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Through the Narrow Gate

Karen Armstrong

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Religious Life 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 14 people found this review helpful.

Karen Armstrong has written a most marvelous account of her life within a very strict order of English Catholic nuns of the 1960's. Her description of the torments she endured has caused me to regard with renewed respect and affection the nuns who taught me in the 1950's. How odd that we boys who were in class with the nuns for hours each day really had no idea of what kind of lives some of them led in the hours before and after school. The moral, spiritual, and intellectual gifts they bestowed on us daily are inestimable, even though at the time we were probably more interested in whether or not they actually had hair under their wimples!

I've noticed some confusion in these reviews about several aspects of Catholic religious orders of those days. First, despite having no contact for long periods of time with "seculars" - i.e., civilians - Karen was not in a order of "cloistered" nuns. Cloistered sisters do truly cut themselves off completely from the world and, if I can be so bold as to describe them, they live a life governed by "ora et labora" - work and prayer. In fact, though, as strict as they were, Karen's order was primarily an order of teaching sisters.

But there is a much more important concept that many people seem not quite to grasp, and that is that all Catholic youth of those days - at least in my experience - were taught that the most perfect way to be a true follower of Christ was to share in his suffering. That is why those nuns were treated - and treated themselves - as harshly as any Marine Corps recruits would ever be treated - only the nun's harsh treatment was to continue all her life. Certainly, most youth who took Catholicism very seriously must have given thought at one time or another to entering the religious life. We were always told to examine ourselves to determine if we had a religious vocation, but we were also warned that it was not a calling for everyone. In any event, to decide at a young age to become a nun, brother, or priest - to dedicate one's life to doing good - was not understood by many of us to be the same as dedicating one's whole existence to God. When young people make the decision to enter the religious life they often do not know what that really entails. Some religious communities are extraordinarily strict, others less so. The particularly strict order to which Karen belonged was obviously intent on making sure those young girls found out immediately that the religious life was not a game, that sharing in Christ's suffering was not to be an abstract concept but a concrete reality. Those young nuns were to put up with the sadism of some of their superiors in the same way as Christ had to endure the sadism of his tormenters. They were not only to tolerate it but to welcome it and even seek out even more spiritual pain and physical hardship. (As the British often jokingly say about the paddlings they endured in school, "Please sir may I have another?") This concept of self-denial is probably not well understood in our modern climate of "personal fulfillment."

The total abnegation of self, of one's personal desires, of pride, of the hope for friendship and love, was the goal of the harshness they inflicted upon themselves. Their goal was to die to themselves in order to reach God. If you do not grasp this concept I think you'll miss the heroism inherent in the story of Karen and her fellow nuns. Naturally, that kind of life is not for very many of us, as Karen eventually found out for herself. It may be totally misguided or, by modern standards, even pathological, but it's the way some people have reached true holiness.

I'm very happy for myself and for all her readers that Karen Armstrong eventually chose to leave the convent and to follow another path in life. This book is not only a gift from her but, through her, a gift to us from all those other nuns who took - and take - the road less traveled. A truly wonderful and enlightening gift.

Editorial Review:

Through the Narrow Gate is Karen Armstrong's intimate memoir of life inside a Catholic convent. With refreshing honesty and clarity, the book takes readers on a revelatory adventure that begins with Armstrong's decision in the course of her spiritual training offers a fascinating view into a shrouded religious life, and a vivid, moving account of the spiritual coming age of one of our most loved and respected interpreters of religious.

Teresa of Avila: The Book of My Life

Mirabai Starr

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Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A Spiritual Gem for the 21st Century 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Mirabai Starr's review makes Teresa of Avila come alive for the twenty-first century spiritual seeker. Faithfulness to spiritual teachers of the past requires us to hear their voices in the language and images that they would use were they alive today as well as the voice of their own time. The Book of My Life is an invitation to the reader to explore the book of her or his own life and experience God's presence in the ordinary as well as extraordinary moments of life. Mirabai Starr has the gift of enabling the voices of the past to resonate in new and exciting ways for our time. This translation of the Book of My life will awaken today's readers to the spiritual insights of an earlier era and inspire their own spiritual adventures in our time.

Editorial Review:

Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) is one of the most beloved of the Catholic saints. In 1562, during the era of the Spanish Inquisition, Teresa sat down to write an account of the mystical experiences for which she had become famous. The result was this book, one of the great classics of spiritual autobiography. With this fresh translation of The Book of My Life, Mirabai Starr brings the inimitable Spanish mystic to life for a new generation, with contemporary English that mirrors Teresa's own earthy, vernacular Spanish, and that presents us with—four centuries after Teresa's death—someone we feel we know: a woman intoxicated with God yet filled with an overflowing love for the world.

