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Lent and Easter Wisdom from G.K. Chesterton: Daily Scripture and Prayers Together with G.K. Chesterton's Own Words (Lent & Easter Wisdom)

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THE GOOD: Chesterton. Aphoristic, brilliant, timeless. Today's entry on the "double benefit" of Becket's hair shirt, for instance. The format -- an excerpt from Chesterton, a verse from Scripture, a prayer, and a Lenten action -- is sound.

THE BAD: The New Revised Standard Version. Graceless, sexless, ugly.

THE ODD: Ligouri is a Catholic publisher. The book's authors are Protestant. One is the director of The Center for C.S. Lewis and Friends, the other an elder in the United Methodist Church. It shows up in the Lenten actions, which encourage prayer but are bereft of the other two works of piety familiar to most Catholics (almsgiving and fasting.) There's also an element of pop psychology. I simply will not "draw two parallel horizontal lines across the page" this Lent.

This Chesterton Lent /pg. a day book is GREAT! Chesterton is very deep writer and sometimes is a bit too hard for even a reader, but this book takes "bites"of his works for each day. Each day combines these momments and with meaningful prayers and relivant scripture makes this a great read for Lent

I've enjoyed this book. G.K. Chesterton is someone I've not read much. The devotions are thought provoking, prayers insightful, daily action plan varied and beneficial. Each day's devotion could be a bit longer. I'd recommend this to friends.

I have been reading this book daily during this year's Lenten season. Each selection includes an excerpt from G.K. Chesterton's writing, a verse, a prayer and something to think about or do to apply the teaching during the day. My favorite so far: Windows are meant to be cleaned and forgotten. Sins are like that. When you see a window today, think about these things. Is that cool or what?!! I love the idea of booklets that help us focus on the meaning of Lent, Advent and such. Our busy world seeks to claim all our attention. We can just say, "No!" Blessed Easter to all!

and therefore the most dangerous, as is the soporific lotus, or the bewitching poppy.

Hello, people! GK is not a Catholic theologian! He is a popular author of quaint detective stories! Yet something called the Center for Studies of CS Lewis and Friends presents him as a Catholic Theologian through the mildly Catholic Liguori Press, and we remain deceived. Lewis himself was a mere popular author, and yet we hold our breathe at his alleged brilliance and devious depth. Get a grip, people! Hello! Read our Roman Catholic theologians, especially now the great and Reverend Father John Dear, SJ, especially now his Disarming the Heart: Toward a Vow of Nonviolence, his Jesus the Rebel: Bearer of God's Peace and Justice, or his Jean Donovan; The Call to Discipleship.

For timely meditations on Lent and Easter let us turn not to anglicans but to our practitioners and teachers of Catholic theology such as Bishop Bossuet's Oeuvres choisies de Bossuet, évêque de Meaux: Tome 2 and Solesmes' Abbot Gueranger Liturgical Year: Lent and The Liturgical Year: Passiontide And Holy Week and The Liturgical Year: Paschal Time (Book II), this last one of three books on the Paschaltide.

We might also do very well in our time of Lenten reading as ordered by Our Holy Father Saint Benedict to review the passion and death of our many martyrs of the Americas, including Archbishop Romero: Memories and Reflections, or Companions of Jesus: The Jesuit Martyrs of El Salvador, and The Same Fate As the Poor.

Appropriate Lenten meditation may also be found in such examinations of true Catholic theology as Unbroken Communion: The Place and Meaning of Suffering in the Theology of Edward Schillebeeckx and Suffering And Salvation: The Salvific Meaning of Suffering in the Later Theology of Edward Schillebeeckx (Louvain Theological & Pastoral Monographs, 33) (Louvain Theological & Pastoral Monographs, 33).

We may also deeply consider in our Lenten lectio divina reading from the great Catholic theologian the Reverend Father Gustavo Gutierrez on On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent and on the same exegetical subject the great Jesuit and American Catholic, the Reverend Father Daniel Berrigan in Job: And Death No Dominion as well as the other works of these great, well-trained, well-respected, profound and truly Catholic theologians.

So why deceive ourselves with the jovial and deceptively comforting and amateur words of the cloaked Chesterton? Because we Catholics prefer pretentious ease to the great Catholic truth of the Passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ Incarnate in our Church today.

Come on, all we Catholics! Get a life! Leave behind the false comforts of the armchair adventures of Lewis and Chesterton and come to know and live our integral and infinite Faith. Read the real books which bring life, not those which bring a shallow and lotus-like sleep.