Tag: book review

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Book Review: Come to Me: Living the Nine First Fridays by Sister Anne Flanagan, FSP

Sr. Anne Flanagan’s new book, Come to Me: Living the Nine First Fridays, is a boon to my faith life.  Sr. Anne invites us to enter into the extraordinary devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the First Friday Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and she does so through a foundational education that prepares the reader for heeding Christ’s call to a closer relationship with Him.

cover of Come to Me with beautiful sacred Heart imagery

Preparing Our Hearts

I was not unfamiliar with this devotion when I first picked up this book. In fact, I have often attempted this discipline of attending Mass and receiving Communion on and off for probably two decades with no success at completing the devotion. I often struggled with my spirit being willing but my flesh being weak (Matthew 26:41) and succumbing to whatever distraction kept me from finishing the devotion.

In Come to Me, Sr. Anne prepares our hearts to listen to Jesus and enter into an intimate sharing with Him. She details the meaning of the devotion, its history, and its practice, and includes a scriptural understanding of how this devotion shapes us and molds our hearts for Jesus. At the end of the book, she provides a beautifully curated selection of prayers for us to continue in our spiritual practice.

“Devotion to the Sacred Heart is a solid foundation for our life of prayer.” (4)

As my knowledge of this devotion increased, so did my desire to try again. Each chapter that accompanies a month of the devotion matches a theme with a Saint and an accompanying Adoration guide. I am confident that experiencing this devotion with the guided prayer for each month will yield great spiritual fruit for me, and I hope, for you as well.

Come to Me: Living the Nine First Fridays

Sister Anne Flanagan, FSP

Pailine Books & Media

2023

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Review: Secrets of the Sacred Heart

I don’t usually make new year’s resolutions, and when I do, it’s very rare that I follow through. In this year we’ve all shaken our heads at, I’m here to tell you I managed to keep my resolution: to add spiritual reading to my regular morning prayer time. I did, and not only did I enjoy it and benefit from it spiritually, I’ve found consolations, devotions, and wonderful insights into the faith.

Emily Jaminet’s book, Secrets of the Sacred Heart: Twelve Ways to Claim Jesus’ Promises in Your Life was my latest companion in my early morning routine. I whole-heartedly recommend this book to anyone thinking about enthronement to the Sacred Heart or even just curious about this devotion.

Emily’s personal and informative chapters give us great insight into this devotion, but my favorite part was finishing each chapter praying the Litany of the Sacred Heart. I wish I had this book available years ago when our home was enthroned, but it was a wonderful refresher for me. I hope you’ll give this one a read.

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Check out this book review…

So I got involved in a pretty neat little project that Chris Cash at The Catholic Company is doing. He’s gathered a cadre of bloggers interested in doing reviews for various products, including the thing I love best to do: read books. There’s this for a bonus: I get to read stuff before it’s published, and I get to write about it. Nerd nirvana. I know!

So here’s the first review. I posted it as my Monday Musings at rosaryarmy.com because I think it’s something the readers there would appreciate, but I want you guys to fly on over there, too.

One of our challenges as Catholics is to continue to grow in our faith. It is easy to fall into a comfortable rut of attending Mass and receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation randomly, or just once a year, in short, operating at the minimum level. We don’t just shortshrift ourselves when we do that, we shortshrift God.

And yet, there is so much available to guide our exploration of our faith. Our beloved Pope John Paul II, a prolific writer, has written a body of work that addresses our needs, not just as Christians, but as human beings made in the likeness of God, and provides profound insight into God’s love for us and how we can love God in return.

Although these documents exist for us to study and nurture our faith, many Catholics, including myself, are intimidated by them, fearing that they may be too academic, perhaps too esoteric for the common reader. The Theology of the Body was one of those documents that seemed inaccessible to me.

Enter Christopher West, Catholic author and speaker well-known for his on-going work on John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. West brings his understanding of marriage and sexuality to people thirsty for knowledge and understanding about a topic that is often relegated to whispers if it is spoken about at all.

His newest book, Heaven’s Song, available in September 2008, continues the exploration of John Paul II’s theology of the body with new material never released by the Pope. In these new talks, West reveals the Pope’s study of the Song of Songs and the marriage of Sarah and Tobias.

I have to admit that I was a little intimidated when I received an advance copy of his book for review. The Song of Songs was just not something I was drawn to, and Sarah – didn’t all her husbands die on their wedding night? It seemed so obscure.     [read the rest of it here]

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