Aquinas and More…

Dear friends,

Many of you know that we are an affiliate of Aquinas and More. This means that they provide the book store in the far right column of the blog (scroll down a bit and you will see it). The way this works is that every book or item you purchase from them through the link on this blog results in a percentage of the sale coming to us for the work of this apostolate. Right now monthly sales amounts to enough income to purchase and review a few books for you every month or so. This is not a lot but every little bit helps. The more you purchase, the more it helps. Stay with me for two more points of interest:

1. Aquinas and More is the ONLY Catholic store that I am aware of that provides a “Good Faith Guarantee.” What this means is that they will never offer materials or supplies that are contrary to the teachings of the Church.
2. Second, they are having a 40% off inventory reduction sale!

Just click on this link and shop to your magisterially faithful heart’s content.

Yours in Christ,

Dan

Recommended Resources for Spiritual Growth

Dear Catholic Spiritual Direction Friends,

To find an easy to review list of all of our recommended reading for the spiritual life, click here. You will find this and other lists of posts by topic in the upper right hand portion of each page. Please remember that if you purchase resources from this site you help us continue our mission. The books sold through this site provide us with credit to purchase and review new books to share with you so please purchase through us! As we provide new resource recommendations we will keep this page updated and let you know there are new posts.

Blessings to you as you Seek Him, Find Him, and Follow Him,

Dan

A Guide to Christian Meditation

Dear Catholic Spiritual Direction Friends,

Many of you know that Father John’s book, The Better Part is in its third printing. In the beginning of The Better Part Father John provided us with a brief  but profound guide to Christian meditation. The good news is that now you can have that guide in a new book called A Guide to Christian Meditation. In this book, after a brief historical introduction to Christian meditation (not available in The Better Part), Father John provides an elegant and memorable method for meditation along with very helpful examples of specifically how to put this method into practice. He manages to do this while keeping our sights on Christ, not the method. This emphasis helps the reader to avoid common and unfortunately popular errors that overemphasize the means instead of the all important end – a deeper relationship with Christ himself.

If you or anyone you know struggles with prayer or is looking for a way to enhance their prayer life, this is a fantastic resource at a very reasonable price (only $6.95!) Click here to purchase or learn more.

Seek Him – Find Him – Follow Him

Dan

Laughing at Lucifer in Lent

In 1942 C.S. Lewis published one of his most enduring and endearing books. The Screwtape Letters is a collection of imaginative epistles from a senior devil to his junior colleague, outlining how he should handle his “patient.” Lewis wrote the book as a series of essays for The Guardian newspaper and confessed that the pieces were not fun to write.

Over the years Lewis’ Luciferian letters have become ever more popular. In 2003 the Fellowship for the Performing Arts created a stage adaptation of Screwtape. It ran for 11 weeks in New York City and is now on a national tour. Walden Media, which produced The Chronicles of Narnia films, has promised a film version, and various famous actors have recorded audio versions of the book — the most recent being Andy Serkis, who plays Gollum in The Lord of the Rings movies. (This audiobook is sold by the Register’s sister company, Circle Press, at CirclePress.org.)

Lewis’ classic has also spawned a subgenre of books. Peter Kreeft wrote The Snakebite Letters. Randy Alcorn has written two books, Lord Foulgrin’s Letters and The Ishbane Conspiracy. Screwtape has been featured in a Bono music video and the cartoon strip “Calvin and Hobbes,” and there has even been a Mormon book written in the same style.

Lewis didn’t apologize for the fact that Screwtape Letters is an entertaining and amusing read. Indeed, in the opening pages, he quotes Martin Luther and St. Thomas More on the need to take Lucifer lightly. Luther wrote, “The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.”

For his part, St. Thomas More said: “The devil … that proud spirit … cannot endure to be mocked.”

A few years ago, on my blog, I started writing some of my own Luciferian letters for Lent. I found the exercise to be fascinating and frightening fun. It was a challenge to see things from the devil’s point of view. Eventually, I fleshed out the letters and added a plotline that begins on Shrove Tuesday and finishes on Easter Day.

What I came to realize as I wrote was that Luther and St. Thomas More were right: One of the best ways to battle against the devil is to mock him. Books in the tradition of The Screwtape Letters do just that.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that we dismiss the devil or underestimate his power. What it does mean is that we engage in the battle with a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.

We are not mocking the spiritual battle but, rather, the pride and vanity of one who thinks himself the highest while he is really the lowest.

Of course we must take sin seriously. The reality of the devil must be admitted, and, especially during Lent, we must enter the spiritual battle wearing our full armor. All I am suggesting is that part of that armor should be the swift arrows of good humor and humility.