The reformed pastor

Richard Baxter

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Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A Call to True Sacrificial Ministry 5 out of 5 stars.
19 of 19 people found this review helpful.

The Reformed Pastor was actually very different than I anticipated, being nothing about reformed theology or even theology at all. "Reformed Pastor" actually means reforming pastors, using the word the same way we would say "reformed hardened criminal." Hmmm. I guess that already tells you this book isn't one of those "feel-good" books.

Richard Baxter was famous for two things: being a tremendous pastor to a town in England, and getting constantly into trouble for being so blunt that he would make enemies of his friends. This book is about being a tremendous pastor, and it is very very blunt.

It is an extended lecture he proposed to give to a local ministerial association in 1656. The book uses as its foundation and framework Acts 20:28: "Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood." The book first deals with pastors "taking heed" to their own spiritual state and life, and then turns its attention to taking heed to all the flock.

As to the topic of taking heed to their own spiritual lives, Baxter starts at the beginning, with making sure the reader is truly a Christian, and progresses through disciplines, qualifications, and indwelling sin. He next emphasizes the reasons why a pastor must be rigorous in his own spiritual life. He expounds reasons such as how many eyes are on the man of God, how difficult the work is, and how the honor of Christ depends on it. He reminds his reader of many practical insights, such as "all that a minister does is a kind of preaching" and to avoid the error of men who "study hard to preach exactly, and study little or not at all to live exactly."

After dealing with the pastor's personal life, he tackles the pastor's responsibility to shepherd his congregation. His most radical recommendation, radical back then and almost unthinkable to American churches today, is for a pastor to personally visit and catechize people (for those unfamiliar with the term, it means to teach a list of several hundred questions and answers of basic theology). Specifically, he says a pastor should catechize each and every family, in the pastor's entire town, each and every year. In Baxter's town that meant 2000 people in 800 families, that he and his associate pastor took two full days every week to go through the whole town every year.

He bluntly states, "If the pastoral office consists of overseeing all the flock, then surely the number of souls under the care of each pastor must not be greater than he is able to take such heed as to here is required." Yea, and I'm sure the pastoral staff of most churches personally know every member of their flock. And yes, I know that we consider Sunday School teachers or small group leaders to be "overseeing the flock"- but how many of those leaders in our churches see themselves as shepherds, have been theologically trained and commissioned as overseers, one-on-one ask them regularly about their spiritual life, and are seen by the members of their class or group as having spiritual responsibility over them?

But it was a radical idea even back then, so much so that Baxter takes dozens of pages to specifically give all the reasons why every pastor should devote himself to this universal visitation and dozens more pages to specifically answer a whole series of objections to the work. In short, he says that he had found that an hour of focused questions concerning a person's spiritual state was often more helpful than years of listening to sermons for their spiritual growth. It's hard to argue with that conclusion, and harder to argue with the marked growth (in both numbers and spiritual maturity) that history shows that his church had under his pastorship.

As to objections to why not do it, he says that they all are variations on the theme of "I'm too lazy or greedy" which he viciously attacks as unworthy of any follower of Christ, let alone a pastor. To laziness, he asks "Are these works to be done with a careless mind, or a lazy hand? O see, then, that this work be done with all your might!"

To greed, he states that if a pastor has too many families in his church for him to visit individually, then he should hire another pastor out of his own salary to help him. He challenges, "What! Do you call yourselves ministers of the gospel, and yet are the souls of men so base in your eyes, that you had rather they eternally perish, than that you and your family should live in a low and poor condition?" Whoa there, Baxter must have never read Your Best Life Now!

The book is chock full with other helpful insights and wry comments, such as "All our teaching must be as plain and simple as possible." "Is it not a pity, then, that our hearts are not as orthodox as our heads?" "It is a contradiction in terms, to be a Christian, and not humble." "We must study how to convince and get within men, and how to bring each truth to the quick." "In the name of God, brethren, labour to awaken your own hearts, before you go to the pulpit, that you may be fit to awaken the hearts of sinners." And my list could go on and on and on. I have already discussed his specific instructions on personal evangelism in another article.

After reading The Reformed Pastor, I have to agree with Spurgeon, Packer, Dever and all the other big kahunas- this is absolutely essential reading for any man called to the ministry, to pin him against the wall and make him take stock of his ministry, his priorities, and his life before God, and to make him deeply consider about how best to "take heed over" himself and all his flock.

