This past Saturday I attended a men’s conference. This was a state wide Catholic men’s conference and the first one I have ever attended. The list of speakers was impressive, but the one I wanted to see was Mathew Kelly, an Australian now living in the States. Mathew is a dynamic speaker that has a natural knack to mix in humor and wisdom. It truly was an inspirational event, and I am glad I attended.
One of the main points through the day as learning or more acuratly, continues learning. Catholics are bad at this, Mr. Kelly stated a fact, that the average Catholic has read less than one book per year but the average protestant has read over 3 per year. That is a sad fact, and having once owned a Catholic gift shop that sold Catholic books, I basically knew this already. We sold more books and bibles to non-Catholics than Catholics.
Why do we have this lack of interest in discovering our faith, in growing our faith. Some of it has to do with the Catholic culture. We are not a faith that is out there and in your face, we are a more laid back faith, one that believes deeply but dose not like to show it. We are a shy faith. It also has to do with the way we are and were Catechized, how often does your local pries recommend a book from the pulped? How often is it required that the youth in religious formation classes are required to read Catholic novel, they do exist. We, as a faith do not promote our own faith even with in our faith.
I recently changed parishes for a variety of reasons, but one of the main reasons was I was not being fed at my last parish. I was hearing the same tired sermon from three years ago, it was time to leave. At my new parish the priest has recommended books from the pulpit on at least three occasions. I know I went out and purchased one of the books, but than again I read Catholic books all the time, but I am sure Amazon saw an uptick in the number of books sold for the titles this priest recommended. What a simple thing for him to do, recommend a book he is currently reading or has read, a book that he himself used to help formulate his thoughts and understanding. This same priest post a list of recommended books on the parish website. Once again an easy thing to do, but I am sure many people have downloaded it and ordered a few books off the list, or even shared the list with others.
Why don’t more priest do this, what is stopping them from doing it? Nothing is stopping them except themselves. Many priest in today’s society are not interested in educating us, they are just interested in doing the job at hand, saying mass and that’s it. Sad but true. Well maybe not many, but most definitely a good number of them. Some of them can’t recommend the books they read for fear that the congregation will discover there liberal leaning and others just don’t educate themselves so they have nothing to recommend. Once again what a sad situation we Catholics are in.
At the end of each posting, well most posting, depending on what computer I am on, I like to recommend books to read. Some I have read myself, others simple go along with the topic at hand. I have no idea if anyone has purchased a book off my site, but that’s not really the point. I am trying to offer new opportunities’ to you, new books to read you may have never thought of or heard of. So if you haven’t read a Catholic book, why not start today, and if you have, great, and make sure you recommend a good Catholic book to someone today.
God Bless
Paul
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Why Do Catholics Do That? |
| 2 Peter 3:9“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
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