- Feb 5, 2002
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I love Lent.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I take pleasure in fasting. And I don’t enjoy “giving stuff up” any more than the next guy. In my devotional life, I can be a typical spoiled American.
But Lent, for me, is always a hopeful time. It’s my annual reminder that change is possible. More than that, I’m reminded that God wants me to change and wills me to change. So he’ll give me the grace I need to put away vice and put on virtue. All the readings at Mass reinforce those lessons. God calls Israel to repent — to cease its sinning — and to grow by means of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
I usually mark the season with a silent retreat, so that I can get back to the basics of the spiritual life. I’ll usually take a book with me; and I want to tell you about a book I took along a Lent or two ago. It’s “Knowing the Love of God: Lessons from a Spiritual Master” (St. Joseph Communications, $14.95), by Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP.
This author defined “the basics of the spiritual life” for me, way back when I was a new Catholic. Garrigou-Lagrange was perhaps the most celebrated Catholic theologian of his lifetime (1877-1964). He taught for many years at Rome’s Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum), and among his illustrious students was a young Polish priest named Karol Wojtyla. Father Wojtyla (whom we now know as St. Pope John Paul II) completed his doctoral dissertation under the direction of Friar Reginald.
He is best known, however, for his foundational work of spiritual theology, “The Three Ages of the Interior Life” (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, $25), which he wrote when he was young. That title, too, bears careful reading and re-reading. I cannot name — and can’t even imagine — a book more justly influential on the practice of spiritual direction.
Continued below.
angelusnews.com
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I take pleasure in fasting. And I don’t enjoy “giving stuff up” any more than the next guy. In my devotional life, I can be a typical spoiled American.
But Lent, for me, is always a hopeful time. It’s my annual reminder that change is possible. More than that, I’m reminded that God wants me to change and wills me to change. So he’ll give me the grace I need to put away vice and put on virtue. All the readings at Mass reinforce those lessons. God calls Israel to repent — to cease its sinning — and to grow by means of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
I usually mark the season with a silent retreat, so that I can get back to the basics of the spiritual life. I’ll usually take a book with me; and I want to tell you about a book I took along a Lent or two ago. It’s “Knowing the Love of God: Lessons from a Spiritual Master” (St. Joseph Communications, $14.95), by Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP.
This author defined “the basics of the spiritual life” for me, way back when I was a new Catholic. Garrigou-Lagrange was perhaps the most celebrated Catholic theologian of his lifetime (1877-1964). He taught for many years at Rome’s Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum), and among his illustrious students was a young Polish priest named Karol Wojtyla. Father Wojtyla (whom we now know as St. Pope John Paul II) completed his doctoral dissertation under the direction of Friar Reginald.
He is best known, however, for his foundational work of spiritual theology, “The Three Ages of the Interior Life” (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, $25), which he wrote when he was young. That title, too, bears careful reading and re-reading. I cannot name — and can’t even imagine — a book more justly influential on the practice of spiritual direction.
Continued below.
How this influential book can help us this Lenten season
Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange was perhaps the most celebrated Catholic theologian of his lifetime.
angelusnews.com
