Reading into the Church

By Deal Hudson in Inside Catholic

Reading, said Josemaría Escrivá, has made many a saint. In my own case it has merely made a convert, but I do continue to read ever more deeply into the mystery that is the Church. Thomas Merton, we recall from Seven Storey Mountain, was started on his road to the Church by the accidental discovery of Gilson's The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy in the Columbia University Library. We are foolish to forget the power of the written word.

It is said that people don't read much anymore, that we live in a multimedia age, and that the act of reading is on the wane. I don't take these prognostications too seriously. Nothing is likely to replace reading as the most intimate medium of enjoyment and self-examination -- certainly not CD-ROM or the World Wide Web. When we want to change a person's life, we still give him a book, and wait, hoping.

Years ago a friend sent me a box of about twenty-five books with "Catholic bomb" written across the side. As I read them one by one, they exploded in my mind, leaving me disoriented and filled with an unfamiliar joy. It was the confusion of knowing that my life was changing forever; it was the joy of heading into an unknown country called the Catholic faith.

Read the rest of the article, with recommended readings, at Inside Catholic