Book Reviews and More: JamesMatthewWilson

Showing posts with label JamesMatthewWilson. Show all posts

Sunday, 30 June 2024

Top Ten Fiction and Non-Fiction Books Second Quarter 2024

Top Ten Fiction and Non-Fiction Books Second Quarter 2024

It has been a good year for reading so far. I am still averaging about a book a day. It was slower this year than the last few, but both work and home life have been much busier.

In April of 2023 I wrote a piece called How I Read So Much? Because I get asked the question so often, read the piece linked above if you are looking for some ideas on ways to read more.

This quarter I read 78 books, low compared to the last few years, below is the comparison with the last 8 years:

2024 - 78

2023 – 109

2022 – 110

2021 – 104

2020 – 85

2019 – 102

2018 – 102

2017 – 112

2016 – 36

But back to this quarter by the numbers:

Books Read: 78

First Time Reads: 61

Fiction: 43

Non-Fiction: 35

5/5 Stars: 55

A significant dip over the last few years. I can state again that looking back 2016 is a bit of an outlier as late that year I switched jobs and have since had much better work – life balance. In the spring of 2016, I worked through Brandon Vogt’s course Read More Books Now (now available on ClaitasU). The year before that I removed all games from my phone and tablet and my reading had doubled.

Here is my top ten fiction and non-fiction books of the second quarter of 2024.

Top Ten Non-Fiction Books:

1. Vision Books for Young readers - Ignatius Press

Brother André of Montreal - Ann Nolan Clark

Courage Under Fire Father Willie Doyle, S.J. - Fiorella De Maria

Father Kino Priest to the Pimas - Ann Nolan Clark

St. Benedict: Hero of the Hills - Mary Fabyan Windeatt

2. Books by Francis J. Hoffman aka Father Rocky

Mary at the Crossroads of History

The Memorare Moment

3. How to spread the Gospel: Advice and encouragement from Pope Benedict XVI - Fr Donncha Ó hAodha - CTS Books

4. Behold Your Mother: Marian Stations of the Cross - Marge Steinhage Fenelon

5. Deliver Us From Evil - Bishops' Conference of England and Wales - CTS Books

6. Places of Grace: My Visits to Shrines, Chapels, Graves, and Monasteries and the Graces I Received - Fr. Edward Looney

7. The Stations of the Cross in Slow Motion - Suzan M. Sammons - A Daily Devotion for Lent

8. Saint Thomas and the Forbidden Birds - James Matthew Wilson

9. The Remarkable Life of Bishop Bonaventure Broderick: Exile, Redemption, and a Gas Station - James Hanna

10. Beyond Columbo: The Life and Times of Peter Falk - Richard A. Lertzman and William J. Birnes

Bonus Books:

The 72 Crew Manual 1st Edition - Fr. Mark Goring CC Eucharistic Adoration Prayer Book - Marie Paul Curley, FSP

The Catechism in a Year Companion, Volume I - Fr. Mike Schmitz, Petroc Willey, and Ann Koshute

Top Ten Fiction Books:

1. Archangel - N.R. LaPoint - Raven Mistcreek Book 3

2. Curse of the Seawolf - Nick Donnelly

(I read un unpublished manuscript.)

3. Escaping Infinity - Richard Paolinelli - Infinity Book 1

4. Raven - Lori Janeski - Carter Files Book 2

5. Pixie Noir - Cedar Sanderson - Pixie for Hire Book 1

6. I, Brax: 1 A Battle Divine - Arthur Slade

7. Deus Volt - N.R. LaPoint - Dinosaur Warfare Book 3

8. Worth Dying For - Marie Keiser

9. Contact: Angeles - Caroline Furlong

10. A Lion for a Tomb Ignatius of Antioch - Corinna Turner - Friends in High Places 04

11. Lyorn - Steven Brust - Vlad Taltos Book 17

Bonus Books:

The Journey - Jim Sano

A Cloud of Unknowing - Andrew Gillsmith - Deserted Vineyard Book 2

The Eternity Symbiote - Cedar Sanderson

My reading has been up over each of the last few years, but it is staying pretty consistent at about a book a day over the year. I attribute in part to Brandon Vogt’s course Read More Books Now, removing all games but 1 brain game from my devices. And I was commuting to work on a bus and read on the bus every day. Working from home reading took a little more discipline, and we are now back to a hybrid model with 5 days a month in the office, so things are changing again.

Note: I do not include books that have been read in previous years and were reread this year in my top ten lists, they are sometimes in the bonus section.

