Some new publications to share with you — books I am currently enjoying very much or have recently finished:
Mary's Voice in the Gospel According to John. (affiliate link) Our friend Michael Pakaluk has written a “formal equivalence” translation (as opposed to the misleading “dynamic equivalence” one preferred by our bishops today) that highlights what he presumes is the influence of the Blessed Virgin on “the disciple Jesus loved.”
I say presumes because the Gospels attest to her whole being and the unique witness that it represents — what could be more natural than that her voice would come through John's writing, especially, as he is her son bestowed on her by her Son; thus Michael's approach in this translation and in the exegesis he offers for each chapter as we read.
Lots to ponder here. Michael's emphases and choices make the familiar words new, sharp, and invigorating, like the air at the top of a mountain — sort of hyper-oxygenated. His explanations are insightful and his love for Our Lady shines through as he offers us her point of view in her motherly attentiveness, purity, and devotion.
Of great interest to me is his final word regarding what we ought to translate as “Life Everlasting.” There is a school of thought, Universalism, that teaches that all will be saved, and David Bentley Hart is its prophet (at least in our times).
The arguments turn on translation, and Michael mounts a convincing and elegant refutation. The topic leads naturally to the question of the tradition of Mary's Assumption (or Dormition). All in all, a readable, accessible, yet impeccably scholarly book!
Deeper Heaven: A Reader's Guide to C. S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy. As I said when I found Michael Ward's Planet Narnia, (affiliate links) if I can't be reading Lewis, I can at least be reading about Lewis — if that something is worthy! When I saw that Michael Ward recommended Deeper Heaven, which looks at Lewis's Space Trilogy (the author insists it should be called the Ransom Trilogy), I had to read it.
I am halfway through and appreciating it mightily. The breadth and depth of Lewis's scholarship (and sheer life-long reading enjoyment) inform his works, so that ever more inquiry can be brought to them with delightful results. As with other true classics, study of his books only increases the pleasure of knowing them.
When the reader learns more about Lewis's influences from ancient literature and the medieval conception of the universe (one that has resonance in Scripture and ancient thought as well — in fact, with all human thought except for that of our own era), he will know more about what Lewis was trying to convey in his own works and appreciate them even more. What might have seemed like unevenness or randomness comes into harmony when we look at it from the right perspective.
The author, Christiana Hale, is herself well enough steeped in classical learning that her approach has the air of a familiar guide offering you her mature insights (as opposed to the strained and often boring efforts of a mere researcher). Lewis's cosmology and his philosophical understanding underlie everything he created, and she is able to show us in his texts where these influences can be found. In one as young as she, it's an impressive achievement. This book can go next to Ward's on the shelf; the reader who knows Lewis's works well will often refer to them both for enlargement of his own observations.
Understanding Marriage & Family: A Catholic Perspective. I heard a podcast with Fr. Sebastian Walshe and was so impressed with his calm and clear way of talking that I bought his book immediately. In it, he offers an explanation for all the teachings of the Church on marriage from a Thomistic viewpoint of the causes of things, and their ends or goals. By using a “questions and answers” format and tackling objections head on, he is able to offer clarity based on sound reasoning in the light of Scripture and human experience.
Perhaps some of you are a bit mystified as to how to answer questions about marriage, divorce, homosexuality, and so on… or have only heard explanations based on the theology of the body. Fr. Walshe's lucid arguments will help you clarify matters for yourself and others.
Benedictus — like Magnificat, but for the Traditional Latin Mass! We go to the Novus Ordo daily Mass at the nearby Abbey, but I find that reading the traditional ordo for the Mass of the day (the Propers — the prayers in the liturgy that are particular to the day) helps my prayer immensely — more than I would have thought.
I have subscribed even though I won't be able to use it much, other than on Sundays — just seems like a great initiative to support!
Don't forget Peter Kwasniewski's Holy Bread of Eternal Life! What can be more fruitful than recovering our devotion to the Holy Eucharist?
Lots of good reading this Lent. Have you read anything you'd recommend? I'd love to hear about it!
bits & pieces
- What to grow in an unheated greenhouse (like my little one).
