Tag Archives: Book Club
Book Club ~~~ November 5th, 2009
AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO BY: Peter Brown
Okay, here’s what we have so far. We’ve basically decided to just put up any quote,
paragraph or excerpt that moved us and
comment on it…
From the Raving Theists blog:
There was one line that I highlighted…really got to me as the mother of 6, four of them young adult males…
“I just cannot see how she could have been healed if my death in sin had come to pierce the entrails of her love.”
Wow. I don’t dwell much on my boys lack of faith, but it is a deep pain, and very real. There just isn’t much I can do except pray so I basically shelf it. Reading that line made me cry, and my heart ache. I fell in love with Monica in that moment. And what a great son to realize it!
And:
Maggie,
Okay, here are a few excerpts that I really liked. Forgive any typos as I have to hold the LARGE book open and type at the same time…
New Book Club
I frequent a blog called the Raving Theist (formerly the Raving Atheist) and a woman over there (Maggie) suggested I read a book on St. Augustine. So I ordered it, have 
read 100 pages or so and am LOVING it. We decided to use it as a book club entry.
The book is called “Augustine of Hippo” by Peter Brown.
I’ll be transferring the posts that we have already created over to here soon.
My computer got the N1H1 virus and it wiped out EVERYTHING. It’s been in the hospital for 2 weeks now, which is why I haven’t put any posts up. Whew. I’m glad that “baby” is home now.
Not sure if I can get the Amazon Link thingy up, so if not you’ll have to find the book yourselves. I know most of you won’t purchase the book, and it won’t be nearly as intensive as Theology of the Body, but I hope you will check in. I knew NOTHING about Augustine prior to this, but have fallen madly in love with him.
Even if you haven’t read the book, feel free to comment or ask questions about anything that you see.
BOOK CLUB MONDAY ~~~ May 11th, 2009
I don’t know if any of you have noticed, but we have come to the end of Theology of the Body. I have enjoyed the journey immensely. This will be the last Book Club Monday Post until we come up with a new book.
If you have any suggestions, let’s hear them!
To sum up what Theology of the Body has taught us let’s look at some words from Christopher West.
Chastity, so often considered “negative” or “repressive,” is supremely positive and liberating. It’s the virtue that frees sexual desire the “Utilitarian attitude,” from the tendency to use other for gratification.
As the Pope expresses, “If conjugal chastity (and chastity in general) is manifested at first as the capacity to resist [lust], it later gradually reveals itself as a singular capacity to perceive, love, and practice those meanings of the “language of the body’ which remain altogether unknown to lust itself.”
BOOK CLUB MONDAY ~~~ FEBRUARY 23, 2009
While reading this next part of the book, I kept envisioning Harry Potter’s Invisibility Cloak. When the cloak was on you couldn’t see him. When he took it off he became visible again. It’s not that Harry stopped existing when he put on the cloak. It’s just that you couldn’t see him.
Pages 88-89:
The body is a “sacrament” in the sense that it makes visible the invisible. In examining Ephesians 5 the Pope recalls his thesis: “The body in fact, and only it, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and divine. It was created to transfer into visible reality of the world the mystery hidden from eternity in God, and this to be its sign” (Oct. 6, 1982)
We have this great mystery, called God. Yet, we can’t see Him. We know He is there. We know that He loves us. We can see the “effects” of His love, but we can’t see Him. When He takes off His invisibility cloak, however, He is revealed. Under that invisibility cloak, there is a physical reality. We need only look in the mirror. Our bodies, are the visible expression of “The Mystery”. The Mystery being His desire to completely and totally unite with us. To become “one flesh”.
COMING SOON ~~~ BOOKCLUB II
SoMG has suggested that we read a book called “FLATLAND” (not to be confused with the restaurant called FLATLANDERS…) by Edwin Abbot Abbot.
So everyone that wants to participate will need to get a copy ASAP…We’ll be starting two weeks from today. This will NOT replace Theology of the Body. It will be in addition to it, as I have the feeling we could stay on the book “TOB” for a very, very long time.
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Dover Thrift Editions)BOOK CLUB MONDAY ~~~ February 9th, 2009
I just love this part of the book. Today we are going to look at sin and what it is. “In the beginning it was not so…” This line will come back to us again and again. In the beginning we didn’t know right from wrong, because we didn’t know “wrong” at all. We weren’t tempted to do wrong, because we only knew right. It was only after that first act of disobedience that “wrong” entered our vocabulary. We were created with absolute knowledge of “right”. It never occurred to us to do otherwise. Eating from that tree, opening ourselves to the idea that there is a “wrong” way…wow. Calling that the original sin, or even the fall, is probably the greatest understatement of all time!
Over time, we began to be tempted to do all sorts of “wrong” things. Since that first sin, we have been struggling to keep from drowning, fight wave after wave of temptation…fighting the pull to please ourselves instead of the One that created us. It started out as only knowing “right”, then progressed (regressed?) to being tempted to do “wrong”, to today. Where we no longer even know the difference between right and wrong. Worse, much of what is wrong, is celebrated as good. How twisted is that?