But if you want more options check out my favourite books year by year list. Or this year not to flood the list with one specific author.

Top Ten Books Third Quarter 2020
Top Ten Books Fourth Quarter 2020

Top Ten Non-Fiction Books 2020

Top Ten Fiction Books 2020

Top Ten Books First Quarter 2021

Top Ten Books Second Quarter 2021

Top Ten Books Third Quarter 2021

Top Ten Books Fourth Quarter 2021

Top Ten Non-Fiction Books 2021

Top Ten Fiction Books 2021

Top Ten Books First Quarter 2022

Top Ten Books Second Quarter 2022

Top Ten Books Third Quarter 2022

Top Ten Books Fourth Quarter 2022

Top Ten Non-Fiction Books 2022

Top Ten Fiction Books 2022

Top Ten Books First Quarter 2023

Top Ten Books Second Quarter 2023

Top Ten Books Third Quarter 2023

Top Ten Fiction Books Fourth Quarter 2023

Top Ten Non-Fiction Books 2023

Top Ten Fiction Books 2023

Top Ten Books First Quarter 2024

Top Ten Books Second Quarter 2024

Top Ten Books Third Quarter 2024

Top Ten Books Fourth Quarter 2024

...

All Top Ten Lists on Book Reviews and More

Statistics Books Read By Year:
195 - 2024 January-June

455 - 2023

438 - 2022

365 - 2021

317 - 2020
392 - 2019
359 - 2018
380 - 2017
272 - 2016
177 - 2015
130 - 2014
88 - 2013
176 - 2012
163 - 2011
302 - 2010
142 - 2009
98 - 2008
83 - 2007
191 - 2006
151 - 2005
60 - 2004
52 - 2003
97 - 2002
50 - 2001
41 - 2000
71 - 1999
73 - 1998
131 - 1997
101 - 1996

Thursday, 6 June 2024

Saint Thomas and the Forbidden Birds - James Matthew Wilson

Saint Thomas and the Forbidden Birds

James Matthew Wilson

Word on Fire

ISBN 9781685780944

ASIN B0CYDX45YF

Saint Thomas and the Forbidden Birds - James Matthew Wilson

This is the third volume from James Matthew Wilson I have read, last year I read Praying the Nicene Creed, and loved it. This year I read Two Poems for Martyrs. And I loved the two poems. So I picked this up the day the eBook was available. Wilson mentioned on social media that Two Poems was his shortest volume also that Catholic Modernism and the Irish "Avant-Garde": The Achievement of Brian Coffey, Denis Devlin, and Thomas MacGreevy which is his longest. This one is in between. I have added several of his works to my watch list either for eBooks to become available or to be available via adaptive technology. I have a dual form of dyslexia and prefer eBooks so I can change the font and colour of the font and page to make reading easier. I might give in and pick one up but am slow to get around to reading physical books. But for now I loved this volume and that it was available digitally. The description of this volume states:

“In James Matthew Wilson's fourth full-length collection of poems, the writer joins the great saint and theologian Thomas Aquinas to pause before "the thought of earthly sorrows" and to pray for "such a world that had so much to say."

These poems stand in wonder before the tumult and beauty of created things and the capacity of the soul to rise above it. We move from encounters with the world as revelation, mystery, and promise, to great scenes of sin and fracture such as the bombing of Dresden, the execution of the Roman philosopher Cicero, and scandals in the Church. The volume begins with the prospects for an unborn child soon to enter our stormy world and concludes with a "Farewell" to the place, home, and setting of many of these poems.

Saint Thomas and the Forbidden Birds is a story and pilgrimage through the troubles of our age and beyond them to the reason for our hope, "for all things turn about the love of God."”

The sections and peoms in this volume are:

To an Unborn Child

Self-Possession

The Garden

M.A.C.

Return to Saint Thomas

Lilacs

Twilight

Cracks

Ambition

Incense on the Air

O, Tamar

A Withered Tree

The Fishing Camp

The Darkness Coming

Teele Square Sunday Morning, Summer 2001

From The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk

Waking in Dresden

Saint Thomas and the Forbidden Birds

The Wisdom of Old Men

A Wedding Night

First Light

The Death of Cicero

Elegy for a Tow Truck Driver

The Great State of Alaska

In the Fullness of Rhyme

The Prow of the House

Remember

In the Holding Cell

The Weakness of Men

The Kitchen Stove

Fire Light

Sloth

III

James’ Book

For Russell Kirk

First Words

After a Line by Maurice Scève

Australia

Elizabeth to Her Cousin

Sunlight

An Encounter

For Martha

Seeds

By That Heart Known

At Season’s End

High Seriousness

The Love of God

Snowfall

Vanished Fire

Farewell to Berwyn

About the Author

Typically when I review a book of poetry I include a few poems from the collection that really spoke to me. Here are the ones I selected to share in this review:

M.A.C.

