I’m a little late to this game, but Matt has tagged me for a book meme. You’d think I’d have all these geeky books I’ve read for my Master’s degree… …but you’d be wrong. I own a bunch, but never read any… at least, cover to cover.
Total Number of Books I Own: I don’t count. I’ve got two large bookshelves and three small bookshelves full of books. I’d say the large bookshelves probably house somewhere around 200 books. The small ones house less than 100. So my mad math skills (that I have because I’m a computer genius) says that’s somewhere around 700 books. …but most of them are my wife’s – she is the English major.
Last Book I Bought: Swimming with Scapulars: True Confessions of a Young Catholic by Matthew Lickona. My review of it can be found here
Before that, we had bought 1-2-3 Magic by Dr. Phelan and The Discipline Book by Dr. Sears. Would you guess we have a 2 and a half year-old?
Books I’m Reading Now:
- Theology of the Body for Beginners by Christopher West;
- Catholic for a Reason: Scripture and the Mystery of the Family of God edited by Scott Hahn and Leon J. Suprenant;
- The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis;
- …and I’ll be reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling as soon as it’s out.
Books that Have Been Important To Me:
- The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (my first childhood epic);
- Mere Christianity and The Chronicles of Narnia and just about everything else I’ve read by C.S. Lewis
- the Bible (I particularly like the NRSV – with the Deuterocanonicals of course);
- The Epistle of Ignatius [of Antioch] to the Smyrnaeans (Caused me to seriously consider Catholicism);
- The Catechism of the Catholic Church;
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig (probably the best thing I read in college)
Right… so now I have to tag someone(s). I’m gonna tag Jason and Kat and Geof.
Swimming with Scapulars: True Confessions of a Young Catholic by Matthew Lickona and published by Loyola Press is a curious yet delightful work. Curious in that I found myself wondering – often out loud to my wife and friends – why write this book? Fame? Fortune? Evangelization? All of the above? Probably and yet probably not quite.
I can’t properly answer that question. But I can tell you why you might like to read it:
- you’re up for some well written prose
- for some odd reason you care – or have the charity to care – about Matthew Lickona
- you’re interested in why a Catholic does the things Catholics do from the perspective of the man in the pew.
If you are motivated by any one of these, then this book is worth the read. Assuming I know my audience in some small way, I think they’d probably fit into at least one of these categories.
The last bullet above strikes at the core of the theme of the book. This is a book written by a Catholic to communicate his life in faith – a life he thinks is interesting and worth reading about. And in a lot of ways, he’s right about that.
Matthew Lickona is a man of (almost) 32 years, a column writer for an alternative newspaper (the San Diego Reader), a husband, and a father of 4 (soon to be 5). He’s no heavy handed or deep theologian. He’s not writing to persuade anyone of his beliefs; although, I imagine he’d be thrilled if even in some small way you were. This is not some religous tract or propoganda. This is Matt’s life of faith as a man in the pew who believes and obeys, as absolutely as he knows how, to the teachings of the Church. In today’s world where Catholics are reknown for their outright disregard and disobedience to the teachings of their faith, Matt brings something fresh to the table – though certainly not original. Matt strives to maintain the 2000 years of Christian believing, living, and teaching: he’s a Roman Catholic. No exceptions, no qualifications, no excuses for his faith.
The hardest part about being a Christian of the 2000 year-old variety is that there’s 2000 years of information and tradition to sift through and know. As a convert to Catholicism, I can personally attest that this makes it simply impossible to know it all. No one man can learn and retain everything about Catholicism, but through the faithful working together, the faith is preserved, practiced, and handed down to the generations.
In this context, Matt has been diligent as a member in the Body of Christ: where I have been ignorant or undiligent, Matt and his book have come and filled some gaps and taught me a number of things about Catholicism. The delight and beauty of his book comes from how he makes the teachings of the faith alive, fleshy, real. His subject matter is not strictly academic and never without its context: his topics are all motivated by something in his life. His presentation is full of reflection – on Scripture, on Tradition, and within reason – while remaining human – full of aggrevation, joy (though he doesn’t see it), concern, and hilarity.
