Reading Material

I’m trying to get used to the new blogger setup and so far the hardest part is posting, which is pretty much the point of the blog in the first place. There are other glitches, but I won’t go into them and I’m not the type to write to the company to tell them what I think. I just limp along until I get used to it and often improvements come due to the good work of others. I think I notice some already.

So I thought I’d do a short post on what I’m reading now so I could see more of how this works. I alternate most of what I read through the day and week, but I read the Bible every morning and right now I’m on Galatians and Exodus. I had read Matthew and then Acts not that long ago and next went to Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament. I'm going to continue in order with the Old Testament, but I wondered in what order the books of the New Testament were written. I wanted to read Paul’s letters, especially since I had previously finished Acts and I knew Romans, the next in line, was not first in chronological order of his letters. The search engine brought forth mostly the answer of Galatians first, although a few listed Thessalonians. So, I went with Galatians in the New Testament.

I’m also reading Dignitatis humanae, a document from the Vatican II Catholic Church Council. It has raised a lot of ire and I wanted to know what it said. It is about religious freedom and Catholics being able to follow their consciences. That’s not the only controversial document of Vatican II, but it is right up there.

Since we are speaking of controversial Vatican II documents, another is Nostra aetate, which concerns the relation of the Catholic Church with other world religions. This has in fact prompted many people to wonder about the validity of the Council itself because it sounds so inclusive as to point toward universalism, meaning that just about anyone can go to heaven. Before the council, it was pretty much understood by Catholics that only Christians, and perhaps a bit more historically only Catholics, were accepted. This has led me to research third and fourth century councils held by the Church concerning the "Arian heresy." Though some councils rejected it, others accepted it. The book that I’m reading about it now is by John Henry Newman called, The Arians of the Fourth Century.

I'm fitting in Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium. It is about evangelization by and in the Church. It has already had some surprising comments to me.

I'm also starting St. Thomas' Summa Theologica, which is a theological classic but over 1000 pages, so it may take some very significant time.