- Deadnaming matters. “Words matter, and not just because it’s nearly impossible to win a fight in which every rule is set by your opponent. In practice, using the other side’s terms amounts to—or, at least, appears as—conceding the substance of their points.”
- Critical race theory database — find out if the university you're sending your child to (and paying for) will indoctrinate him
- The Iliad in a Nutshell, by Joseph Pearce (the first of an on-going “in a nutshell” articles about great works of literature!).
from the archives
liturgical living
Tomorrow begins Passiontide.
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Emily says
And my “to read” pile grows! Especially that first book because I love the Gospel of John!
Dixie says
Speaking of reading about Lewis, I just came across a short story called “The Problem of Susan” related to the question of why Susan does not die in the car crash in the Last Battle and make her way to Aslan’s country. Apparently there is a whole feminist trope built off of this story. I do think that sometimes Lewis misunderstands women (well, he was a man himself, living in a community of men, raised without a mother or sisters, and didn’t marry for quite some time!), although at other times he grasps them quite well. But ugh, no.
I think it’s very interesting to ponder the problem of Susan, though. Lewis himself, I understand, wrote that there was certainly hope for her — her story would continue, but he would not write it (he said the book would be too much of an adult book for him to want to write it, or something like that. This was in a letter to a child concerned about Susan).
I would love to have the chance to discuss sometime without just having people get mad that Susan’s (potential) doom is written off mostly as the result of lipstick. I agree with another comment I saw while reading about this — that Susan’s story is “one of the great unfinished stories of Narnia.”
But don’t go read the short story I mention above. Yuck. It’s gross.
Leila says
Vanity really is a sin… being trivial is an obstacle to knowing and following God! Maybe this is a hard teaching… what hurts about Susan is that she’s not just one character in the stories, she’s a Pevensie. The child reading the stories obviously wants her to be included in all the adventures, to see her go “higher up and further in” just like the others.
If Edmund, guilty of such a terrible sin, could repent and go on to be a great Narnian saint, we feel, why can’t Susan? Perhaps her fate is a reflection of the Gospel words that she who has sinned much also loves much, and Susan is not a great sinner.
That said, I do imagine that her story is different from that of the others and takes place in the English world, later on — I tend to agree with the comment you quote, that hers is an unfinished story (in the context of Narnia).
Women certainly do have tendencies in terms of virtue and vice, as do men. I think that Lewis doesn’t shy from attributing to his male characters certain… characteristically… male vices! Why should he refrain with a female character? I suppose we feel it’s unchivalrous. (I don’t buy that Lewis didn’t understand women — I think that women are too easily offended when our imperfections are held up to the light.)
Dixie says
Well, I agree with you about Susan, and about vanity. I think most telling is the comment in “The Last Battle” that she no longer believes in Narnia, brushing it off as children’s games.
Perhaps what I see as Lewis’s misunderstanding of women stems from my desire for him to explore women more. He dismisses women easily if they have some vice…they seem like damning caricatures (like in this so, so brief explanation of Susan’s absence). Where is the nuance? It’s been a long while since I read the space trilogy, but I remember thinking when I did read it a few years back that the women there were caricatures. A caricature has its place, but it’s also dismissive of the character. What could we learn by delving deeper into those characters in the way we do into some of the male characters?
Now, Lucy — that’s another story. There we see the tremendous virtues of femininity without any of the need to equate the girl with the boy (the passage when Father Christmas explains to Lucy why she will not be a soldier is marvelous). And she is not without her faults, but she has the humility to find her way back to Aslan when she strays.
Lewis can (well, could) write the books he wants, of course, and doesn’t have to write what I wish he would. But I do think this is a criticism that goes beyond authorial choice to a point where it affects the reader’s trust of him as narrator in some of his writings.
