I'm seeking for advice from you, readers, in search of a book. Here's what I'm looking for:
It has come to me in recent weeks that I need to begin spending a few minutes each day in spiritual reading: Scripture, lives of the saints, writings of the saints, etc.
One clear solution that occurred to me was the Office of Readings from the Liturgy of the Hours, either old or new. I was looking to see if I could find a volume which had just the full office of readings, rather than having to buy the full four volume Divine Office. However, I'm not seeing that there is such a thing.
I don't know if there's another collection of daily readings that I should go for.
I am very specifically looking for a book, not an app or a website. One of the problems that I'm trying to shake is having too much interaction with online religion. And I am looking for something which specifically dictates what to read each day, not to pick readings for myself, because I think that the discipline of following a plan other than my own is part of what is necessary for me.
At the same time, while I want to put myself under the guidance of some plan of reading not my own, I'm trying to avoid putting myself to read a daily set of "reflections" that I'll find overly maudlin or treacly.
So... Suggestions?
In Conversation With God - daily readings based on liturgical calendar. Yes, they are meditations, but rich with all of the resources you mentioned. You can probably find a copy for the current season at your parish library or bookstore to see if it might be a good fit for you.
ReplyDeleteMeredith
(With the caveat that one man's inspiration is another man's treacle, of course!)
ReplyDeleteMeredith
The Little Office of the BVM. Many of them give readings for all seven liturgical hours, which is way more than anyone could sustain, but you could say any two of them. I'd recommend a pocket edition.
ReplyDeleteCo-Workers of the Truth, by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.
ReplyDeletehttps://smile.amazon.com/Co-Workers-Truth-Meditations-Every-Year/dp/089870409X
Daily Readings in Catholic Classics from Ignatius (ed Rawley Myers). Dated, with less than a full page for each day, drawing from 34 famous Catholic authors: "Ranges from the thoughts of Doctors of the Church like St. Augustine, St. Teresa of Avila and St. Thomas Aquinas, to classic authors like St. Francis de Sales, Thomas a Kempis, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux, to popular 20th century spiritual guidse like Bishop Fulton Sheen, Thomas Merton and Romano Guardini and, finally, the writings of a group of famous modern converts like GK Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, Ronald Knox and John Henry Newman."
ReplyDeleteNow I should buckle down and read it every morning, as was my aim, rather than once every other month :)
The Coming Home Network has a free downloadable plan that will take you through the CCC and the Bible in a year. You can also do a subset of the readings: just the CCC, just the New Testament, just the wisdom books, or just the non-wisdom OT.
ReplyDeleteI've been getting a lot of good reading small bits of the Catechism in conjunction with A Year with the Catechism: 365 Day Reading Plan by Petroc Willey. I am not interested in reading it in a year but the commentary is really excellent, opening up the catechism for a broader application which is not at all sappy or even personal a lot of the time. I need to do a review but, right now anyway, it is a bit of spiritual reading that I really look forward to every day.
ReplyDeleteLate to the party, but I would definitely recommend 'He and I' by Gabrielle Bossis. Simple, beautiful and divided up into little fragments that make it perfect for digesting just a page at a time.
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