Brunelleschi's Dome, by Ross King

We read with great enthusiasm an earlier book by Mr. King, Michaelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling. We were especially impressed by his clear explanations of painting and his sympathetic portrayal's of the celibate artist as well as of the less-than-glorious Medici sponsored pontiffs of the time.

In Brunellschi's Dome, King moves to architecture and the story of the building of the incredible dome at Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence (what a city!) in the early 15th century. Again, the explanations of the engineering problems of architecture are amazingly lucid. He again protrays characters with all their artistic eccentricity but with genuine human sympathy. So far, one of the best books of the year.

Page as of February 23: 47

Brothers' rating: 4 1/2 of 5

Befriending the Stranger

Jean Vanier is a remarkable man, a master of the spiritual life and a man of practical action as the founder of L'Arche. Befriending the Stranger, one of his many books, is a series of retreats conferences he gave for workers at L'Arche. For this reason, the book is great for reading aloud: down to earth and illustrated with wonderful personal anecdotes, some extremely touching.

Vanier's humility and humanity shine forth on every page. His living interpretation of the gospel: fellowship with all persons, no matter how lowly, hurt, angry, or disappointed, is steeped in a profound encounter with the Word of God. His is a radical message of hope and love, presented with no distracting frills. He makes the life of service sound possible and desirable. An excellent read so far! Highly recommended.

Brothers' rating: 5 of 5

current page as of Jan 19: 45

“Living in community I discovered who I was. I discovered also that the truth will set me free, and so there's the gradual realization about what it means to be human. To be human is that capacity to love which is the phenomenal reality that we can give life to people; we can transform people by our attentiveness, by our love, and they can transform us. It is a whole question of giving life and receiving life, but also to discover how broken we are.”
- Jean Vanier

Two Books by Raymond Brown

December 17-January 12:
A Coming Christ in Advent and An Adult Christ at Christmas by Raymond E. Brown

We had not known that Fr. Raymond Brown was controversial in some quarters until recently. Before that, we thought that he was just the greatest modern American Bible scholar and prominent former member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission. We decided to take a chance on these two books, based on the recommendation of a Christian Brother. We thought it more monastic to get in the Christmas spirit by reading good Scriptural commentary, than, say, drinking hot chocolate.





Fr. Brown's scholarship is a remarkable gift, and he is also blessed with the ability to condense scholarly argument into real doctrinal teaching when the audience calls for it. Some of his suggestions about the meaning of the Infancy Narratives might not be to everyone's liking, but they are stimulating and doctrinally powerful (and orthodox!). Another merit of Fr. Brown's work is that he is careful to separate what the texts meant from how the Church has interpreted them traditionally, and while he has no objection to the latter development, he does a great service to all Christians by returning us to the Biblical roots of our faith.





The community felt that the Advent book was definitely the stronger, and that these were not the best table reading. However, we all enjoyed hearing good, close readings of familiar stories that brought them vigorously to life.





Brothers' Rating: 4 out of 5

Monastic Pilgrimage by Guy-Marie Oury

November-December

We have twice read with enthusiasm another book by Abbot Guy-Marie, written while he was the Abbot President of the Subiaco Congregation. The present book is a series of retreats given at one of our sisters' houses in Petersham, Mass. The reflections follow the opening chapters and the closing chapters of the Rule, and read them in a creative manner, perhaps more 'pious' than the average Catholic would find helpful today. A solid book, but we preferred Letter to My Brothers.


Brothers' rating: 3 out of 5

Strangers to the City

Strangers to the City: Reflections on the Beliefs and Values of the Rule of Saint Benedict by Michael Casey, OCSO is the most challenging of his books that we have read recently and one that is particularly voiced to the monastic. It would be difficult to find a circumstance or aspect of a monk's day that Casey does not penetrate with sharp insight and decades of lived wisdom. As always, he is interested in the questions of why Benedictines do the things we do, how and why we should do them with a greater commitment, and what challenges the making of this commitment. This is a volume dense in thought and difficult to summarize thematically, much like a monastic day!

Brothers' rating: 5 out of 5

A Silent Herald of Unity: The Life of Blessed Maria Gabriella Sagheddu

Martha Driscoll's biography on this Italian Trappistine nun, Blessed Maria Gabriella (d. 1939), is a provoking look at a kind of martrydom most of us would find difficult to reconcile. Her untimely death within a few years of her entry into the monastery is explained by Andrew Marr, OSB in his preface.

"The French priest Paul Couturier, who had become devoted to the cause of church unity, interested Sister Maria Gabriella's superior, Mother Pia, in this cause. It was Abbe Couturier who asked Mother Pia if she might pass on her request that any sisters in the community who felt so moved by the Holy Spirit, offer their lives for the cause of church unity. The prayer intention Abbe Couturier was asking for was that a sister might offer her life for the furtherance of a specific intention with the expectation that God would take her life in the near future, but yet be open to the possibility of living a full life devoted to that cause. Mother Pia felt moved to present this prayer intention to her community. Sister Maria Gabriella was one of two sisters who felt moved to offer themselves" (pg. xi).

Brother's rating: 1.5 out of 5

Making Room

Although hospitality was counted among the highest expressions of faith in both the Old and the New Testaments, most Christians now seem to have little awareness of the tradition. Christine Pohl in Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition has set herself to the task of recentralizing hospitality to strangers as a basic component of the Christian life. Her impressively ecumenical breadth makes her work not only fascinating to read, but also greatly motivating.

Brothers' current rating: 5 ouf of 5

Current page as of 8/9/06: p.82

Building a Gothic Cathedral: Credit or Fault?

From the wonderful opening chapter, the book has consistently lost steam. Recent chapters have flattened to null most brothers' optimisim for the upcoming ones. Scott's difficulty, endemic to to his scholarly position, is his exclusive insistence on a modern, atheistic, and "us versus them" anthropology. He writes off medieval Christians as paupers easily fooled into believing most anything about anything. He seems to hold them accountable for not sharing his Enlightenment values. A good historiography of the Gothic cathedral requires the modern writer to work out a relationship with the medieval Christian that opens to readers new and revealing ways of experience and understanding. For this, we will have to look elsewhere.

Brothers' current rating: 2 out of 5

Current page as of 7/14/06: p. 215