Book Review: Healing as a Parish Ministry

November 24, 2023

I was happy to stumble upon this book in a Little Free Library and to then discover that this practical and helpful book was locally written (i.e., Seattle, Washington).

The summary of this book on Goodreads states: “Jesus’ mandate to heal the sick is beginning to enter into faith communities today. In this sound and practical book, Father Leo Thomas and Jan Alkire show how this vital ministry is rooted in Christian scriptural and sacramental tradition. Pastors and lay leaders will benefit from the authors’ faith-filled, balanced wisdom. ‘Healing as a Parish Ministry’ will help all who read it become more effective channels of Christ’s healing to those who are hurting.”

Jesus healed the sick during his time on earth. Jesus instructed his disciples to heal the sick. Pope Francis talks today about the church being a “field hospital.” In a workshop I’m taking through Franciscan University’s Catechetical Institute, the instructor talks about church-goers sometimes preferring to go to their pastor/church for help before going to mental health providers. The message is communicated in many ways that church is meant to be a place where people can come for healing and direction. This book – Healing as a Parish Ministry – provides practical, front-line instruction to parishes – local churches – on how to provide healing ministries at one’s church.

In their book Healing as a Parish Ministry:

  • Leo Thomas and Jan Alkire write about faith healing does not mean curing natural consequences of what happens in life; rather, that faith healing is often about bringing us into the fullness of who God wants us to be – a very healing experience!
  • Thomas and Alkire write about how to set up a parish healing ministry – and why it is important.
  • The authors provide useful resources on how to connect meaningfully and usefully with parishioners who are in a time of need. Of equal importance, they also provide practical tips on what NOT to do so as to avoid alienating parishioners or causing ill will.

I read this book as a person who has found healing in church and who wants healing to be something that happens for many people in church. In my case, I returned to church – after a time away – with a painful neuropathic medical condition. That condition includes a hyper-stimulated sympathetic nervous system and associated physical pain. After returning to church, I found that contemplative prayer (and yoga, in my case) slowly calmed my over-stimulated nervous system – resulting in a reduction in physical pain. When I later came upon this book, I found that the book speaks to the type of healing I’ve experienced – I see the book having practical and real – real-world – insights and application.

This book is a great resource! I recommend this book to anyone who wants churches to be a place of healing.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at The Books of the Ages and A Parish Catechist (and a “Content Creator/Individual” member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog post, please share it with them (thank you!).

Book Review: The Screwtape Letters (C.S. Lewis)

November 21, 2023
The Screwtape Letters (C.S. Lewis)

I am not sure how I feel about reviewing a book that many people have already read (i.e., it’s so widely read that it perhaps doesn’t need much of an introduction!)…. With that said, I ended up choosing to review this timeless classic for anyone who hasn’t yet found and read this must-read book.

A friend – and spiritual guide – gave me a copy of The Screwtape Letters when I was in high school. Because it’s such a well-written and insightful spiritual classic, the book’s insights practically inform my faith life. I return to the book periodically, though I don’t ever need to re-read the entire book because the book’s contents impacted me enough the first time for its’ content to leave a lasting impression.

This book is well-described on Goodreads: “The Screwtape Letters by C.S.  Lewis is a classic masterpiece of religious satire that entertains readers with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles from the vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to ‘Our Father Below.’ At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters is the most engaging account of temptation — and triumph over it — ever written.”

When I first read this book (high school), I was just old enough to grasp what C.S. Lewis was getting at in this insightful, informing, and at the same time entertaining read. I had moved beyond Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia (my third grade teacher introduced us to that wonderful series of children’s books, which I read six times in elementary school) and was ready to start having my faith challenged on a maturing level. The Screwtape Letters helped me grasp – in an immensely readable way – that temptation comes to us in subtle and psychologically powerful ways in order to tempt us effectively.

I’ve still got the copy of The Screwtape Letters that I was given in high school. I recently came upon another copy in a Little Free Library – I brought it home because I want to pass it on to another reader (if I can find someone who hasn’t yet read it!)… (note: that second copy led to this book review). This book’s writing style makes it a worthwhile read for Christians and non-Christians alike – it tells us as much about our own psychological makeup and how we humans surrender to temptation’s allure as it does about the devils who are out to outwit us. A book for all ages (chronological ages and eras).

Kim Burkhardt blogs at The Books of the Ages and A Parish Catechist. If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog post, please share it with them (thank you!).

Book Review: Introduction to Christian Worship

November 2, 2023

This book – Introduction to Christian Worship (Third Edition) by James F. White – is an academic book elucidating the how-and-why of how Christian church services are organized, how the structure of church services have developed and changed over the centuries (i.e., pastors, liturgists, interested congregants, academics, and religious historians).

This book covers every aspect of the Christian liturgy – both in minutia and comparative details on how (and why) Christian church services (and other aspects of Christian worship such as Christian Initiation, baptism, weddings, and anointing of the sick) are the same across denominations as well as detailed discussion of how various aspects of church liturgy vary among denominations. The history of how church liturgy developed over the centuries is widely covered throughout the book. The wide breadth – and detail – of knowledgeable insight demonstrate many years of comparative religious study by the author (he was, after all, an academic).

