Customer Reviews

Doing the Truth in Love: Conversations about God, Relationships, and Service

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Michael Himes has an outstanding way of making the ancient faith of the Catholic Church understandable in the 21st century. His clear and concise explanations provide a good spirituality for everyday life, a spirituality that is attentive in faith to the signs of the times and eager to accept the challenge of the Gospel. Fr. Himes' book challenges Catholicism to move beyond a mere moral code to become a life that is lived in the presence of a loving God. The review by "hhrom12" below is unhelpful and entirely too narrow a view of the great beauty that is Catholic Christianity. Himes' book teaches nothing that the Church Fathers would not agree with; in fact, he is closer to a clear understanding and enunciation of the faith than many of today's more narrow neo-conservative Catholic authors (who have abandoned the faith of the Church). If you want a faith that simply confirms your own prejudices, "Doing the Truth in Love" is not for you. If you want to be challenged by the Spirit moving through the world today, buy this book.

Fr. Himes is a master theologian that utilizes his expertise on scriptural interpretation thus allowing us to acknowledge the fullness of God in our lives. He begins with agape and ends by stimulating our call to service. </p>

Fr. Himes gives a fresh, inspiring view of many traditional establishments of the Catholic Church. He throws a new light on basic teachings and makes one look at them from a different perspective; a perspective that often opens the mind to see clearly teachings which were formerly muddled and confusing. A great piece of literature for any person pursuing the truth through reason.

The book is based on discussions which took place with the author and students at Notre Dame University. With a strong emphasis on theology, personal relationships, and community, Doing the Truth in Love is about Doing the Self in Love. The chapters are useful in adult discussion groups, or in person to person discussions, for mature insights into personal/relational spiritual development.

Father Himes is hands down one of the most amazing Catholics i've ever met. I had the privilege of attending a few of his lectures at Boston College, and have watched several sermons of his (via online videos), but "Doing the truth in Love" takes the Gold Medal for mind opening teachings.

If you tend to look at the Gospel the same old way and are complacent with that way of thinking, then you NEED to read this book. However, you also need to read it with an open mind and heart, lest your pride be offended.

This man is utterly Catholic, with ideas that all Catholics should embrace. The "least wrong" ideas about God... the true definitions of love... the most real meanings of Jesus's parables...

You MUST buy this book - it will change your mind and life. And even if it is unbroken, it will fix your faith. It may reveal Christ to you for the first time. It will reacquaint you with your God.

I was a student of Father Himes ten years ago, and to this day his class is one of the most memorable of my tenure at Boston College. I was raised Catholic, and I learned more about what it meant to be Catholic and to participate in organized religion in those eight months comparing Catholicism to Buddhism, than I did in the preceeding twenty years. This was not relgion as it had been dictated to me - this opened my eyes to the concept of church as a community of shared beliefs and support, not just a punisher of frowned upon behavior.

In the interest of full disclosure, I considered myself agnostic when I took the class - theology was a required course at BC. I often wonder how things would have been different for me if religion and Catholicism were presented to me growing up as they were by Fr. Himes as an adult.

Those who review his work and rebuke his "type" of Catholicism and call it heresy, need to open their eyes to the world around them, and their hearts to those trying to practice their faith in the 21st century.

His insights and teachings are truly thought provoking and reflective, and he shares them with a sincere passion. I returned many books after my classes were over - but this is one that I kept.

This book is inspirational and will help you think of God in a new, authentic, Biblical way.

If you want to learn what the Catholic Church teaches, you will have to look elsewhere. In this and other books by Fr. Michael Himes, the heresy of Modernism (which the Catholic Church has rebuked) is what you'll find. Fr. Himes passes his skewed views off as being those of the Church. If you are just interested in fluffy, feel good theology by all means read his writings. If you are serious about learning the true facts of the faith read books by Scott Hahn, Patrick Madrid, Fr. Michael Scanlan, Fulton Sheen, or anything by the Church Fathers.