Happy Sunday! Today I have spent the better part of the day
in a car on my way to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I absolutely LOVE the beach. Not only do I always feel extra close to God
while I am at the beach but it gives me the opportunity to just sit and read all day.
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| Spring Break Catholic girl style! |
In the past my beach reads have looked a lot like any other girl’s. I indulged mostly in celebrity gossip
magazines and cheesy romance novels. I’m
not making any promises that these guilty pleasures aren't going to make it
into my beach bag this year, but I am proud to say that I have added some tomes
that will expand my spirituality. I am
so psyched to finally finish Man of theBeatitudes: Pier Giorgio Frassati and get started on Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture ,The Screwtape Letters, and 101 Questions and Answers on the Eucharist to
name a few. I couldn't help but laugh at myself on
Spring Break when I realized how dramatically different my reading material had
become (I was reading On BeingCatholic).
I only started participating in “spiritual reading” when I
was a freshman in college (so two years ago).
Since then, I have decided that it is essential to every confirmed Catholic’s
life. When we receive the sacrament of
Confirmation we are agreeing to take our faith in our own hands. As a result of our statement of dedication to
our faith we are graduated from the formal religious education system. However, for many Catholics all religious
learning stops right there. We fail to
truly take responsibility of our faith and allow learning to stop.
Maybe we feel like we have learned all there is to
know. Maybe we feel that we are too busy
to commit time to learning about our faith.
Maybe we figure we have all we need for salvation, so why bother. I have found that the more I learn about the
faith the more I realize that there is more to learn. I know that our lives are busy, we are constantly
moving but I guarantee that the more time you commit to God the more God will
give back to you. And finally, salvation
is an incredible gift from God and I don’t know about you but I would love more
than anything to have a relationship with the being that saved not only my
life, but my soul.
In order to continue our spiritual and religious education
we need to participate in spiritual reading.
To me spiritual reading is reading a piece that is written deliberately
about the faith (saint biographies, theology, papal documents, bible studies
etc) or a piece that is written with the intention of shedding light on our
faith (allegories etc). I have found
personally that the more involved I am in spiritual reading the more motivated
I am in all other parts of my faith (mass attendance, sacrament attendance,
adoration attendance, bible reading/studying, prayer etc). Spiritual reading allows you to widen your
understanding of the faith and ways to relate our faith to others. Plus, it can provide a topic of conversation among your friends or bible studies.
I hope that in between your Us Weekly and your latest NYT
bestseller you pick up some spiritual reading. I can’t wait to tell you all
about how my summer reading list turned out; I am sure it will inspire new
posts!
What are you reading this summer? (Spiritual or not) Do you participate in spiritual reading? Do you have a favorite book I should read? How do you feel about taking charge of your
own religious education? Comments?
Questions? Suggestions? Spot a typo? Drop me a line in the comments below?
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