Grace says
I can’t agree with you about C.S. Lewis dismissing women easily if they have faults. To begin with, Till We Have Faces is a whole book about a very flawed woman who does find redemption. Also, Lewis was preparing the character of Susan all throughout the Narnia series. Just off the top of my head, in Prince Caspian, there is a point in which only Lucy sees Aslan, and then gradually the other do, Susan being last. When she finally did, she asked Lucy why she thought she was so long in seeing him, and Lucy replied, maybe it was because Susan didn’t want to see him, foreshadowing her eventual rejection of him. Also, in The Horse and His Boy, when the grownup Lucy, Susan and Edmund are trapped in Calormine, Susan acknowledges that it was her vanity that made her even take up with the Calormine prince to begin with. I think Lewis did a superb job in subtly showing how small choices can and do lead slowly up to huge consequences, woman or not. I see no misunderstanding of women.
Lynn says
Have you read Till We Have Faces? Lewis takes a first-person female voice, and the two main female characters are anything but caricatures. It’s such a great Christian retelling of the Cupid and Psyche myth.
Leila says
Lynn and Grace, I came back to say the same things about Til We Have Faces! (Your comments were both in my moderation queue — no telling what will get stuck there — so you didn’t see each other’s until I approved them, sorry.)
In Prince Caspian, Susan is also given the gift of the horn that must not be blown until the need is the greatest. Her role is not superficial, but she is superficial in the end. I think Lewis is doing different things with her — playing with the time aspect, and the “different worlds” question, which does become important when you step back and look at how Narnia is a place where the virtue of childlikeness must be lived in order to remain there.
Susan’s particular loss of faith has to do with losing her childlikeness (as opposed to Edmund’s betrayal, which doesn’t have the quality of turning away from the world of faith with scorn).
She’s not as grown up as she thinks she is, we learn, but she wants the trappings of being grown up. She puts Narnia aside for worldly things. I am not sure how Lewis would have had a character do the things she does without making her one of the children from this world… that is, one of the four. But I admit it is deeply disturbing! I remember as a child feeling strongly that *I* had to be very careful of this error.
We can be consoled that Aslan tells the children, “Once a king or queen in Narnia, always a king or queen in Narnia.” Perhaps, as Lewis says, she gets back by some other means. I wish he had written that story…
Grace says
I think you are right, Leila, that Susan’s issue is a turning away from Narnia and Asian, and towards worldly things, especially fake things, which are a kind of lie. She’s focusing inwards and pretending to be what she isn’t, firstly grownup, and then youthful, when she no longer is. In other words, I think she is making a false idol of herself, instead of worshiping God, whom she knows as Aslan.
It’s always very sad when people turn away from God to lesser things, especially to something trivial! It’s especially sad, in contrast to the Calormine who loved because he thought he was good, whom Aslan accepted as someone who loved him, Aslan, without knowing. But Susan, who did know, turned away and denied Narnia, and by extension Aslan.
In the Orthodox Church, on Holy Wednesday, we remember and contrast the sinful woman who anointed Christ’s feet and Judas who betrayed Him. The sinful one offered Christ what was very precious, while the disciple sold Him who was above all price. You would expect the opposite behavior from each. I think that there is a definite echo of that, though the sexes are flipped.
Grace says
The more I think about it, Susan’s falling away also reminds me of the Ladder of Divine Ascent icon, which shows even righteous ones near the top falling down, reminding us that we can fall even from spiritual heights, like Susan in effect did. And also from a portion of the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, which says something like “Beware my soul, and take action. Harlots and publicans are entering the Kingdom of Heaven before you!” The Calormine entering the new Narnia, while Susan does not.
To me, this is nothing to do about misunderstanding women, but a fearful warning to us against becoming complacent about our salvation, which you felt even as a child!
Leila says
Thank you for mentioning the icon. It’s something we should always have in mind. I do think that the four Pevensie children are meant to be something like apostles in Narnia, and maybe Lewis had in mind a sort of betrayal from that high calling when he had Susan turn away. Exactly what you say — complacency.
Kelsey says
Thank you for sharing Benedictus! I just renewed my Magnificat subscription, too. Hmm, I wonder if I should try to cancel it and subscribe to Benedictus instead. I had been wishing for something like this to be made available!
We also attend both the TLM and NO, though in a rather more haphazard manner than you describe as your routine. I will say that I find it somewhat exhausting to keep both calendars in mind simultaneously. It’s like we have two parallel churches.
