Resource Library - Recommended Reading

Interested in growing  in knowledge, awareness or appreciation of your Catholic faith or holiness? 

While there exist several online Catholic reading 'lists,' there's nothing quite as personal as recommended 'reads' from those you know and trust...like our Parish clergy. Consider this your St. Thomas the Apostle Parish Resource Library!

Below is a current and will be a fluid and ever-expanding book list; it includes a few favorites by each respective recommender!   

The Mystery of God: Theology for Knowing the Unknowable (2012) 
Steven Boyer and Christopher Hall
Available on Amazon Kindle for $12.49 and in paperback for $26
The authors have interesting insights for dealing with a subject which, of course, is a mystery. They are both professors at Eastern University (an American Baptist-affiliated school).  The book is well written, but not one that one should or can finish in a couple of days. Including index, it is 244 pages. It is not the length that causes one to spend real time reading it, rather it is the thought-provoking nature of the subject. If you put time into considering this work it will be time well spent.
 
Stories for All Seasons: For Every Sunday, Every Year, Every Preacher, Every Teacher (2020)
Gerard Fuller O.M.I.
Available on Amazon for $33.96, however used on Amazon less than $10
This is a quite different book, the type I use to get ideas for stories for homilies.  It is a great companion to be read in whole or in part as the year goes on. I believe you’ll find the stories both interesting and insightful. The book is only 147 pages and each story is well footnoted as to source or sources. It is book that you will keep and return to often.

God Never Blinks,"50 lessons for Life's Little Detours" 
Regina Brett
This excellent 250-page paperback costs about $16. The author was an editor for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. She has real insights into life's problems and puts them into perspective. It is one of the most practical books I have read in a long time.

Sacra Pagina Commentary Series (editor Daniel J. Harrington S.J.)
Book number 11 entitled "First and Second Thessalonians"
Earl J. Richard
This is a great read on these two letters of Paul. It is not a quick read, but it is a comprehensive one. Paper backs are available used on Amazon in the $20 range.  This book brings Saint Paul and this early Christian community to life. It places the letters in their historical context and details the pastoral problems in the community.  

Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers
Christopher A. Hall
This 200-page book is available through Amazon. Hall is a wonderful scholar who did a presentation to the priests of the Diocese of Tucson. The book itself brings to life how the early church read the scriptures. It is amazing how their issues resonate with us today. 
 
The Catholic Source Book, A comprehensive collection of information about the Catholic Church
Published by Brown and Roa, this is a great book to have handy when one has questions about the faith. It is an easy read and helps us to explain ourselves to Non-Catholics. It is about 500 pages.
 
The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church
Charles Hill
Hill has a Protestant slant, but his research is quite good and it is published by the Oxford University Press. It is 500 pages. It is a hard read, but well worth the effort. This is not a summer read and may take a month or so of work. The Gospel and Letters of John have always been so different from the rest of scripture that placing them in context is a mystery to most of us.

Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary
Brant Pitre
This well written and researched text supports our traditional view of the Virgin. Not a difficult read, it will re-enforce the proclamation of the Creed as it applies to the Virgin.
 
Faith of Our Fathers, A Study of the Nicene Creed
L. Charles Jackson
A short but powerful study of the Creed and the basic beliefs of the early Church.  A little stilted at times, but worth the effort.
 
The Name of God is Mercy
Pope Francis (a conversation with Andrea Tornielli)
A very short book and easy yet profound read. Sets forth in lay terms Pope Francis’ views on Mercy and his Papal Bull Misericordiae Vultus. 
 
The Creed—What Christians Believe and Why It Matters
Luke Timothy Johnson
A denser read on the Creed and perhaps a little on the liberal side, but well done.  I found this book useful, even though I would argue with him on some points including some of his side excursions on the Virgin birth.
 
The following books are by my favorite author, Raymond E. Brown. Though not liked by all, he was appointed by both Paul VI and Saint John Paul II to the Biblical Commission of the Church. These chosen six are relatively short ranging from 170 pages to in the 300s, but all are paperback.  Most are still in print and can be found on Amazon, etc. I find him easy to read and to digest. Brown has written many other books, but these are a good start:

The Community of the Beloved Disciple—The Life, Loves and Hates of an Individual Church in New Testament Times
The Churches the Apostles Left Behind
Responses to 101 Questions on the Bible
Antioch and Rome—New Testament Cradles of Catholic Christianity
New Testament Essays 
The Gospel and Epistles of John—A Concise Commentary

The Irony of Modern Catholic History:
How the Church Rediscovered Itself & Challenged the Modern World to Reform
George Weigel
Basic Books, 2019
 
George Weigel, one of the great Catholic intellectuals of our day and biographer of St. Pope John Paul II, offers a dramatic and important analysis of the past 150 years of Western Civilization. Weigel examines Catholicism’s struggle with the modern age ushered in by the rise of the scientific method and the Industrial Revolution. He documents how the Church moved from a defensive and reactionary stance to modernism to a rediscovery of its Biblical roots and a joyful Christ-centered engagement with the culture. This New Evangelization birthed by Vatican II, and further defined by Papal writings, is not a talking down or attempt to impose the Christian Faith but a listening and proposing stance pointing to the power of the Gospel in saving our personal and cultural souls. As Weigel says: “Catholicism’s task is to be a culture-converting counterculture that offers skeptics a path beyond doubt, relativists a path beyond the naked will to power, and nihilists a path beyond emptiness. The core of that offer is friendship with Jesus Christ.” This is not a sugar-coated analysis but an honest yet hopeful look at the tensions outside and inside the Body of Christ.