BOOK CLUB MONDAY ~~~ January 19th, 2009
We have talked and talked about how our bodies and the way we use them are meant to imitate the relationship between God and us and God in the Trinity.
We’ve talked about lust, and how it causes us to “split” the sex act…to separate it…to make it something we do with the body, while ignoring the person. We’ve discussed how it is only when the body is viewed in conjunction with the person, that sexual intimacy can truly be expressed in it’s fullness. Some people use sex to get the emotional benefits. Some to get the physical pleasures. Both are wrong. Both are ways of “using” sex and using each other, without taking into account that our bodies come attached to “persons”.
For the sake of example, Christ speaks directly of male lust, but the principle applies equally to women. Most would agree that male lust seems geared more toward the physical gratification at the expense of a woman, while female lust seems geared more toward emotional gratification at the expense of a man. Of course, this is not always the case. Women have physical cravings just as men have emotional ones. But the saying that “Men will use love in order to get sex and women will use sex in order to get love” ring true at some level. page 32
Everyone eats. Most of us find it enjoyable. The act in itself can be pleasurable, but it must not be separated from it’s intended purpose. There is nothing 
wrong with enjoying food. The taste, the texture, the way it makes us feel satisfied. But it’s main purpose is to nourish us. If we were to separate the nourishment from the pleasure and only eat those things that pleased us most, we would make ourselves sick. A piece of cake can be a delightful addition to a meal. But what would happen if we ONLY ate cake. Morning, noon and night. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. We might grow fat, but we might also die of malnourishment. Looking at our bodies, people might assume that we are well nourished. But they would be wrong. We have really only loaded up on empty calories. We have sacrificed the nourishment for the pleasure. We have separated the purpose of the food, turning it into an object and losing all the benefits it is meant to provide.
BOOK CLUB MONDAY ~~~ January 5th, 2009
As a child, I can remember looking at National Geographic Magazine. I was fascinated by the fact that the women in the pictures were all topless. I know that some boys have looked at these pictures inappropriately, but even at that young age I sensed there was something “right” about the pictures. The women were not “posing”. 
They weren’t wearing makeup. Usually they had very serious faces. Often they had a child perched on their hip. If there were men in the pictures, they seemed oblivious to the women standing around half naked.
So what did they know, that we didn’t? I suppose that cultural circumstances dictated a much more practical approach to sexuality. We speak of “total giving”, but they live it. To hold anything back would be to jeopardize the entire social unit. I doubt these women even heard of birth control. We would call them backward. But perhaps, they are not so much “backward” as simply in the “right” place. Maybe they are so backward, that they have gone all the way back to Eden.
I’m not trying to claim that we should all be going around topless. Nor am I saying that these tribes have everything right. Earlier this week, I posted on one such tribe that buried their own children alive for breaking the social laws.
But on the subject of the body as it pertains to sexuality, I think they might have something. They are not ashamed of their bodies, because in their culture, their bodies are not viewed as separate from their souls.
Our bodies are not meant to be separate from our souls. We are not a body on the right side and a soul on the left. Just as Jesus was not half man and half God. He was FULLY man. And FULLY God. We are FULLY Body and FULLY Soul.
BOOK CLUB UPDATE…
Hey all…the book club is up and running. I need your input. 
I was originally going to put up a new post everyday, but there aren’t many comments. I have no way of knowing if people have read the post and chosen not to comment, or just not read the post.
Soon, and I hope VERY soon, all of the posts and the ability to comment, will be under the heading “BOOK CLUB” at the top of the page.
We are also working on sending an email to you all, whenever a new post goes up. Until then, I’ll leave a post up until I think everyone has had a chance to see it, and there are some comments. If that takes a day, fine. If it takes a week, that’s fine too.
I’ll just have to wing it.
If you have any better ideas let me know, because this can only work if we all participate.
I certainly don’t want this to become a chore for anyone. But I also don’t want it to stagnate.
Also, just because there is a new post, it doesn’t mean that you can’t continue the conversations on an old one.
BOOK CLUB DAY TWO
“Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” Antoine de Saint Exupéry,
THE SACRAMENTALITY of the BODY
“The Catholic faith, if you haven’t already noticed, is a very fleshy, sensual religion…”
page 4
I love this line. At first glance it almost makes you uncomfortable. After thinking about it for a while I began to realize how very much we use our bodies at Mass. I adore the smell of incense. Just writing about it almost conjures up the smell. And the feel of Holy Water. If I miss my forehead I just don’t feel right. I do it again until I can actually feel the cool water touching my skin. And the bells at the consecration! Oh how I wish they ALWAYS did that! I love receiving under both species, because the taste of the wine lingers long after I’ve left the church. The music, the readings, the babies crying, even the sound of the kneelers going up and down…
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