Practicing a Devout Life

Here is the story of St. Francis de Sales, with his advice on how to improve one’s personal spiritual life. He became the Roman Catholic Bishop of Geneva in 1602, and he began writing  this book in 1609, continuing to revise through five editions, with its final publication in 1619.

Paraclete Press includes it in its series called Giants. The title is The Complete Introduction to the Devout Life and its more than 400 pages were translated by and with commentary from Fr. John Julian, OJN (Order of Julian of Norwich). Now available from Paraclete Press at www.paracletepress.com, it is a hefty book and a fascinating read. Fr. Julian says that from its first publication it was one of the five most popular books at that time on “serious Christian spiritual development.” Fr. Julian’s translation and commentary gracefully helped us to take it all in and think about using it for our own spiritual growth.

Francis’s father wanted him to study law and he did eventually receive doctoral degrees in both law and theology, but his personal goal was to be a priest and in December 1593 he was ordained priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Annecy in France. In December 1602, Francis became bishop and was “very hands-on” as a bishop, “highly valuing personal contact with his people.” He was much sought after for answers to their spiritual questions. He often sent them a written reply and these collections of answers later became part of his several books. Many are included in the Introduction, which is made up of five parts.

Part One discusses one’s first longing for the devout life and a final firm resolution to embrace it. Part Two contains suggestions for raising the soul to God by prayer and sacraments. Part Three has much advice on the practice of the virtues, such as patience, humility, gentleness, obedience, chastity and others. Part Four includes advice on dealing with temptations, and Part Five suggests practices to renew the soul and strengthen it in devotion.

—Lois Sibley

Bonhoeffer, his life and ministry...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born February 6, 1906 in Berlin, Germany and many books have been written about him, his life, and ministry. We cannot forget him, and we should not. A new book called Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life, from the Cross, for the world, was written by Stephen J. Nichols, professor of Christianity and culture at Lancaster Bible College in Pennsylvania. Published by Crossway, www.crossway.org, this is the third book in Crossway’s series called Theologians on the Christian Life, the first two being on Francis Schaeffer, written by William Edgar, and B.B.Warfield, by Fred G. Zaspel.

This one begins with reminders of Bonhoeffer’s first trip to America, to Union Seminary in New York City, where he studied American theological developments and made many friends here, before returning home to begin a faculty position in Berlin. In 1939, he came again to the U.S., 33 years old and with a bright career ahead. But, author Nichols writes that “the moment he stepped off the ship he knew he had made a mistake.” Bonhoeffer wrote to his friend R. Niebuhr, “I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the Christian people of Germany, ” and to another friend, “I must be with my brothers when things become serious.” And they were getting very serious. Hitler was becoming more powerful in Germany.

Bonhoeffer influenced both clergy and lay in church and community. He commended “the cross-centered life” saying that Christian living flows from the cross. Reading and obeying Scripture are essential, along with praying and practicing our theology. He quoted “God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness,” an idea from Paul (2 Cor. 12:9) that carried Bonhoeffer through difficult times. Essential in his teaching was how to pray, and how to read the Bible. He believed that when we have faith in the incarnate, crucified, resurrected Christ, which God gives to us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, along with it comes faith, love, and hope.

It’s a challenge to follow author Nichols through the mix of all that happened to Bonhoeffer, as well as through the details of his beliefs and teachings, and his attempts to live the Christian life in the midst of all that he and the people of Germany were experiencing during the late 1930s–1945. There are two appendices that help: One is a time line of Bonhoeffer’s life and another is a summary called Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life. The concluding section on Reading Bonhoeffer offers information on books by and about him, as well as a list of movies available on his life. And Nichols advises that if you are ever on a desert-island, take these, his “Top Five” on Bonhoeffer, with you. You’ll be glad you did.

—Lois Sibley

Liturgy and Rites

For more than 50 years, Louis Weil has been teaching liturgical and sacramental studies. He has  taught at three Episcopal seminaries, given programs for clergy and laity on five continents, and written a number of articles and books about liturgical renewal. In 2012, he was honored by the North American Academy of Liturgy with its Berakah Award in appreciation of his ministry as teacher of liturgy both ecumenically and in the Anglican Communion. His new book, Liturgical Sense, The Logic of Rite, introduces the Weil Series in Liturgics, which is “an occasional series dedicated to the sort of liturgical and academic scholarship that has been the hallmark of Weil’s professional life.” Seabury Books is publisher and can be reached at www.churchpublishing.org/litugicalsense.

