Suggested Reading

You may purchases books by clicking on the titles.

Bridges to Contemplative Living with Thomas Merton
“Lent and Holy Week” opens the writings of Thomas Merton in easily digestible pieces and eloquently pairs them with the words of other great spiritual thinkers. Designed for use between Ash Wednesday and Easter, this booklet offers readers an accessible introduction to contemplative dialogue and is built around eight compelling Lenten themes.

Journeying Through Lent with Mark
A Christ-centered guide to the Gospel of Mark for daily devotion. Lent is traditionally a time to reflect on the life, death, and resurrection of Christ and on our lives as followers of Christ. The devotional guide includes forty-six meditations based on a passage form Mark’s Gospel with reflection questions and a prayer. For individual reading and meditation each day between Ash Wednesday and Easter.

Journeying Through Lent with Matthew
Journeying through Lent is an ideal resource for individual spiritual growth. Includes readings for each day between Ash Wednesday and Easter.

Lent and Easter Wisdom from St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi
In this book of prayers, letters, poetry, rules of life, and testaments, Francis and Clare express their vision of the Gospel life. Included are numerous themes extremely appropriate for the Lenten and Easter seasons: penance, conversion, self-sacrifice, service, embracing the cross, the humility and charity of Christ, joy, new life, and mission. Through these daily meditations, Scriptural readings, and spiritual exercises, we follow two of the most influential figures in Church history.

Lent and Easter with Mary
Every saint has a feast day, but one could argue that the entire calendar belongs to Mary. Literally each day of the year marks a Marian holy day or a Mary-related anniversary. Following a day-by-day format, Lent and Easter with Mary brings 96 of these inspiring moments together in a book that is designed to be uplifting and informative, and to lead the reader to an in-depth encounter with the Blessed Mother whose influence has been felt in every facet of human life for 2000 years.

The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society
“The Wounded Healer” is a hope-filled and profoundly simple book that speaks directly to those men and women who want to be of service in their church or community, but have found the traditional ways often threatening and ineffective. In this book, Henri Nouwen combines creative case studies of ministry with stories from diverse cultures and religious traditions in preparing a new model for ministry. Weaving keen cultural analysis with his psychological and religious insights, Nouwen has come up with a balanced and creative theology of service that begins with the realization of fundamental woundedness in human nature.

The Cost of Discipleship
One of the most important theologians of the twentieth century illuminates the relationship between ourselves and the teachings of Jesus
What can the call to discipleship, the adherence to the word of Jesus, mean today to the businessman, the soldier, the laborer, or the aristocrat? What did Jesus mean to say to us? What is his will for us today? Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount, Dietrich Bonhoeffer answers these timeless questions. “Cheap grace,” Bonhoeffer wrote, “is the grace we bestow on ourselves…grace without discipleship….Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again…It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.”

Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter’s Dictionary
A thought-provoking jaunt through the spiritual terrain of our everyday language — a lexion of uncommon insight to jar the mind and nourish the soul…”I think of faith as a kind of whistling in the dark, because in much the same way,” writes Buechner, “it helps to give us courage and to hold the shadows at bay.”

Soul Among Lions: Musings of a Bootleg Preacher
Farmer, writer, and preacher-at-large for more than half a century, master storyteller Will Campbell offers a collection of thirty classic meditations challenging readers toward a more conscientious faith. With the soul of a true satirist, Campbell combines scripture and homespun humor in a deceptively simple style that belies the seriousness of his intent: to deflate the pompous, indict the hypocritical, and expose the self-righteous.