Better prayer and faster growth in virtue: Two new books

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Nov 05, 2024

We should all be seeking each and every day to grow closer to God, especially by adopting and persevering in good habits of prayer and virtue. The first steps, of course, are to attend Mass at least as often as Church law requires and to develop the habit of regular confession. But beyond these sacramental activities, it is important to practice the presence of God—that is, to live with an ever-increasing mindfulness of God’s presence in our lives, so that we habitually think and act in conscious awareness of the love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

There are many ways to form this habit, such as associating brief prayers with various kinds of actions throughout the day, or adopting set times of prayer, such as the Morning Offering or the Angelus and grace at meals. It is also of great benefit to reserve some time each day on a regular schedule for private or family prayer and spiritual reading. For those who recognize the importance of such habits, the difficulty becomes to repeat them mindfully. As I get older, I find myself sitting on the couch in the evening with my eyes closed in blissful meditation only to have my wife tell me I’m snoring.

Perhaps this is a holy way to fall asleep. But falling asleep is at least not always the goal. And that means it is important to make use of regular spiritual reminders, whether through the Divine Office or its adaptations in a source like Magnificat, or in daily Scripture reading, or by reflecting on the lives of the saints. In this same category are two new books that can be used without any major commitment of time and energy. Their whole point is simply to help us keep and improve our personal spiritual focus.

Breaking Bread: A Biblical Devotional for Catholics (Hahn and Ogorek, Emmaus Road Publishing, 3 volumes)

Scott Hahn and Ken Ogorek have worked together to develop a series of meditations on all the Sundays of the Liturgical year, with separate volumes for Years A, B, and C (B and C have been published so far), about 300 pages per volume. For each week, we have the Biblical references for all three readings and the responsorial psalm, followed by about three pages of various sorts of highlights and reflections on some of their themes. In these well-bound hard-back books, each week is introduced with a beautiful image, frequently accompanied by a particular Scriptural quotation. While the books are small in size, the layout is spacious and inviting.

The primary benefit of these three volumes, which are aligned with the three different Sunday cycles in the Church’s liturgical calendar, is that they enable us to prepare for the themes of Sunday Mass a bit earlier in the week, and perhaps to review them a day or two later, so that we can be more mindful of the spiritual growth the Church is attempting to prompt in us through her Liturgy. Besides, regular use of these books can help us to answer that all-too-common question: “What was the Gospel about today?”

In a very few minutes, using these books can give us the one thing we nearly always need when it comes to benefiting from the liturgical life of the Church—namely, the spiritual attention that leads to spiritual retention. Note that we are currently in the last few Sundays of Year B in the triennial cycle, so the Year C volume begins on this coming December 1st, the First Sunday of Advent.

A Year of Daily Offerings (Kubicki, Ignatius Press, 289pp)

Fr. James Kubicki, SJ has taken the approach of going through the regular calendar year day by day, and offering a significant reflection, a prayer, an aspiration, and a single question for review each evening. The material for each day occupies one fairly dense page and so the book provides a relatively simple way to keep focused one day at a time. Although I have used it as part of my evening meditation, its organization suggests using it in the morning and then looking at it again before bed to reflect on the question offered for “Evening Review”.

Since there is a page for each day of the year, A Year of Daily Offerings naturally acquaints us with a saint associated with each day or a day very close to it. Examples drawn from the writings of the saints, or popes who have preached on the saints, are frequently included. Our imitation and adoption of their spiritual strengths and guiding principles is clearly one goal of the text. Fr. Kubicki’s reflections are deliberately designed to help us to develop spiritually so that the virtues exemplified on each day will be reflected more strongly in our own lives, especially in our interaction with others.

The text occupies larger pages than the books above, and with a greater and more utilitarian density, so it is not as easy on the eye. But it covers each and every day of the year, and is packed with spiritual insight and holy examples. Fr. Kubicki knows what God knows: We need not just words, but good models to follow.