East Lansing, Michigan

On either side, the highway’s barren stretch

Is dwarfed by sweeping wastes of prairie grass,

Its pale dry leaves beneath dark heads of vetch

And clumps of sumac shimmering like glass.

To look on this, you’d think man had just come,

Bloomed with the Queen Anne’s lace, and will not last;

What little he set down as soon succumb

To stands of pine and maple or wind’s blast.

But, if you see the little streets erupt

On ancient marsh, the pool hall and brick church,

Where we boys grew both conscious and corrupt

Dispelling boredom, entering on the search

For just what sort of men we should become,

You’ll learn the place is thick with ghosts, is haunted

By faces kissed, fists thrown, and words that drum

Through time, as we sought what it was we wanted.

This was actually the first poem I read in the book. I looked at the list of poems and flipped to this one. In mart being of both Irish and Scottish heritage the title grabbed my attention. In school I was often referred to as Big Mac, and one of my brothers nickname has mac in it as well. I have gone back and reread it a few times.

The Wisdom of Old Men

Up north, in winter, at the snowy deer camp,

The old men circled always near the fire,

Kept company with the crack of burning logs,

Their backs leaned in and smooth beneath plaid flannel.

And what they were about, I do not know,

Who darted in and out with skis or sled,

Or tramped knee-deep through silent, buried woods

To follow deer tracks miles from the cabin.

Their slowing bodies cool and stiff, they may,

With nothing left to do, have only sought

The heat that sweated from the barrel stove,

Its blackened sides, its flickering mouth ajar.

But, even in my youth, I saw them there,

As those charged with remembering days past,

With pondering the clockworks of the world,

As gear on gear ground through their ordered circles;

Those who descended to a place of freedom,

Where we may wonder at what has been made,

As Nestor, old, among the furious Greeks,

Sat by and spoke above his warming hands.

I love winter camping, and this poem brought to mind my many years as a scouter and winter camping. It had me reflecting on the older scouters when I was a young leader, and the fact that I am now older than many of them were then. Snowshoeing into Algonquin Park, cross country ski trips in southern Ontario. And the wood stove and fire. A warm drink at the end of a journey or the end of a day.

For Russell Kirk

The panting ideologues who pace their rooms

Hear the word “order” and cry out in fear

That it is just a shibboleth for dooms

As yet unseen but whose goosesteps they hear.

But, it is better taken as the word

A bachelor mulls as he writes through the night

And which enables him, some thought occurred,

To set it down in prose both broad and tight.

While others lapse upon their couch in dreams,

Or type with bloodshot eyes and whiskey breath,

The ordered man appears as his work seems

Fixed with a permanence to outlast death.

Cathedral glass has color and firm border,

As do such men conformed by love to order.

I have yet to read any Russel Kirk, but his works have been on my ‘to be read’ pile for a number of years. I even have a friend who did his PhD thesis on Kirk’s works. So the title caught me from the beginning. And the last two lines have really stuck with me.

I freely admit I am not a literary critic. With my dual form of dyslexia I was just passed through on school. I do not know proper grammar or spelling rules. But I love books and reading. And I do enjoy poetry. This was a volume I enjoyed a great deal. Once I learned to read it was whole worlds that I never knew existed, and the poems in this volume were inspiring, encouraging and at times challenging. I believe this is an excellent collection of poems. It is one I know I will return to.

This is an excellent little volume. I really wish some of James older volumes were available digitally. This one being available as an eBook was a blessing. This is a great collection of poems I can easily recommend!

Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2024 Catholic Reading Plan!

