powerful way of living into the fullness of God's grace and love. However, as the title of this text by Esther de Waal indicates, it is not always an easy rule, nor one that is immediately grasped and completely understood.

The monastics and oblates of Benedict's orders take vows, typically being poverty, obedience, chastity and conversion of life (the oblate's vows are modified to reflect the reality of living outside the enclosed monastic community, but the vows are derivative of the same root). It is the last vow, conversion of life, that perhaps at the heart of this book. Conversion in this context is not a once-for-all, 'road to Damascus' kind of experience, but rather a daily decision to continue working toward a new kind of life.

De Waal's first chapter deals with healing - we live broken lives in a broken world, and not just in the physical well-being sense. Using images from the biblical texts such as the Garden of Eden and the Cross, prayers from St. Anselm and the text of St. Benedict, she weaves ideas of healing, wholeness, and fullness even as we recognise our short-comings and brokenness. God accepts us for who we are at each point, but calls us to a perfection that we can never really attain. If this seems like a paradox, you're on to something.

The next chapter is entitled 'The Power of Paradox'. The monastic movement has always had at its heart a paradoxical call to be individual (the Latin root of the word monastic is mono, meaning 'one' or 'singular') in the context of community. The Christian call to be in the world but not of the world, to resist the world yet work within the world, is another such paradox. De Waal illuminates several such paradoxes, including the primary Christian paradox of the Cross, both an image of death and life, of defeat and of victory.

'Paradox' is sometimes considered a fancy word for contradiction. Benedict's Rule seems full of contradiction, just as life seems many times. Benedict looks to today as the primary focus of activity and energy, but also looks forward to the future as the most important. Benedict requires a life of service to others and the practice of hospitality, but also emphasises the need for solitude and withdraw from the world.

De Waal explores through the Rule of Benedict what it means to live with oneself, living with others in community, living in the world, and being both together and apart. Each person is endowed with gifts and graces, and has the potential for us to see Christ in them, if we will be attentive ('listen') and lose ourselves that we might also be Christ-like for the sake of others.

Contradictions that de Waal highlights include the difference between desert and marketplace (the early Desert Fathers were never quite as removed from the world as they might have wanted; the marketplace is not an 'unholy' or 'ungodly' place necessarily, for St. Paul often did his teaching while plying his trade as a tent-maker in the marketplace). Whichever avenue is taken, desert or marketplace, de Waal emphasises the necessity of prayer as an anchor - de Waal uses the example of Thomas Merton, a man in solitary prayer also completely involved with the world at large.

Saying 'yes' to the call of Benedict, to live a spiritual life, to live a life in the tensions of the contradictions, is never a simple intellectual assent, but rather one that has to come with the complete person, body and soul. It has to do with recognising the paschal mystery as both folly and wisdom, and recognising ourselves as having to always repeat the yes. According to de Waal, echoing the idea of conversion of life being an ongoing task, one must say 'yes' every day, repeating the'yes' and asking for blessing each night, and passing on the task to oneself and to others on a constant basis.

De Waal's reflections are not simple and easy. A small-format book, if one were reading for the words alone, the text could be completed in a matter of an hour or two, but this would be to lose the richness of Benedict's (and de Waal's) insights and images. This is a book for longer-term meditation, to be read as lectio divina, to be read for inspirational guidance, to be taken in small pieces like rich chocolates, to be savoured and appreciated slowly for the full experience.

This is a new modern "classic" childrens book! It's a beautifully illustrated tale of the generational culture clash faced by many immigrant families today. It's part cultural heritage, part mythology, part Calvin & Hobbes-all good. I bought this book for my nephew (9) and niece (6) because I knew they would identify with Lo, the main character, and the cultural dillemas he faces everyday. It's a complex subject matter told in a whimsically simple way that any child can understand and identfy with. I bought 4 more copies for my cousin's and friend's kids.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has children or knows a child, even if they are not Chinese-American. The theme is universal, the drawings are great and the characters are charming. This moden fairy tale is a must-have for your children's reading library.

I have read this book twice and both instance I have felt the joy and pain the author wants to convey. There were countless times that I cried, laughed, get jealous and angry, and a feeling of sense of adventure just by merely reading it. For those who have never fallen in love, doesn't want to fall in love, has fallen in and out of love, or simply doesn't believe in love at all, this is the book for you.

The book I read was hardcover and published in 1950. Books covers The Saint Benedict Center for ten years of a very interesting history that is sure to open some eyes.

The Saint Benedict Center was founded on the Feast of St. Joseph, 1940, in the Parish of St. Paul in the Archdiocese of Boston. And in 1944 His Holiness, Pope Pius XII, conferred the Apostolic Blessing on the Saint Benedict Center. It wasn't long before the Harvard Catholic Club began meeting at St. Benedict Center on Thursday evenings. The girls from Radcliffe College who invited Father Feeney to join them soon became part of the weekly meetings.

The Saint Benedict Center's initial purpose was to provide religious instruction for the Catholic students of the universities. And the Center became very successful at this. It is also important to note that this was all accomplished in keeping with the instructions and full knowledge of Monsignor Hickey, the parish pastor. With Father Feeney's Thursday nights and Dr. Maluf's Tuesday evening lectures being very popular. And it has the blessing of the Pope and the Archdiocese within which it resides up to and including 1947.

Late 1948, early 1949 the persecution of the Center begins. And it does not come from those outside the Church, but the very Archdiocese that supported it and said they did God's work and the Order of Jesuits. Read the truth that the Church tried to hide. This is a bout between Liberalism and Orthodoxy. A book every Catholic must read.

In Madame Melville a man recalls the night he spent in Paris with his English teacher when he was sixteen years old. He is enthralled by her worldly wisdom and she is very lonely. The interaction between the innocent youth and the mature woman are wonderfully portrayed.

In The General From America Nelson explores the inner thoughts and external pressures that caused the most famous act of treason in US history. Benedict Arnold, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington, as well as Arnold's wife Peggy and his sister Hannah are all excellently developed characters.

Both these plays are a joy to read and captivating.