Dr. Weil wonders: how did a rite get started, how did it develop and become part of a tradition? How did it make sense in the congregation’s worship experience? And does it still make sense? He is looking back through church history, examining how certain rites began, were they effective for the people watching and listening, and are they still important? Weil suggests that some liturgical practices may be meaningful for the one who uses them, but may be obscure, even confusing, to the congregation who watches.

Based on his 50 years of teaching, his own “person in the pew” experiences, and his looking back at church history, he notices the changes in liturgical practices and calls our attention to how the role of the priest in the eucharistic celebration changed. Rather than being the whole people of God worshiping together, “it began to look like the private devotions of the priest with the lay people watching,” but with no role. Over time, there were many other changes, including the loss of the catechumenate in the fifth century with its preparation for baptism and membership. This loss sometimes continues, when new people do not know the history and teachings of the church, and are not properly prepared for baptism and membership as people of God.

Weil admits that most of the people who teach liturgics have “very strong opinions,” but “their primary purpose is the service of the people of God, the building up of the Body of Christ.What they teach is rooted in what they have learned and experienced in their own lives of faith” and most of them have “a very strong sense of priorities.” Dr. Weil says his goal in this book has been to share that sense, and those who plan, prepare, or preside at worship services will appreciate his suggestions.

—Lois Sibley

Questions from Kids...

Here’s an opportunity for kids to find answers to a dozen of the questions they might ask when they are sitting in church. Why Do We Have to Be So Quiet in Church? written by Clare Simpson and illustrated by Kay Harker is published by Paraclete Press, www.paracletepress.com. It begins with a small, redheaded boy who smiles as he questions and wonders aloud what the answer to that question could possibly be.

He is told that it’s good to be quiet and listen, and everybody else who is there wants to listen also. So he asks more questions, including these and others:


Can God see me?
Does God like it when I kneel or bow my head?
What does God look like?
Can God always hear me?
Does God remember my baptism?
Does God see me when I do something wrong?
Does God really forgive my sins?
Why do we say “Amen” at the end of everything?
God, did you make church just for me?

The answers are interesting and could be the beginnings of more questions and answers to be shared. The drawings are colorful, charming, and appropriate and there is some evidence of multi-cultural friendships among the children, though I would be pleased to see more of that. On every page there is some of the beauty of God’s Creation, including a line of frolicking, funny little mice. Children will smile and so will their grown-ups.

—Lois Sibley

Learning all the Way...

Before we dream again, Samuel Wells in his new book calls us to learn to love again, to live again, to think, read, feel again, and finally, we may be ready to learn to dream again. Learning to Dream Again is published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. at (www.eerdmans.com).

Wells is now vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London, and Visiting Professor of Christian Ethics at King’s College, London. Before that, for seven years he was dean of the chapel at Duke University and a professor at Duke Divinity School, North Carolina. And if these essays and meditations sound like chapel talks, some probably were. I can hear the students chuckling as they follow his lead, sometimes hiding a tear or two.

Chapel time is brief. But in a book you can have a whole chapter or more on one point, and Wells uses the space to his advantage. And he sounds like what he is, an excellent teacher and preacher, with three points here and nine points under the third point—almost too much, except it’s all interesting, even captivating.

In the beginning of each chapter, Wells tells us what he is going to tell us. And then he begins, casting his line in elusive spots, patiently drawing us in to think along with him. He tells memorable stories, relates incidents in our own history and earlier times. He applies Old and New Testament stories to our concerns and I think readers’ hearts will be quick to settle in, thinking and applying those Scripture stories to our current situations and concerns, including abortion, taxation, torture, the arts, science, hunger, sports, marriage, work and leisure, politics, justice, forgiveness, and eventually, death. Wells asks how did Moses and Isaiah and other OT leaders do it? How did Jesus advise and conclude in the situations he faced?