Books by James Matthew Wilson:

The Vision of the Soul

The Hanging God

Some Permanent Things

The Fortunes of Poetry in an Age of Unmaking

The Strangeness of the Good

The River of the Immaculate Conception

Praying the Nicene Creed

Catholic Modernism and the Irish "Avant-Garde

Four Verse Letters

Two Poems for Martyrs

Saint Thomas and the Forbidden Birds

…

Contributed to:

The Slumbering Host

An Outcast Age

T. S. Eliot and Christian Tradition

…

Two Poems for Martyrs - James Matthew Wilson

Praying the Nicene Creed - James Matthew Wilson - CTS Prayers and Devotions

Friday, 8 March 2024

Two Poems for Martyrs - James Matthew Wilson

Two Poems for Martyrs

James Matthew Wilson

Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship

This is the second volume from James Matthew Wilson I have read, last year I read Praying the Nicene Creed, and loved it. Wilson mentioned on social media that this was his shortest volume and he had copies available. He also mentioned Catholic Modernism and the Irish "Avant-Garde": The Achievement of Brian Coffey, Denis Devlin, and Thomas MacGreevy which is his longest. I have added several of his works to my watch list either for eBooks to become available or to be available via adaptive technology. I have a dual form of dyslexia and prefer eBooks so I can change the font and colour of the font and page to make reading easier. I might give in and pick one up but am slow to get around to reading physical books. But back to this volume.

This booklet is available from James directly or from the Benedict XVI Institute. This booklet contains two poems, they are:

In Memory of the North American Martyrs

Offertory Hymn for Ukraine

Often when I write a review of a volume of poetry I include a few poems that really hit me and why as examples. Considering there are only two poems in this booklet I have decided to share a few stanzas instead.

From In Memory:

Have true affection for them, first, he said,

For they, as you, arc ransomed by the blood

Of Christ; accept without complaint their cornmeal

However tasteless;

…

And yet, the best equipment you can bear

Is silence. Scat yourself in the canoe,

And speak no word, but churn your oar in silence

As they will do.

…

And though the Iroquois soon scattered all,

The priests remained to carry their own weight

To speak of Christ and love them as Christ did

These brethren.

The opening stanza of Offertory is:

Drums of war forever beating

On the gold Ukrainian fields;

From the east they ever come

From the west it never yields.

How amid such clamor can

Church endure or people pray?

How, when monk and priest arc shot

And in prison sits Andrei?

Another than really stuck was:

We who now sec death and exile

Recollect what came before,

Freedom known for but an hour

Then boots trample it once more.

Wisdom, Andrei preached, is peace

Set by Christ within the heart;

Wisdom give to us, we pray;

Wisdom from us never part.

And the final one:

Andrei and our faithful martyrs

Teach us as Saint James first taught

Wisdom shall be given to us

And perfect our wounded thought.

How grace sets our hearts ablaze,

When we merely ask and pray;

How our suffering finds an end

Where light shines in endless day.

Both poems are powerful and moving. I have read them each a few times now. And find myself wishing even more so that Wilson’s earlier works were available in digital editions. About these two pieces we are informed:

“The Hymn for the North American Martyrs was commissioned by the Benedict XVI Institute for our Year for St. Junipero Serra and the American Saints. The Offertory Hymn for Ukraine, celebrating the Catholic martyrs and white martyrs of Soviet Ukraine, was created for the Requiem Mass for the Forgotten, set to music by Frank La Rocca.”

This is an excellent little volume. I encourage you to reach out to James to pick up a signed edition. The two poems are masterfully written and will leave you wanting more.

Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2024 Catholic Reading Plan!

Books by James Matthew Wilson:

The Vision of the Soul

The Hanging God

Some Permanent Things

The Fortunes of Poetry in an Age of Unmaking

The Strangeness of the Good

The River of the Immaculate Conception

Praying the Nicene Creed

Catholic Modernism and the Irish "Avant-Garde

Four Verse Letters

Two Poems for Martyrs

Saint Thomas and the Forbidden Birds

…

Contributed to:

The Slumbering Host

An Outcast Age

T. S. Eliot and Christian Tradition

…

Sunday, 24 December 2023

Praying the Nicene Creed - James Matthew Wilson - CTS Prayers and Devotions

Praying the Nicene Creed

CTS Prayers and Devotions

James Matthew Wilson

Catholic Truth Society

ISBN 9781784697358

eISBN 9781784697013

ASIN B09Z71KG7K

CTS Booklet D842

I have read over 75 books and booklets that are part of the CTS Prayers & Devotions Series. Some of the earlier ones are just mark CTS Devotions, but more recent ones have both Prayers and Devotions listed as the series name. This series has spanned decades. It has had books come in and out of print. This volume was published in the spring of 2022 and thought I picked up the eBook as soon as it released, I lost track of it and did not get around to reading it until the ends of 2023. It is a wonderful little volume.

