This year the parish is being called to enter into a Year of Prayer.  It is an opportunity for us to become more intentionally, affectively and actively aware of being disciples of Jesus.  Correspondingly it is also our opportunity to become aware of God's working presence within us shaping us in the image of Christ.  Meister Eckhart reminds us:  God's chief aim is giving birth.  He is never content till he begets his Son in us.  The books we will be reading and discussing will recognize this gracious context.

As always, discussion will begin with scripture. The Letter to the Hebrews has been a classic text for the Christian community to learn and reflect on the Christ-event in the life of the disciple:  Jesus as Word of God, as high priest, as pioneer of our hope.

As we enter into and persevere in prayer, we are changed; even our imaginations and sensibilities are transformed.  Andrew Greeley describes these effects of prayerful discipleship in the book The Catholic Imagination.

Some of us will be making use of The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola as a path of discipleship.  Ronald Modras, a professor of theology at St. Louis University, offers an inviting introduction to Jesuit spirituality in Ignatian Humanism:  A Dynamic Spirituality for the 21st Century.

The Franciscan Richard Rohr, has written what is becoming a spiritual classic:  Everything Belongs:  The Gift of Contemplative Prayer.

John Cardinal Newman prayed:  "God has created me to do Him some definite service."  Prayer-life flows into love-life.  Ronald Rolheiser will help us to reflect on a life lived out of prayer in Forgotten Among the Lilies:  Learning to Love Beyond Our Fears.

We are never disciples alone.  It is as Church that we form the Body of Christ.  Clearly we need to focus prayerfully as a community on who we are as Church.  The scripture scholar, Daniel Harrington, S.J. will help do that in The Church According to the New Testament.  The subtitle reads:  What the Wisdom and Witness of Early Christianity Teach Us Today.

Catholics continue to wrestle with the hope and promise of Vatican II.  In this book expert authors help us to tackle such issues as the vision of the church, the role of the laity, ecumenism and family life.  Commenting on the book, Richard Rohr calls it "...a wonderful collection of reflections.  If you have any doubts about the enduring power of a council of the church, your doubts will be settled here."  [St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2005]

The book is available through ordering at Barnes and Noble and Amazon.  Also, Fr. Earl has a few extra copies available.

"Gaudium et Spes" is also known as The Pastoral Consitution on the Church in the Modern World.  Norman Tanner, S.J. is a professor of church history at the Gregorian University in Rome.  In this book he traces the document's evolution into what emerged as the most distinctive and challenging decree of the Vatican Council.  Unlike any coucil document before or after it, this decree was uniquely and deliberately addressed to the world at large stating what the council fathers hoped the church to be.  [Paulist Press, 2005]

The book is available through ordering at Barnes and Noble and Amazon.  Also, Fr. Earl has a few extra copies available.

Endo was a Japanese Catholic who tried to convey the essence of faith in Jesus to a world that thinks less and less in traditional western and European categories. He is a brilliant writer able, even in translation, to connect with the deeply human.

John Shea is a professor of pastoral care and counseling at the Institute of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry at Boston College. In introducing this book we will be discussing, I want to begin with some questions: How deep of a yes have we said to the God Jesus describes as the Living God of Unconditional Love? How many of us have grown up with, been taught and actually do believe in a God of very conditioned love -- a God arbitrary in his judgments and tyrannical in his punishments -- a God to be feared? This is what Shea asks us to examine: our own lived images and experiences of God. He helps us to understand the "Superego God" learned in adolescence and how we can move toward the "Living God" as we grow into spiritual adulthood.

Radcliffe is a Dominican friar who has taught theology at Oxford, became Provincial of the English Province of the Order and then Master of the Order worldwide. He has written a book profoundly Catholic and human and a book that has gone through three printings since its publication last year in 2005. The author asks a challenging question: what is the point of being a Christian? One is pointed to God, who is the point of everything. If one thinks of religion as just "useful" then one has reduced it to just another consumer product. But if we are pointed to God, then this should make a difference to how we live. This is not a moral superiority. Christians are usually no better than anyone else. But the lives of Christians should be marked by some form of hope, freedom, happiness and courage. If they are not then why should anyone believe a word we say?