Editorial Review:

His introduction begins, "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." This charge from Acts 20:28 only is the beginning of a solemn and overarching task to be personally involved and disciple all of your congregants. Richard Baxter's plea for shepherding his flock continues with a charge to pastors to verify their own spiritual walk and then walks them through various disciplines, strategies and goals to guide and instruct their congregation.

Francis and Clare: The Complete Works (The Classics of Western Spirituality)

Regis J. Armstrong, Ignatius C. Brady

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Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Francis (c. 1182-1226), "The Little Poor Man" of Assisi, and Clare (c.1193-1254), "The Clear One," the woman who lived out his vision with heroic simplicity, together shaped the spirituality of early thirteenth-century Europe. Each gathered communities of like-minded persons to live out a radical commitment to the Gospel message of poverty and in the process left a legacy that has captured the imagination of both believer and nonbeliever throughout the ages.

Here for the first time in English the complete writings of both Francis and Clare have been brought together in one volume. The book represents the first English translation based on the critical texts of the writings of Francis assembled by Kajetan Esser in his 1976 Opuscula des Heiligen Franziskus von Assisi, and the critical texts of Clare's writings done by Ignatio Omaechevarria.

Writing in the preface to this volume, John Vaughn, Minister General of the Friars minor, sums up the relevance of Francis's and Clare's vision for today: "[It] Calls us to revitalizes our lives and those of others, and indeed to renew the very life of the Church in these times of crisis."

With God in Russia

Walter J. Ciszek, Daniel L. Flaherty

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

After reading this, how can I possibly complain about my life? 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book was awesome. Father Ciszek REALLY showed me that I need to toughen up. Not that I would want (or be able) to go through his ordeal. But just that my pampered little American sufferings are nothing, absolutely nothing, and that with Christ we really can do all things.

Editorial Review:

Father Walter Ciszek, S.J., author of the best-selling He Leadeth Me, tells here the gripping, astounding story of his twenty-three years in Russian prison camps in Siberia, how he was falsely imprisoned as an "American spy", the incredible rigors of daily life as a prisoner, and his extraordinary faith in God and commitment to his priestly vows and vocation. He said Mass under cover, in constant danger of death. He heard confession of hundreds who could have betrayed him; he aided spiritually many who could have gained by exposing him.

This is a remarkable story of personal experience. It would be difficult to write fiction that could honestly portray the heroic patience, endurance, fortitude and complete trust in God lived by Fr. Walter Ciszek, S.J.

Studying Congregations: A New Handbook

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Helpful book for analyzing congregations 4 out of 5 stars.
16 of 20 people found this review helpful.

This book provides a step-by-step process for analyzing a congregation-- its theology, context, culture and identity, dynamics, resources, and leadership. For church leaders looking for ways to figure out what's *really* been happening in a congregation, what its mission might be, and where it might be headed, this is a valuable book!

Specific in focus, excellent in application 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

The book is specific in focus and excellent in application.
It is everything it is presented to be.

Studying Congregations Review 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

The book is great. It outlines how to study a congregation with objectivity as the key. It also provides sample surveys, which is great. Good for individuals or for group research.

Parish Priest: Father Michael McGivney and American Catholicism

Douglas Brinkley, Julie M. Fenster

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Total reviews: 67 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"Father McGivney's vision remains as relevant as ever in the changed circumstances of today's church and society."—Pope John Paul II

Is now the time for an American parish priest to be declared a Catholic saint?

In Father Michael McGivney (1852-1890), born and raised in a Connecticut factory town, the modern era's ideal of the priesthood hit its zenith. The son of Irish immigrants, he was a man to whom "family values" represented more than mere rhetoric. And he left a legacy of hope still celebrated around the world.

In the late 1800s, discrimination against American Catholics was widespread. Many Catholics struggled to find work and ended up in infernolike mills. An injury or the death of the wage earner would leave a family penniless. The grim threat of chronic homelessness and even starvation could fast become realities. Called to action in 1882 by his sympathy for these suffering people, Father McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus, an organization that has helped to save countless families from the indignity of destitution. From its uncertain beginnings, when Father McGivney was the only person willing to work toward its success, it has grown to an international membership of 1.7 million men.

At heart, though, Father McGivney was never anything more than an American parish priest, and nothing less than that, either—beloved by children, trusted by young adults, and regarded as a "positive saint" by the elderly in his New Haven parish.

