Stations of the Cross Then and Now
by Denis McBride (Redemptorist Publications, £15.00)
As Easter approaches Denis McBride’s new book is perhaps the sort of contemplative book which many Christians will want to read, in which the Via Dolorosa is explored and exemplified in modern terms, though it would be true to say that the terms of cruelty, torture, and execution have an a universal nature which transcends time.
Each station of the way is treated in the same way. The description passage from the gospels, to this is added a reflection, an instance from our own times, and a prayer. Each provides patterns of devotions for either church or home. The general aim is to reduce the distance between us and the Passion, for often the kinds of art works used in churches place a sanitising barrier between us and what actually happened. The examples bring home in their different ways the full nature, the full inwardness, of what the gospels tell us.
This is an excellent little book, which ought to inform understanding and faith for many readers.
What is Christianity: A Dynamic Introduction
by Dennis M. Doyle (Paulist Press / Alban Books, £21.99pb)
The author, Dennis M. Doyle, is a distinguished Catholic writer on theology with some 30 years teaching experience. With its ecumenical basis, this book is designed as a class text, which is its primary purpose, for it is fitted out with revision points, summaries, and questions.
But with many people now taking early retirement wishing to still keep their minds alive it would prove ideal either for private reading, or as an adjunct to a group endeavour, to reintroduce people to the nature of the faith in which they presume to believe. It is all too easy for adults to try and get by on what they learnt at school. But the true faith of a mature Christian should be a mature Christian faith. If religion is a community affair, learning about it should also be a shared experience. The aim of an adult must not be to confirm themselves in their prejudices, but to deepen and expand what they can know.
Catholic Social Thought: Encyclicals and Documents from Leo XIII to Pope Francis, Third Revised Edition
edited by David J. O’Brien & Thomas A Shannon
(Orbis Books / Alban Books, £29.99pb)
The editors of this book are retired professors of religion. Their important collection, now revised for a third edition, will prove essential for anyone wishing to survey and understand the development of Catholic social teaching since the end of the 19th Century, when such a focus can first be found taking a leading part in Catholic teaching.
In the light of today’s evermore more complex social interrelations, vertically within in a single society, and horizontally between different traditions, this is an area in which every Catholic should attempt to have some grounding, for it affects in the lives of all people who profess to be Catholics. This is also a book which all school and college libraries should posses a copy of.