Feel free to discuss and share the titles of books you are currently reading or have recently finished (let’s try limiting each to 3 titles ), and please include links to reviews or pages in Amazon, B&N, etc.

Here is my current list:

Francis and Clare: The Complete Works
http://www.amazon.com/Francis-Clare-Complete-Classics-Spirituality/dp/0809124467/

The Existential Jesus
http://www.amazon.com/Existential-Jesus-John-Carroll/dp/1582434654/

Introducing the Orthodox Church: Its Faith and Life
http://www.amazon.com/Introducing-Orthodox-Church-Faith-Life/dp/1933654082/

Books I recently finished:

Mystical Theology: The Science of Love
http://www.amazon.com/Mystical-Theology-Science-William-Johnston/dp/1570751757/

The Orthodox Church, New Edition
http://www.amazon.com/Orthodox-Church-New-Timothy-Ware/dp/0140146563/

A Catechism of the Liberal Catholic Church
http://www.amazon.com/Catechism-Liberal-Catholic-Church-Fourth/dp/1453840249/

Agape,
Chuck

–Recently Finished–

Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals
Still soaking this one in, good stuff! This book has turned out to be immensely helpful by categorizing moral concepts at their “wellsprings” and/or source in God… ABSOLUTLEY, LOVE IT!

The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart
Great Resource…

Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality
Awareness has become my new favorite recommendation for Christian Mysticism 101.

–Slowly but Surely–

The Red Book

The Confessions of St. Augustine

Great Ideas of Philosophy, 2nd Edition

You can certainly tell a lot about a person by the books they read….or the U-Tube videos they watch!

Speaking of Immanuel Kant, Gregory. I was hoping you would trot out your impressions of him in the near future…..

Steve

Sometimes, I confine myself to abbreviated topics like this one in the Huffington Post regarding science v. religion….always a hot topic.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-mcswain/the-church-is-dying_b_1190734.html?ref=religion

I like the Huff too, Steve!

Greg,

Thanks for posting the link to Awareness! I often go to the 1-star reviews first, and I was pleased to see that most of the criticism was for unorthodox understandings of Christian scripture and theology. It’s on my wish list now.

Agape,
Chuck

I really liked “Awareness” too, Gregory. Many of my questions were either answered, or perhaps more importantly, discarded after a thoughtful reading of this book. We will all miss Fr. DeMello.
Steve

Here’s a website you might enjoy browsing. I think John O’Donohue was an extremely gifted author. My personal favorite is “Anam Cara”. He too, was taken from us prematurely.
Steve
http://www.johnodonohue.com/

Francisco de Osuna’s Third Spiratual Alphabet

I just received it and have only begun to read it but already I see why Teresa of Avila was so inspired by it.

http://www.amazon.com/Francisco-Osuna-Spiritual-Alphabet-Spirituality/dp/080912145X

“The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure, that it is profane to seek to interpose helps. It must be that when God speaketh he should communicate, not one thing, but all things; should fill the world with his voice; should scatter forth light, nature, time, souls from the centre of the present thought; and new date and new create the whole. Whenever a mind is simple, and receives a divine wisdom, old things pass away-means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now and absorbs past and future into the present hour. All things are made sacred by relation to it-one as much as another. All things are dissolved to their centre by their cause, and, in the universal miracle, petty and particular miracles disappear. If, therefore, a man claims to know and speak of God, and carries you backward to the phraseology of some old mouldered nation in another country, in another world, believe him not….the centuries are conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul. Time and space are but physiological colors which the eye makes, but the soul is light; where it is, is day; where it was, is night….”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson – Philosopher and Mystic – From “Self Reliance”

Here’s an interesting article in Sojourner about what it means to be an Evangelical. Rob Bell comes up with the best answer!
http://bl117w.blu117.mail.live.com/default.aspx?rru=inbox#n=506610474&rru=inbox&fid=1&fav=1&mid=ff3d1ba1-42cc-11e1-8ba2-00215ad8c1e8&fv=1

A thought provoking article in the Huff Post (again) on science as a path to the sacred.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-frank/can-science-be-sacred_b_1213082.html?ref=religion

A Mirror For Monks by Louis of Blois

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/blois/mirror.txt

A real gem.

Bro. David Steindl-Rast, OSB is considered by some to be a modern day mystic. In some ways he has followed the path of Thomas Merton. Here is an interesting article he wrote on the nature of truth:
http://www.gratefulness.org/readings/dsr_Insights2.htm

I’m not aware of many novels that give a fictional account of the Christian mystical life but apparently this is one of them. I’m providing a link below with a summary of the plot. There was also a movie released based on the book in 1996. I haven’t read the book or seen the movie.
http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides3/mariette_in_ecstasy1.asp