In an incredible work of academic research, Douglas Brinkley (The Boys of Pointe Du Hoc, Tour of Duty) and Julie M. Fenster (Race of the Century, Ether Day) re-create the life of Father McGivney, a fiercely dynamic yet tenderhearted man. Though he was only thirty-eight when he died, Father McGivney has never been forgotten. He remains a true "people's priest," a genuinely holy man—and perhaps the most beloved parish priest in U.S. history. Moving and inspirational, Parish Priest chronicles the process of canonization that may well make Father McGivney the first American-born parish priest to be declared a saint by the Vatican.

Transformation in Christ

Dietrich Von Hildebrand

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

excellent source for facing oneself honestly /with Christ 5 out of 5 stars.
42 of 48 people found this review helpful.

Thanks be to God for gifting this author with so much clarityin thinking, wholesome approach to the true nature of humanity, andability to translate his wisdom into understandable concepts which can be applied in daily life. For the serious seeker who is willing to strip himself of illusions, this work is a jewel.

Deep spiritual reading 5 out of 5 stars.
20 of 25 people found this review helpful.

An in depth look at the abstract qualities that come from and are aimed at cultivating in our relationship with God (mercy, humility, love, understanding, wisdom, sobriety...)

Editorial Review:

Recognized as a modern spiritual classic and perhaps Dietrich von Hildebrand's greatest work, this sublime and practical study gives a penetrating analysis of the true path to holiness for those who love Christ. The first requisite is the person's desire for change, and with that fundamental attitude in mind, von Hildebrand devotes a chapter to each of the successive spiritual attitudes necessary for those who strive for Christian perfection. The Beatitudes are treated with beauty and depth in an uncompromising challenge to every serious Christian to put into practice these teachings of Christ.

Healthy Congregations: A Systems Approach

Peter L. Steinke

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Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A helpful way to look at parish life 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This book is a classic in its field and is an excellent summary of a family systems approach to congregations. Steinke uses the healing processes of the human body as a metaphor to show how congregations function like a body to heal wounds and to prevent illness.

Based on my experience as a pastor, I'd say Steinke is right on the mark. Using family systems theory to describe a parish is very accurate, and Steinke clearly knows parish life intimately.

Every wise pastor knows the importance of listening to the emotional language of the congregation. When something is amiss, the pastor "feels" it. Steinke recognizes this reality when he says that a church community is an organic whole, and everything in a congregation is connected emotionally. You can't consider one part of the community without considering the whole thing together as a family system.

All churches have conflict, and pastors are rightly wary when conflict raises its ugly head. But Steinke points out that a healthy church is not one without problems, but one that addresses and heals its wounds. Like a healthy body, a healthy church has a well-functioning immune system (good leadership), vigorous circulation (open communication and feedback) and healthy breathing (the movement of the Spirit of God).

There are a lot of leadership books on the market, but Steinke addresses church leadership in particular. He says that good leadership is like the brain of the body. The human brain has the amazing ability to convert ideas into biochemical realities. In the same way, good pastoral leadership functions as the organ bringing balance and perspective to the church. Leaders make a difference when they make clear and effective responses to the conditions in the congregation.

To promote healthy congregations, Steinke points to a number of things: a healthy sense of purpose and vision; the willingness to address conflict; maturity among the leaders; a positive tone or mood in the congregation; the ability to manage anxiety; and a focus on solutions rather than the disease.

Being pastor of a church is a fascinating and lovely vocation. This book helps you see that vocation even more lovingly and more clearly.

Editorial Review:

In this sequel to How Your Church Family Works, Steinke takes readers into a deeper exploration of the congregation as an emotional system. Learn ten principles of health, how congregations can adopt new ways of dealing with stress and anxiety, how spiritually and emotionally healthy leaders influence the emotional system, factors that could put your congregation at risk, and more.

Firestorm: Preventing and Overcoming Church Conflicts

Ron, Susek

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Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

According to one survey, as many as one third of all congregations have suffered conflicts severe enough to result in the firing or forced resignation of one or more of their pastors. Ron Susek, who has firsthand experience of the lasting effects of church controversy and has ministered to churches in turmoil, offers a detailed portrait of how events can often spiral out of controlnot unlike the flames of a wildfire.

Firestorm describes the six successive phases through which conflicts generally pass. In each phase, Susek identifies the tensions that tend to develop, explains how they are compounded if left unresolved, and offers practical, spiritual guidance for pastors and congregational leaders.

The book also explains the spiritual, social, and psychological causes of conflict; the most appropriate means for dealing with controversy in its various stages; and what can be done in the firestorms aftermath to restore faith and hope.

A detailed plan of action is included.