As we approach the "Year of Faith", which will kick-off on October 11th, what will you be doing to observe this holy year?I will be reading and reflecting on two newly released books. The first is A Year with the Bible from Saint Benedict Press. Edited by noted Catholic apologist Patrick Madrid, I think this will serve as a wonderful daily devotional. (I do plan to have a review of this product up in the next few days.)
Secondly, to mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, I will be reflecting on Ralph Martin's Will Many Be Saved?: What Vatican II Actually Teaches and Its Implication for the New Evangelization published by Eerdmans. This book focuses on the main issues surrounding Lumen Gentium 16 and how it has been interpreted by theologians like Rahner and Balthasar.
So, how about you?
9 comments:
Cool! I'm reading Ralph's book right now, too. In fact this past weekend I got to meet him, discuss it, and film an interview which I'm posting tomorrow.
I think "Will Many Be Saved?" is one of the most important books dealing with the New Evangelization for it lays out what's clearly at stake: salvation.
Good choices.
I am focusing on an in depth read of the NT especially the gospels in my hard earned "RSV New Testament and Psalms Brown French Morocco Leather RSVNTP3" along with two different editions of Abandonment to Divine Providence and the CCC daily in little bits.
Ooooo I've been wanting to read that new Ralph Martin book. I've decided to read the Catechism -- with about 76 others in a Logos Bible software online group.
I will be reading, as I have promised myself but failed to do many times already, at least the Select Library of Ante-Nicene Fathers from cover-to-cover (the ten-volume set), excluding the Apocrypha which I've already read (like the Testament of the Twelve, the Diatessaron, and virtually all of the eighth volume). If I manage to make that, I'll go on to NPNF1 and then NPNF2. I read them regularly bits at a time, and for reference, but I have never studied them from beginning to end, where all of the threads are seen as they are woven in to the seamless garment of Christ.
And I'll finish my "Catholic Standard Version" even if I have to do it myself. Hebrews is ridiculously hard to translate - who knew that the Bible had stuff as simple as 1 John and as complex as Hebrews?
Oh, and I might take another stab at Balthasar's Trilogy, which, I must admit, in my few forays in to it, has been mostly incomprehensible: I got a "Reader's Guide to the Trilogy" to see if it will help. I doubt I can make it through the entire thing in a year, though.
It is the year of "faith", after all, so maybe I should read Barth himself, and Kierkegaard, and lay off the natural theology.
Speaking of that, has anyone read Hans Kung's "Justification: A Catholic Reflection on the Doctrine of Karl Barth"? It's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.
Third time's a charm... you guys never read the catechism? Funny, or ironic, or sad story: I thought, for some reason, that prospective converts had to memorize the Catechism; so I did. But I memorized the Baltimore Catechism, 1-3 and part of 4. And then I found out it wasn't a universal Catechism, so I memorized the first few articles of the Roman Catechism. And then I found it it was old, so I memorized the new one - all this before I even dared approach a priest about converting. And the priest almost turned me away for having too dry and legalistic an understanding of religion and having no faith, quoting chapter and verse of every Catechism that's been written in the past 500 years at him.
Needless to say, most of it, being unused for quite a while, has passed out of memory, except, "Who made us?"..."Who is God?"..."Why did God make us?", etc., although I'm still handy around the different catechisms.
I'm not sure if the humour carries across the internet, or it's one of those that men say in regards to it, "you had to have been present".
And, fourth reply... sorry, I've not had my coffee yet (and I don't drink coffee, but it's early and my thoughts are still collecting themselves; it takes a few hours for my mental processes to reach the precision of article, objection, "on the contrary", in the Summa Theologiae), I just thought of this - maybe I should read my Bible from cover-to-cover, in something like the Navarre Edition.
I've never read a Bible cover-to-cover before. I've come close, but always skipped the deuterocanonicals (as I read out of mostly Protestant Bibles, and therefore read them separately after the Old Testament), and 1 Chronicles, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah and a few others, and always come back to them later.
(Note that I have never read the entire book of Daniel; I've read the first six chapters alone, because - as illogical as this is - I don't want my first sojourn in sacred scripture to be over; once Daniel's been completed, 'I've read it all', and all future readings are just re-readings, although one usually catches the important things on re-readings. Speaking of that, I thought I'd found a new prophecy of Christ in Gen 1:3, "And there was light", instead of, "God said...and it was so", as if "Light already was", i.e. the Light of the World, only realizing some weeks later that in order for God to speak, it had to be the Son speaking, so, when the Son said, "Let there be light", he wasn't talking about himself - it's just a quirk in the grammar after all. Talk about some hardcore eisegesis.)
Stay tuned for installments 6-19 as my mind shifts in to second gear.
Ralph Martin's "Will Many Be Saved?" is presently on super sale for $1.99 in Amazon's Kindle store. Kindle books can be read online in Amazon's cloud reader, on iPhone/iPad/Android via an app, and on dedicated Kindle readers. Bottom line: if you have an Amazon account, you can read Kindle books. Go pick up the book if you don't have a copy!
Just got the ebook edition myself. Can't beat that price!
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