Bookshelf

Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic

if you have read this book in the past, now may be a good time to bring it out again and re-read. If you are feeling adrift during our current environment, prayer can be the rock that keeps you grounded.

Taken from the book "The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic," by Matthew Kelly.

The Prayer Process provides a consistent format to guide you in your daily prayer. The first barrier to entry for most people who feel drawn to prayer is that they simply don’t know how to pray. They have never been taught to pray.

The Prayer Process overcomes this  first barrier by providing people with a format and a method. It provides the routine within the routine that dynamic Catholics have spent decades developing through the painstaking process of trial and error.

The Prayer Process:

1 Gratitude: Begin by thanking God in a personal dialogue for whatever you are most grateful for today.

2 Awareness: Revisit the times in the past twenty-four hours when you were and were not the-best-version-of-your-self. Talk to God about these situations and what you learned from them.

3 Significant Moments: Identify something you experienced in the last twenty-four hours and explore what God might be trying to say to you through that event (or person).

4 Peace: Ask God to forgive you for any wrong you have committed (against yourself, another person, or Him) and to fill you with a deep and abiding peace.

5 Freedom: Speak with God about how He is inviting you to change your life, so that you can experience the freedom to be the-best-version-of-yourself.

6 Others: Lift up to God anyone you feel called to pray for today, asking God to bless and guide them.

7 Pray the Our Father.

How to be Holy

Do you think that holiness is for other people? Many of us think of it as something that the priest or deacon is supposed to be, but not us. Or we think of holiness as some sort of unattainable perfection. Both of which are wrong.

Peter Kreeft has many good books, but "How To Be Holy," reminds us that everybody is called to holiness and to be a saint. In very practical terms, he talks about what that means and how it can be achieved.

Who Do He Say You Are?

Who Does He Say You Are? Women Transformed by Christ in the Gospels by Colleen C. Mitchell

This book speaks to the heart of every woman. Sometimes we struggle with our identity, or acceptance of who we are. Christ elevates us to a new level once we discover His love, and our uniqueness and charisms in the light of who we are in HIS EYES. Each chapter contains a scriptural account about a woman in the Bible such as: Mary, the Mother of Jesus, Elizabeth, Mother of John the Baptist, Anna, the Prophetess, The Woman of Samaria, The Hemorrhaging Woman, The Woman Caught in Adultery, Mary Magdalen. The author highlights the characteristics of the woman in scripture, the challenges that can be applied to our own lives, her message to us today, and a beautiful prayer summarizing the chapter.

Each chapter closes with reflection questions. This book will deepen your spiritual life, challenge you to come closer to Jesus and above all, to share the message of God’s love in your life with others. Take this book with you on retreat, your Lenten Journey, or even as a part of your personal prayer life. The closing words of her book sums it perfectly: “May you discover yourself in the learning and drawing near, deeper and deeper still, to the God who made you – continuing to learn to embrace who it is He says that you are.  And may his Word ever guide you to know more of who you are in Him.”