Thank you also for the Deeper Heaven recommendation, I did love Planet Narnia and will definitely check this one out.
Vera says
TAN publishes a calendar that has both TLM & NO calendars together, if that makes sense. It’s really helpful!
Vera says
Christus Vincit—it’s an interview with Bishop Athanasius Schneider. I found it extremely interesting and also uplifting since there’s only so much persecution one can take… Just started reading Homeschooling From Rest which I’ve heard is quite good! Thanks for sharing what you’re reading, I’ve always wondered 😁
Leila says
I just loved Christus Vincit! I highly recommend it to anyone. Not only an inspiring story but also an excellent explanation of and introduction to the faith.
Ashley says
I just finished Holy Bread of Eternal Life. I loved it! Thank you for the recommendation. I learned a lot and it really made me want to try to be more reverent.
I just requested Christus Vincit from the library after seeing the recommendation in the comments. 🙂
KellyD says
Is Benedictus the same size as Magnificat? I have a lovely leather cover that I’d like to be able to use with it.
Leila says
It is the same width and height, but I think the depth will be more, because the paper is heavier/thicker and there is much more included for each month, it seems to me. So I don’t know if it would end up being too fat! I’m not sure!
Anamaria says
I’m curious about your distinction between marriage explanations based on theology of the body versus thomistic explanations. I admit I have not read much theology of the body in the last ten years but, in the past, found it it quite Thomistic. I have always thought it used the method of phenomenology to look at the body and better understand the truths of Thomas’s teaching on the body as integral to the person. Additionally, through the body we can know the “telos” of the human person. But perhaps I am mixing ideas from Michael Waldstein and Josef Seifert with what’s actually in TOB.
I am currently reading James V. Schall’s book that’s subtitled “On Sinning and Being Forgiven” (can’t remember the title) and Jacques Philippe’s Real Mercy (both excellent) and Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose.
Logan says
I just read Angle of Repose for the first time and loved it, I felt I had found a new friend in Stegner!
I too have been getting confused about phenomenology vs Thomistic philosophy randomly enough. I came across John Senior’s criticism of phenomenology in his biography “The Restoration of Realism” and he seems to put phenomenology at odds with realism. But I hadn’t ever heard any critiques of phenomenology from a Catholic perspective before and knew JP2 and Edith Stein were both phenomenologists. Also that Edith Stein at one point was working to unite Thomistic philosophy with phenomenology–did she?
I don’t know if this is the place for this question but it’s vaguely related, has anyone read the work of Conrad Baars? A priest (who I don’t know very well) recommended his books to me and Baars claims to be a Thomistic psychologist. The concept that I want to check up on is this idea he proposes that it is a Kantian view of morality to claim that the highest form of virtue is to not want (emotionally) to do something virtuous, but to do the right thing anyway regardless of feelings. But Baars claims Aquinas would have that the emotions, reason, and will are all united in truly mature moral decision making. This kind of threw me for a loop because I actually think I have more of the former philosophy internalized. I have no idea where to check up on this guy, I couldn’t find much from the internet that was helpful, he seems a bit obscure. Where is the psycho/philosophy forum for moms?
Dixie says
I love Angle of Repose! Stegner is wonderful.
Leila says
I have read Conrad Baars and think he has a great contribution to make. I don’t know about him being Kantian. The trouble is that every philosophy has some truth to it, and you can go pretty far with Kant until you arrive at a world that is solely made up of rules! Of course, one must view one’s duty objectively and not be swayed by emotional responses. That’s not Kantian, it’s just truth. If you have a link to this critique of Baars, I could say more, perhaps.
I do have this post with a link to an interview of Suzanne Baars by Patrick Coffin — great conversation: http://likemotherlikedaughter.org/2019/03/bits-pieces-178/
Logan says
I realize I was a little unclear in my comment. Baars criticizes Kant in his book “Healing and Feeling your emotions.” Baars recommends the Thomistic approach.