Among the very readable insights of this book is an interesting point about the Bible readings that many denominations hear read at church on Sunday (page 75 of the third edition). James White informs readers that the Catholic church developed its’ current cycle of biblical readings read at mass after Vatican II. Many Catholics know of the three-year cycles of readings known as years A, B, C (there is a two-year cycle for the readings at weekday masses); White informs readers that many Protestant denominations also adopted the same reading cycle for weekend services – meaning there is a broad level of uniformity among many denominations of which Bible passages are heard each Sunday (news to me! I knew that several denominations – such as Episcopalians, Anglicans, Presbyterians, perhaps Lutherans and Methodists – read many of the same readings at church on the same calendar as Catholics; this shared practice seems to be more uniform and widespread than I realized. Denominations that read these shared Bible readings each weekend read from “The Lectionary for Mass” for Catholics and “The Common Lectionary” for Protestants). This standardization of readings moved some Protestant pastors away from only reading self-selected Bible passages at church that supported the political views of pastors and/or their congregations.

James F. White’s Introduction to Christian Worship is an informative read for anyone interested in Christian liturgy.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at The Books of the Ages and A Parish Catechist (and a “Content Creator/Individual” member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog post, please share it with them (thank you!).

Book Review: David Benner’s Opening to God

September 1, 2023

I was hooked when I read the back cover of David Benner’s Opening to God: Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer.

I read these excerpts from the book’s back cover as poetry describing the best I have experienced in prayer: “Prayer is not just communication with God: it is communion with God. As we open ourselves to him, God does the spiritual work of transformation in us…….discover openness to God as the essence of prayer…..Move beyond words [in prayer] to become not merely someone who prays, but someone whose entire life is prayer in union with God.”

Okay, I haven’t yet gotten to living as “someone whose entire life is prayer,” but my prayer life has joyously moved beyond “words communicated to God” to prayer being a relationship – without the need for human language” (as I mention in several previous blog posts such as this one). In my case, such prayer was given to me as a grace.

I started reading this book last night. Happily, the book is living up to the book’s description – a descriptive book about the dynamics of prayer being a meaningful relationship with God. A worthwhile read about what prayer can be and is meant to be.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at The Books of the Ages and A Parish Catechist. If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog post, please share it with them so they can subscribe (thank you!).

Book review: Daily Strengths for Daily Needs

August 26, 2023

Thank you to The Books of the Ages friend Karen Chartier for this book review. Much appreciated!

Book Review: Daily Strengths for Daily Needs

Mary W. Tileston

The Family Inspirational Library

Copyright 1928

Mary Tileston’s book Daily Strengths for Daily Needs offers a compilation of quotes from thoughtful, spiritual thinkers throughout the ages, from those found in the Bible to R.W. Emerson, to Marcus Antoninus, to George Elliot, to St. Frances de Sales — and scores of others.

Published first in 1884, it remains pertinent to the present. ‘In these days of great emotion and radical changes, we need the steady, persistent and refreshing inspiration of spiritual thoughts, which, entering the texture of our life in the morning, will guide and refresh us through the day, or, in the evening, give a sense of confidence and peace.’ opens the preface, and both the need and the outcomes outlined are relevant.

I was given this book by a friend and have been inspired by it throughout the year. I highly recommend it. Below are examples of quotes of Tileson’s book.

The one who will be found in trial capable of great acts of love, is ever the one who is always doing considerate small ones.          F. W. Robertson

A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace.                   R. W. Emerson

We may, if we choose, make the worst of one another.  Everyone has his weak points; everyone has his faults; we may make the worst of these; we may fix our attention constantly upon these.  But we may also make the best of one another.  We may forgive, even as we hope to be forgiven…By loving whatever is loveable in those around us, love will flow back from them to us, and life will become a pleasure instead of a pain; and earth will become like heaven; and we shall become not unworthy followers of Him whose name is Love.                      A. P. Stanley

Book Reviewer: Karen Chartier

The Tradition of Catholic Prayer: Book review, reflections

July 22, 2023

In their book The Tradition of Catholic Prayer, The Benedictine monks of Saint Meinrad Monastery (editors: Christian Raab and Harry Hagan) bring us a rich and rewarding read. When we want to read about prayer, it’s natural to want to turn to monks!

The depth and breadth of this book are summarized well on the book’s back cover, beginning with the following sentence: “Catholics have a rich and ancient prayer tradition that informs contemporary practice.” No wonder that people looking to deepen their prayer life look – among other places – to the Catholic Church. The variety of Catholic prayer experience and the historical context for this “rich and ancient prayer tradition” are covered engagingly in this very readable book. It’s worth a read for anyone looking to deepen their prayer life; it has helped nourish my ever-present hunger to sustain an rich and deep prayer life.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at The Books of the Ages. and at A Parish Catechist.