Birth control, evangelization, sex scandals, the Eucharist… all of these topics and more I’m with my man Matt. He has concerns and doubts, all of which are properly cause for concern and reflection. I share in a lot of his weaknesses and shortcomings, and he relates the difficulties that lie therein as well as in moving past them. If there’s one area of disagreement, it’d be our preferred styles of worship – but I don’t think it a problem, really. I like interacting with people around me in my celebration whereas Matt doesn’t. I feel drawn in to the Mass and into our Lord when Matt feels driven away. Thank God for charity – the charity of the Mass and the charity we (ought to) give to each other. I think he and I would get by if we ever sat next to each other at Mass. But he didn’t talk about my number 1 distraction at Mass: my children. …Matt, c’mon… how are you not distracted and ripped from the Mass by your children?!?
For me, the real gems are those things which Matt introduced or reintroduced to me. Things such as mortification, alms giving, scapulars… and the moral value of cock roaches. These are things I have never thought about or fell by the wayside for any number of reasons. They are in some manner challenges to my life – that is they are challenges if Matt and I are honest when we say we take moral living and the teachings of the Church seriously. So, to Matt, thank you for bringing these teachings and traditions to me.
I’d probably recommend this book to anyone interested in Catholicism. Not because of its theological depth – I would say it does not wade out more than waist deep – but because of its reality. This book is about just an ordinary guy trying to be true to his Church and his faith, without exception or reservation, and why he is doing it – why it’s important . That’s what being a Catholic Christian means, and Matt makes a good example for our postmodern times.
…so… it’s been quiet on the blog. I haven’t been wholly quiet in cyber-space – I’ve been spending my time on some other blogs.
For example, I was posting on Jimmy Akin’s blogs on how to handle the Rainbow Sash Pentecost “Demonstration”. I’m not altogether certain I was properly understood though I do believe I was heard and considered.
Then lately I’ve been active on Adam’s Blog. Particularly this thread on evangelization/discipleship, justification/sanctification, and individual/corporate salvation.
In other events, I officially graduated last thursday. yay me. no raise yet 
So, one of the things I’ve been looking for lately is some kind of young adult Catholic blog ring. There doesn’t really seem to be one of my flavor… so I might be able to help facilitate one from the ground up.
Anyways, I thought I might go ahead and pimp one particular new blogger – Matthew Lickona.
I’ve been reading his blog the past few months (shortly after Lent started) after I read an excerpt from a book he has just had published – Swimming with Scapulars: True Confessions of a Young Catholic.
The dude is on target. A number of us read Adam quite a bit, and I find this guy is in that same pleasant, thoughtful vein – but very much Catholic.
I haven’t had an opportunity to read his book, but I’ll be ordering it shortly. All the reviews I’ve read are essentially very, very positive because of how he communicates the raw, authentic Catholic life that it seems so few are after these days. The general theme I’m sensing is a postmodern tale rooted in an authentic Catholicism. So, blog pimp for Matt. And a pimp for his book. I hope you’ll take an interest in them. I’ll get a review out after I get my hands on the book and can read through it.
Yeah, so, I really want to post these things in my head, but I’m too tired to even start at the moment… even with the “easy” stuff. So I’m not going to even try because I’ll just screw it up… but keep an eye out… it’ll being coming along soon.
As a brief update, I spoke with my grandmother tonight about the events of late. I’ve always thought of her as someone with all the answers and the plan of action… but, really, it’s just that she knows what’s what and how we should be behaving. So, it kind of turned into her schooling me on teachings I already hold. The one nice thing to come out of it is that she has agreed to attend church when we can make all the necessary arrangements for care of my grandfather. So that’s very good in my opinion. I just hope that it will encourage others to follow suit.
So here are the planned post titles:
Food for the Road – a reflective TRIT post that considers the seeming fork in the road at Emmaus.
Morality, Part 2 – a consideration of people who act immorally in good conscience.
Morality, Part 3 – a still forming post that’s a consideration of pre-Fall Adam’s behavior, morality, and the effects of the Fall as well as the role of satisfaction and lack thereof.
Any other requests?