“Q What is this other philosophy that is responsible for so much needless suffering? A I was referring to the philosophy—based, of course, on the belief that our emotions are enemies of our higher faculties and the spirit—which holds that man’s will must be trained to act against his emotions, if he is to succeed in leading a virtuous life. This voluntaristic (from the Latin voluntas—will) philosophy, which considers the will as supreme, has dominated centuries of churchmen’s attitudes and religious training.[12] For the past two centuries it was further encouraged by the teachings of the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, who considered all human feelings as pathological. His ideas were responsible for such widely held beliefs as, “If you do something good when you do not like it and you will it with great effort and intense self-control, then your act is truly moral,” and “What counts is that you will the good and do it, no matter how you feel.” As I shall explain in a later chapter, there is a direct cause-and-effect relationship between this belief that the will is supreme and must be exercised no matter how one feels, and the emotional afflictions of the scrupulous person, the person with obsessive-compulsive repression, and instances of spiritual aridity of truly spiritual persons.
Baars, Conrad W.. Feeling and Healing Your Emotions . ReadHowYouWant. Kindle Edition. ”
This is the passage I’m referencing. Where I’m stuck was that since I’m unfamiliar with his approach, before I go revising my psyche, I want to make sure that his philosophy is sound especially since he was going against my previous understanding which I hadn’t realized was in error. I don’t want to be a feather in the breeze of every convincing argument! And I’m not well grounded in Catholic philosophy I converted and I studied philosophy at a secular university so sometimes it’s hard for me to evaluate. Baars also brought up a very significant criticism against the Bishop’s “Human Sexuality” booklet and that book had been very formative for me when I was converting!
Thanks for your insight! I don’t think Baars would say that you shouldn’t do the right thing even if you don’t feel like it, he seemed very insistent that it was important to apply reason to our emotions. I guess I had a view emotions are irrelevant and just do what’s right and repress your emotions! Haha.
Leila says
Okay, I see.
Perhaps it would be good to return to the ancients’ understanding of the relationship between the emotions (which they would identify at least to a certain extent with the appetites) and the will. I somewhat go into this in a post about teaching children to like and dislike what they ought, which in turn is an important point in C. S. Lewis’s Abolition of Man.
In that work he speaks of “men without chests.” The chest, to the ancients, is the “mediator” between the head (the intellect/will) and the appetites.
Without the will, we are at the mercy of our wants, needs, and desires. Without emotions/appetites, we are automatons, no better than cogs in a wheel. Human beings are made to have instincts but to bring them under control, through habits that become virtues.
Baars as far as I know is about healing the person’s wounds contracted by a lack of affirmation. But he doesn’t do the secular therapeutic thing of pandering, indulging, enabling. He is about healing and integrating (meaning integrating emotions with the will).
The problem with Kantianism is that it is not about the whole person; it’s a strange sort of modernism that does acknowledge absolutes but then locates them in the person’s will. Ultimately this is a destructive philosophy because it doesn’t leave room for the experiences of life.
I wonder if most people realize that Aristotle holds that the virtuous person acts virtuously without tension or struggle, that it’s more, not less, virtuous to accomplish a virtuous act easily and smoothly than with great effort. Something to think about, because the opposite view, that the more arduous an act is, the better, is essentially Kantian — that is, Modernistic.
I’m not familiar with the bishops’ booklet but I do know that they are Modernists… They love rules… see this excellent article: https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/ten-commandments-and-systemic-clericalism/
Leila says
Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body starts with Scripture, with the story of creation, to develop an anthropology of man and woman — and marriage — based on God’s original plan. It’s a fruitful method because without this starting point, we can only fall back on generalizations and stereotypes (men are strong, women are nurturing) that can always be challenged by exceptions and cultural differences; our world is fallen, and if we don’t acknowledge that, we get lost in the details of circumstances. It’s almost impossible to say meaningful things about man and woman that don’t end up being subjective, unless you can begin with how God ordered things in an unfallen world.
Fr. Walshe looks at things according to their purpose, carefully defining terms before he even begins. His arguments are about how our bodies are made for procreation, how marriage is the only institution that protects man, woman, and the child, and how reason and nature can illuminate and guide right and wrong choices.
He does explain from Revelation, to be sure. And what he says is certainly compatible with TOB. It’s just laid out more according to logical categories, with questions and answers about the right use of our bodies and so on.