Living in the Presence (Tilden Edwards): book review

June 7, 2023

I came upon Tilden Edwards’ Living in the Presence perhaps five or six years ago in a Little Free Library. It immediately became part of my lectio divina reading on contemplative prayer. Lectio divina refers to prayerful, reflective reading of scripture; I sometimes read non-scriptural books in much the same way.

I had been gifted a state of contemplative prayer starting in October, 2016. In the period that followed, I actively – in a reflective way – read a good number of books on contemplative prayer. Living in the Presence was among these books; it provided an ample amount of nourishment for my prayer journey.

This book also brought to my attention an organization founded by the book’s author, Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation. While Living in the Presence gave me much nourishment as I read and re-read the book, finding that groups such as the Shalem Institute exist provided me with a good amount of hope.

A valuable read for individuals who want to nurture contemplative prayer.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at The Books of the Ages and A Parish Catechist .

Book Review: Teresa of Avila’s Autobiography

June 4, 2023

It must have been 2017 where I first heard of Teresa of Avila. Fr. Bryan Dolejsi mentioned her one weekday at St. Benedict parish (Seattle), calling her a “Doctor of the Church.” “What,” I wondered, “is a Doctor of the Church….and there is a woman recognized as a Doctor of the Church? I must find out who she is!” That led me to a Seattle Public Library copy of Mirabai Starr‘s English translation of the autobiography of this 16th century Spanish mystic.

Now, my own dog-eared and frequently-consulted copy of this book is on my bookshelf. Inside the front cover is a photograph of me with the translator, Mirabai Starr, at her speaking engagement at St. Mark’s Cathedral (Episcopal) in Seattle (yes, Mirabai graciously autographed my copy of the book).

Teresa of Avila’s autobiography – her life, her mystical, contemplative experience – has actively nourished my own prayer life. When I returned to church in 2016, it was a result of a “God moment” (including a broken ankle, long story) in which God gifted me an unanticipated and emotionally nourishing period of contemplative prayer. I didn’t have the vocabulary to talk about the inner state I was experiencing (now, I know to call that period of time “an encounter with God”); Teresa’s autobiography provided me with exquisite articulation about mystical prayer. Since finding and eagerly re-reading this book over time, I’ve heard people refer to the writings of Teresa and her protege (John of the Cross) as poetry-about-prayer. I don’t feel that a “poetry” description gives justice to their writing (accurate perhaps, but the description pales); I prefer to think of the writing of these two Carmelite saints as “the voice of lived experience.”

Kim Burkhardt blogs at The Books of the Ages and A Parish Catechist.

You are the Beloved: book review and reflections

June 2, 2023

Somehow, it took me until 2019 to discover the writer and priest Henri Nouwen. In 2019, our pastor at my church had us read one of Henri Nouwen’s books (With Burning Hearts). I was immediately drawn into Nouwen’s way of making a reader feel presently closer to the reality of Christ. I have since read several of Nouwen’s books and brought With Burning Hearts to my prayer group; the book was well received and led to fruitful discussions.

This book, You are the Beloved, is written as 365 daily meditations to walk a reader through a year. Gulp – I read all the meditations in several weeks. The reflections bring us closer toward “Love God, love your neighbor.” God loves us and wants to have a relationship with us. Rather than a one-way phone call in which either God or us is phoning the other (and us feeling like it is a dropped call), God wants a two way relationship in which that relationship is felt, experienced and deepened by both us and God – leading us to also love our neighbor. This reflections in this book cultivate our ability to pick up the phone and engage in such a two-way loving communication with God – and then also with our neighbor.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at The Books of the Ages and A Parish Catechist.

Book Review: Grief on the Road to Emmaus

June 1, 2023

I recently bought Beth L. Hewitt’s Grief on the Road to Emmaus.

I read a lot of books; I am finding this one to be a book that is both readable and experiential. Given that I spent years keeping my mind and emotions separate, I now appreciate a book that engages both mind and heart in a life-engaging, reflective manner.

Beth Hewitt observes in this book that not only do we need to grieve the loss of our loved ones who pass on (or move out of our lives, I suppose), we have to grief life’s pathways that don’t go the way we would have preferred. Lost a job? Grieve. Lost a limb? Grieve. Got robbed? Grieve. Got seriously injured in an accident? Grieve. I’ve probably heard this before, but it didn’t sink in. “Just move on” is the motto many of us expect shall get us through life’s challenges. Wrong. We need to grieve. When we don’t grieve, we don’t heal. When we don’t heal, we don’t really move on.

Further, Hewitt’s instructions on how to be present with people who are grieving has application in daily life. If we were to start treating everyone with the approaches described in this book – such as # – life would be less transactional, more interactional.

Something I didn’t know when I ordered this book is that Beth Hewitt wrote this book from a Benedictine view. Wow, added bonus. I am a parishioner at a St. Benedict parish and, as such, have learned some Benedictine lessons from this parish in recent years; this book is complimenting those lessons in helpful and meaningful ways. Loving the book!

Book reviewer Kim Burkhardt blogs at The Books of the Ages and at our partner organization, A Parish Catechist.