Laughing at Lucifer is a good way to do just that.

Laughing at Lucifer in Lent means that we are happy warriors. We are launching out on the spiritual battle with a spring in our step and a smile on our face. The Gospel says when we fast we should wash our face and put on a smile, and the spiritual writers speak of keeping a “joyful Lent.” We’re not going about as gloomy defeatists.

This requires a clear understanding of our own faults and the reality of temptation.

As we engage in spiritual battle during Lent, we should do so with the joyful knowledge that, no matter what, Christ’s forgiveness upholds us and that, in him, as St. Paul says, “we are more than conquerors.” When we face temptation, we should overcome it not just with a serious resolve and a whopping amount of self-control, but also with the wisdom and insight it takes to see the temptation for what it is.

Then we can sidestep the attack and parry with a counterthrust in the robust spirit of a jaunty swordsman or a laughing cavalier.

We fight joyfully because the devil is already defeated. On Easter Day he was trampled down forever. Furthermore, he was defeated in a kind of divine practical joke. It was a plot reversal that would make any filmmaker proud. Jesus is down, and the devil seems to have killed God’s Son. Then, in a totally unexpected twist, Jesus rises again, and Satan is defeated by his own wicked plan.

This is the ammunition to fire at Satan. Like a teasing teenager, we can point at Lucifer and say, “Loser! You were hoist with your own petard!”

We fight with confidence because Christ has won the victory. St. Paul again: “[N]either death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Finally, laughing at Lucifer in Lent reminds us to laugh at ourselves, too. When we see his mock dignity, his pomposity, his wounded pride, his vaunted self-importance, his know-it-all attitude and his sublime arrogance, we ought to see our own souls reflected there — for, if we can laugh at his foolish pride, then we ought to be able to laugh at our own, as well.

I am often reminded of a dear old nun who told me that her confessor had fallen asleep while she was making her confession. She smiled ruefully and said, “Oh dear, it seems that not even my sins are very interesting!” Then she laughed, and at that moment, her real humility was displayed.

G.K. Chesterton said that angels can fly because they take themselves lightly. This Lent, if we learn to laugh at Lucifer and laugh at ourselves, we might find that, before long, we too are taking ourselves lightly. Then who knows? Come Easter Day, we might just fly away.

Father Dwight Longenecker

Provided with permission of the National Catholic Register

Father Longnecker also has written a book in this tradition entitled, The Gorgoyle Code

Inside the Passion – Book Recommendation

FREE SMALL GROUP STUDY GUIDE NOW AVAILABLE FOR ALL WHO PURCHASE “INSIDE THE PASSION” FROM THIS BLOG

This beautiful four week study guide will help take you deeper into the passion during Lent. It has four units of study, 1) Faith, 2) Hope, 3) Love, and 4) forgiveness. Place your order soon in order to get your books in time for Lent. When you purchase Catholic materials through this site you become part of our ministry to those seeking to move deeper into their faith

Here’s the only way to get the guide: If you purchase Inside the Passion from this blog, be sure to then email us at RCSpiritualDirection@gmail.com and let us know you purchased the book. We will then e-mail you the study guide in pdf format. Yes, this is the only way to get the guide.

Here’s More about the Book:

Looking to go deeper into your faith this Lent? “Inside the Passion,” coupled with Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” are profound ways to better understand Christ’s suffering for us. I know few other ways to understand and experience Christ’s love for me than this incredible work of art. Father Bartunek provides us with the only authorized explanation of the film. He accompanied Mel Gibson, “watching him work with the editors, composer, promotions team, and the press.” He “asked him questions about the film that no one else asked, discovering reasons behind… the innumerable artistic choices that he was forced to make, choices that turned this small art house project into an international blockbuster.”

If you are looking to go deeper this Lent, I recommend that you purchase this book, and read it during Lent with the intent of finishing it on the day preceding Good Friday. Then, on Good Friday, watch the film. However, don’t watch it as a movie. Watch it devotionally. Pray that God would reveal His profound love for you as you place yourself with Christ as He suffers and dies for you. I promise that your life and heart will never be the same.

Seek Him – Find Him – Follow Him

Dan

Purchase INSIDE THE PASSION Here to Support this Site. When you purchase through the links on this site, we receive credits to purchase and review books on the spiritual life that we then share with you. We only pass along recommendations to books that are faithful to the magisterium and that are consistent with authentic Catholic spirituality. Thank you in advance for your support as we seek to serve you in your quest for a deeper relationship with Christ!