There is so much “good stuff” in this book, it will take readers a long time to take it all in, listen, reflect, apply to their lives. So, you better begin soon.

—Lois Sibley

Hildegard's Spiritual Reader

Hildegard was born in 1098, the tenth child in a noble family in Bermersheim, near Mainz, Germany. Her family gave her as a tithe to the church, not uncommon then. In 1112, at age 14 she entered a hermitage attached to a monastery and Benedictine convent at St. Disibod Abbey in Disibodenberg. In her late 30s, Hildegard was elected by the nuns as their abbess. Some years later, in 1150, Hildegard and 20 nuns left St. Disibod and started another convent at Rupertsberg, 19 miles northeast, near Bingen on the Rhine River. In 1165, Hildegard again founded a new convent, at Eibingen, just across the Rhine River, so she could visit there often. 

From an early age, Hildegard had visions and prophecies that she believed God commanded her to write down and share. She chose to write in Latin, and Hildegard’s own Latin style created “memorable challenges,” says author and translator Carmen Acevedo Butcher. A prolific author, Hildegard produced three volumes of theology, her own musical compositions, poetry, and a morality play called The Play of the Virtues.  In  her 60s, she wrote an encyclopedia on plants, elements, trees, stones, fish, birds, animals, reptiles, and metals. And between 1158–1170, she went on four preaching tours (we might say missions) to nearby towns, preaching in both monasteries and public places. All of this from a woman who often had health problems, such as exhaustions, fevers, breathing difficulties and perhaps migraine headaches.

Because she was “well-connected,” and well-known through her writings, Hildegard had many opportunities for correspondence with both secular and religious leaders and she never hesitated to tell these leaders what she believed God wanted them to do. In Hildegard of Bingen, author Butcher provides the life story of Hildegard along with excerpts from her songs, poetry, books and correspondence, thus the subtitle “A Spiritual Reader.” This book is available from www.paracletepress.com. There is a good map at the beginning and a helpful time-line near the end. A DVD is available at www.Hildegardthemovie.com. 

Many years after Hildegard’s death at 81 in 1179, Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday, October 7, 2012, proclaimed St. Hildegard of Bingen, Doctor of the Church—the fourth woman to be so honored. It’s easy to see that St. Hildegard was a multi-tasking person, and a Benedictine follower of the Rule, who spent her life serving the Triune God where he had placed her.

—Lois Sibley

The journey goes on and on...

In 1985, Word Publishers offered a new book called Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail by Robert Webber, a professor of theology at Wheaton College, Illinois. The subtitle is "Why Evangelicals Are Attracted to the Liturgical Church," and Webber, who had been watching his own, his students’, friends’, families’ experiences with worship, began with his story of changes. This was followed by six stories from other evangelicals who found themselves no longer comfortable in whatever church or denomination or worship experience they were in, and who were eager to learn more. Looking for liturgy as the early church practiced it, was a challenge and these particular evangelicals were each drawn into the Episcopal Church in the 1980s.
　
Webber pointed out that there were many other churches looking for and using these early liturgies that contain the Scriptures, the Creeds, early prayers and the use of God’s gifts to his people: the sacraments. Today, five years after Webber’s death, one may find the use of these liturgies among Anglicans, Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Orthodox, Roman Catholics, independent churches and others—not just Episcopalians. Editor Lester Ruth, who is an ordained Methodist pastor and research professor of Christian worship at Duke Divinity School, as well as worship history teacher at Webber’s Instititue for Worship Studies, reminds us that it was often an article or book by Webber that "opened believers to the possibility that paying careful attention to history’s treasures is a valid path toward faithfulness and renewal in worship."
　
Webber’s book is " testimony to his own journey" writes Ruth in this revised edition as he offers Webber’s ideas as a guide for those looking for help with their spiritual journeys. This time it is published with Morehouse Press, www.churchpublishing.org and
with Webber’s preface and introduction as well as his first six chapters. Then, a new group of six describe their recent pilgrimages. The book concludes with brief chapters by four friends of Webber’s who were there, and who assess his contributions and influences on the church as it is today.
 　
—Lois Sibley