As to phenomenology, I am not prepared to say. To me, arguing from first principles on the one hand, and Revelation on the other, are sufficient!
Anamaria says
Thank you! I see what you mean.
Toni Graham says
I am currently reading _The Night is Far Spent: A Treasury of Thomas Howard_. It is 30+ essays, articles, and lectures by the late Thomas Howard. It is simply wonderful!
The book is divided into three broad categories: Things Literary and Literary Men, Things Sacred, and Existing Things: Self, Society, God.
He is an articulate, intelligent writer. I am thoroughly enjoying this book. It is a breath of fresh air.
Leila says
I love Thomas Howard! A really satisfying writer.
Ren says
I recently read the collected works of Carol Jackson Robinson, there are three books with her writings. Designs for Christian Living was a great quick short read. There are two more books of her collected work one on the beatitudes and the other on mediocrity that were good reads as well. I would recommend all three, my favorite being the Christian living. Her description of a Christian library made me want to start my own. She describes what a Catholic movie studio would look like if it was truly Catholic and even a store. It made me begin to pay attention to the companies I am supporting and donating to. She also described what women should wear, it was relevant to today even though it was written several years ago.
I am currently reading Understanding Marriage and Family. His explanation of marriage has put a lot of things in perspective most importantly why no divorce.
Leila says
Those books by Carol Jackson Robinson sound intriguing!
I am glad you are reading Fr. Walshe’s book. It’s such a good exposition and could go alongside Bishop Fulton Sheen’s 3 to Get Married. The only thing I would urge him to temper if we could talk, would be how he discusses pleasure in the sexual act, almost in a utilitarian way. We could connect it to the discussion elsewhere here in the comments about Conrad Baars’ philosophy and the Kantian imperative to do what is right regardless of feelings, rather than the ancient idea of putting feelings in the proper order of goods.
If we think about the pleasure of eating (which Fr. Walshe does bring up as an analogue), we can see that it’s not just a means to get us to take in nourishment, but a good in itself and a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.
The pleasure is not just of the tastebuds (although it is that). It is of the conviviality and the bonding effect of having all our senses involved as we share a meal with others, an event that certainly transcends mere feeding of our bodies. We are not beings who can leave our material aspect behind, nor should we; we are meant to sanctify every aspect of our essence.
I am reminded of how the ultra-orthodox Jews say a blessing even before taking a sip of water…
Similarly, the pleasure of the conjugal act is part of the bestowing of a gift on the other person; it’s not for nothing that the act is designed to make the (pure and undefiled) seeking of pleasure *give* pleasure to the spouse.
Our time is characterized by instrumentalizing *both* aspects of the sexual act: we idolize pleasure (and I mean that literally — make it a god, albeit a stingy one who rarely returns the offering) while at the same time extracting the procreative element and putting it in a clinic in the worst case, but even in the less offensive case, making it a technical matter; begetting only when we have determined that the propitious moment has arrived (and how can we know that?).
So I think that part of his analysis could use some refinement; an older couple might be able to take it with a grain of salt, but a younger one might be disheartened or skeptical (and rightly so, I think). This is where Pope John Paul’s Christian Anthropology might be helpful.
Otherwise, the book is a seriously thought out defense of the characteristics of marriage and should be studied carefully!
Claire says
This is so true. Thank you!
Eric Edward says
I have been reading the poetry of Jane Greer, Adam Zagajewski (who died earlier this week), and Zbigniew Herbert.
Greer is definitely worth reading, with lots to say about relationships, God, faith, and the joy of the created world. She can be hit or miss, but when she hits it is out of the park.
Zagajewski and Herbert are both Polish poets I am reading in translation. There is something fascinating to me about the place of Poland in World history over the last 200 years or so. The Nazis to the West and Soviets to the East really put them in a vise, but those crushed grapes made beautiful wine.
Zagajewski was born just after V-E day, so grew up under communism. Herbert was in his 20’s during the war and has written, along with Milosz, some of the most beautiful and thoughtful works about life, death, faith, doubt, and love.