The description of this volume is:

“In this book, poet, critic and scholar James Matthew Wilson considers each line of the Nicene Creed in turn, showing through stories, images and recollections that this prayer describes the living theological reality that is at the heart of personal devotion.

The Nicene Creed is a succinct recitation of the core tenets of the Catholic Faith, opening with a declaration of belief in one God who made the heavens and the earth and concluding with sure hope for the resurrection of the body and eternal life with God. In between, the Creed articulates Catholic doctrine about the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Pascal Mystery, and the apostolic nature and sacramental life of the Church. Despite this richness, the Nicene Creed is a prayer many struggle to recite with the same depth of devotion as the other ancient prayers of the Church.

In this book, poet, critic and scholar James Matthew Wilson considers each line of the Nicene Creed in turn, showing through stories, images and recollections that, far from being a dry, clinical formulation of the Faith, this prayer describes the living theological reality that is at the heart of personal devotion.”

The chapters and sections in this volume are:

Our Common Search for the True Philosophy of Life

Everybody Knows There Is One God

Love Is the Deep Heart of Reality

What Holds All Things Together?

The Truth Is Incarnation

Even Death on a Cross

Redemption from Vanity

The Eternal Priesthood of Christ

A Twitch upon the Thread

The One and Undivided Spirit of God, Who Dwells in All

The Heart’s Longing for Communion

Through the Water

Nothing Shall Be Lost

Wandering into Prayer

About the author we are informed:

“James Matthew Wilson is a poet, critic, and scholar who has published ten books of poetry in addition to numerous articles and essays on philosophical-theology and literature. He is the Professor of Humanities at the University of St Thomas, Houston, where he is also the Founding Director of the Masters of Fine Arts program for Creative Writing in the Catholic Literary Tradition.”

I highlighted a number of passages while working through this volume, some of them are:

“From the first years of youth, I have felt a bit like a stranger in a strange land, wondering for what purpose I came into the world and what principles, if any, govern this place through which we are all journeying. What are we to do with this life we have been given? What lies ahead of us, on the horizon? What, finally, do we need to know if our lives are not to be squandered, to be lived in vain and ended in futility? Such questions haunted me all the more because it seemed clear that everyone else must also be trying to answer them, and yet there seemed to be so few who were willing to address such matters except in superficial ways.”

“I must also mention another almost chance encounter with a book. Once, in a library, I came across a giant manual of scholastic philosophy. The contents, at first glance, looked as dry as the flaking pages and cracking spine of the volume itself. But, posted at the beginning were the words of Cardinal Mercier, the great Catholic philosopher and Belgian churchman of Louvain. Writing just after the German army’s sacking of Louvain, early in the First World War, Mercier proposed that the world would not have descended into war if only it had taken more to heart the Christian philosophy of life to be found in this hefty tome.”

“The faith of that gospel is summed up most succinctly in the Nicene Creed, the Church’s long-discerned, fundamental statement of belief about God and what he has done.”

“When the Christian professes to “believe in one God”, he gives expression not only to the revealed faith of a people but to the long historical reflection of humankind. In ancient literature, we find traces of the first picture human beings formed of the world about them, and it is a fragmented, arbitrary and conflicted one.”

“For such a life to be possible, we must first perceive that the truth is one – and that this is because the gods are not many, but one.”

“God is our father not only in his having created the stable order of all that is, but as the one who initiates, directs and accompanies us through the twists and often painful turns of history. To accept his fatherhood is, therefore, to take a first step towards being a serious person – in two ways. It is to say, “I accept my obligation to understand reality as a whole and, also, to take responsibility for my life, not as a series of disconnected and trivial episodes, but as a pilgrimage towards one, true end.” No one else can force us to do such a thing, of course. We do so of our own volition, knowing as we do that, in the words of the poet Dana Gioia, “this is the life I didn’t want to waste”.”

“A common experience in our day, but one hard to put a name to exactly, is what you might call being “haunted by wilfulness”.”

“Jesus Christ, with his coming into the world, first revealed to us something of the interior life of this Being Itself. God is one, and yet he begets eternally the Son. Father and Son are one God, but two persons. They are eternally equal to one another, and yet stand in relation to one another.”

“Rather than avoiding reality and papering over it with evasive sentiments so as to avoid disappointment and disillusion, one would need to love reality, to dive deep into it with reason and will, that is to say, with the fullness of one’s own being.”