From Fire by Water:  My Journey to the Catholic Faith
Sohrab Ahmari
Ignatius Press, 2019
After spending the early years of his life under the spiritual and political oppression of Shia Islam in Iran, Ahmari comes to America only to experience the hollowness of secularism. Becoming then an articulate and out-spoken atheist, Ahmari looks for answers and meaning in Marxism and academic success. This beautifully written memoir sets out a young intellectual’s unlikely moral and spiritual conversion after observing the Mass and wrestling with the Catholic Faith. Sohrab Amari is the op-ed editor of the New York Post.

Paul: A Biography
N.T. Wright
Harper One, 2018
This new brilliant biography of the Apostle Paul is high on my list. Wright, one of the world’s leading Biblical scholars, argues that Paul is central to our understanding of early Christianity, and central to understanding Paul are his pre-Christian Jewish beliefs that he believed had been fully, if surprisingly, fulfilled in Jesus. This book reads like an adventure story - which, of course, it is.

The Case for Jesus
Brant Pitre
Image Press, 2016
This is an important and compelling study by a widely-respected Biblical scholar at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. Again, as with N.T. Wright, Professor Pitre shows that the claims to divinity for Jesus of Nazareth can only be understood by setting them in their ancient Jewish context. There is a helpful afterword by Bishop Robert Barron. Other excellent Pitre books include: Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist and Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary.

Mere Christianity
C.S. Lewis
Harper One, 1952
A study of Christian literature is incomplete without reading C.S. Lewis. This intellectual giant of the twentieth century was a convert from atheism to Christianity. He taught Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. This classic is composed of talks Lewis gave to the British public on the BBC during the bombing blitz of London during World War II. Other Lewis classics include: Miracles, The Problem of Pain, The Screwtape Letters, and The Chronicles of Narnia.

More Christianity: Finding the Fullness of the Faith
Fr. Dwight Longenecker
Ignatius Press, 2002
Fr. Longenecker challenges Protestants, and life-long Catholics, to move beyond the “Mere Christianity” of C.S. Lewis to the depth, richness, historicity, and fullness of Catholicism. Includes succinct and helpful explanations of the Marian dogmas, the papacy, the Mass, the Communion of Saints, and more.

On Being Catholic
Thomas Howard
Ignatius Press, 1997
Beautifully written, literate, wise, and challenging meditations on Catholic teaching, spirituality, vision, and practice. It includes a moving and insightful examination of the grandeur and power of the Mass. This is a literary masterpiece.
 
The Stripping of the Altars: Tradition Religion in England c.1400-c.1580
Eamon Duffy
Yale University Press, 1992
If you enjoy reading history you will find Professor Duffy’s monumental revisionist history of the English Reformation remarkable. This is not a weekend reading project:  with notations it runs 654 pages. Duffy sets out a detailed picture of traditional Catholic belief and practice in England during the century prior to the Reformation. He demonstrates how the traditional faith of the laity was stripped away forcibly during the sixteenth century. Wonderfully illustrated and detailed.

Death on a Friday Afternoon: Meditations on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross
Richard John Neuhaus
Basic Books, 2000
The late Catholic priest and editor of the journal First Things provides a rare and inspired reflection on our Lord’s last words on that first Good Friday. “If what Christians say about Good Friday is true,” Father Neuhaus writes, “then it is, quite simply, the truth about everything.” This is a deeply moving exploration of the dark side of humanity that brings us to Easter light. This book was instrumental in my own journey into the fullness of the Catholic Faith.

The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming
Henri J.M. Nouwen
Image Press,1992
Said to be one of the 100 most important books in the history of Christianity – it’s in my personal top ten. A visual encounter with Rembrandt’s masterpiece The Return of the Prodigal Son drew Fr. Nouwen into a profound and personal reflection on one of the Lord’s most important parables. This is a biography of Rembrandt, a spiritual autobiography of the author, and a powerful Bible study all rolled into one memorable reading experience. Fr. Nouwen takes us captive with such probing insights that connect our times of sojourn in a far country, loneliness, dejection, jealousy, and anger with the persistent image of the waiting, watching, and loving Father on the horizon.

The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ
Fleming Rutledge
Eerdmans, 2015
A tour de force study (668 pages) of the cosmic significance of Christ’s crucifixion. This is an unflinching examination of our human condition and a bold Pauline-like insistence that settings things right calls for crucifixion, not only Christ’s but ours. While this is a major reading project there are many surprising and memorable verbal illustrations to hold your attention and bring you back. This is a very important work by a superb scholar and a wonderful storyteller.

Diario de Santa Maria Faustina Kowalska: La Divina Misericordia en mi Alma

Libro Catolico de Oraciones
Reverend Maurus Fitzerald, O.F.M.