“The Pope wrote that, throughout the world, going back to the most ancient of times, human beings have posed – anxious and hungry – those fundamental questions about the meaning of their lives: “Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life?” According to John Paul II, we are all “implicit philosophers”, seeking to understand the nature of reality and our place within it.”

“To know the truth is to meet the Truth in the person of Jesus Christ. The absolute and eternal has a face that we encounter. And this teaches us that reflection, philosophy and, above all, our faith are no mere abstract propositions. Each is faith in a person, an encounter and relationship with God made possible through the flesh of Jesus Christ. We are called not only to know the truth, but to live it, to see it face-to-face and to incarnate it in our own flesh, so that we become indeed incarnate images of the absolute.”

“The intellect is the distinctive dimension of our soul. If the soul can know truth, that means it knows what is eternal and not merely those fluctuations we sense through the passing life of our bodies. To know is to participate in – to somehow become part of – permanent truth.”

“Christ’s ascension to the right hand of the Father reveals to us that Christ is at once God himself, the eternal wisdom the Gentiles sought beyond time, and the one who enters into history and fulfils it as God promised to his betrothed, chosen people.”

“History is not an easy guide to the coming of God’s kingdom, precisely because our Father is not concerned with what we happen to know now. His wisdom is not a mathematical following of trends or tendencies. His concern is rather for what we shall know and become when we are saved. He leads us by ways we will only recognise in retrospect. We often think we are careening towards the abyss, when, by what J.R.R. Tolkien called a “eucatastrophe”, we are suddenly showered in great light.”

“G.K. Chesterton made this point nicely when he wrote: “But… this separation between man and God is sacred, because this is eternal. That a man may love God it is necessary that there should be not only a God to be loved, but a man to love him.” The eternal communion of that love is the Church herself, where we, the members of the body, are united to Christ, the head.”

“Thinking along these lines can help us understand the Sacrament of Baptism as at once natural to us and entirely supernatural, as a perfectly intuitive necessity for us, even as it turns us on our head.”

“If the death and rebirth of Baptism may make sense to our natural reason, what they accomplish is wholly supernatural. Baptism is the initiative of the Holy Spirit to bring about our second birth.”

“We already, here in the world, participate in the eternal life of the God who made us. But, we also will literally die. Life in the Church now is our journey towards our final and lasting union with Christ “in glory” (Col 3: 4).”

“Pilgrims looking for their way are bound to ask for directions, and this leads to many words. The words of this book are intended to be some of those words. Such words should culminate not in mere silence, but in the relative silence of prayer; not in the silence of uninterest, but in the silence of wonder. The Nicene Creed speaks to us of the deep mystery of reality and leads us toward its presence. It asks of us, not exclusively, but primarily, that we stand in that presence in the condition of wonder, awe, fear and, finally, joy.”

I hope those quotes give you a feel for this volume, the easy prose. The context the creed is framed in. And how valuable a resource it can be for us readers. At the beginning of the volume Wilson states:

“My aims in this book are to welcome all who read it as fellow pilgrims in search of the Way, to begin with the fundamental, existential conditions in which we all share, and to meditate upon the distinct parts of the Nicene Creed. I hope to show how the Creed responds to those questions to which all persons naturally seek answers, namely that it does so in a way that opens onto great mystery. By this I mean that the answers to the fundamental questions we ask in keeping with our human nature are always supernatural ones, revealed ones, that lead the reason beyond itself, not to violate its principles but, rather, to deepen and super-elevate them. Questions with simple answers are dead questions. Questions that open onto mystery are the only ones worthy of our life and attention. What the Nicene Creed teaches speaks directly to the questions we are already asking, but it calls us out of ourselves to the life of faith, the life of grace, the life of supernatural mystery. Faith itself is the means by which the reason at once fulfils and transcends itself as it comes to know truth while entrusting itself to mystery.”

This booklet was a great read. I know it is one I will return to again in the near future. I worked through this booklet over a few sessions. It was engaging, informative and to be honest it challenged me. I can easily recommend this booklet for any Catholic. It is another great read from the CTS.

Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2023 Catholic Reading Plan! For other reviews of books from the Catholic Truth Society click here.

For reviews of other books in the CTS Prayers & Devotions series click here.

Books by James Matthew Wilson:

The Vision of the Soul

The Hanging God

Some Permanent Things

The Fortunes of Poetry in an Age of Unmaking

The Strangeness of the Good

The River of the Immaculate Conception

Praying the Nicene Creed

Catholic Modernism and the Irish "Avant-Garde

Four Verse Letters

Two Poems for Martyrs