Fifteen Authors
My blogger friend, Macrina Walker, who writes at A Vow of Conversation tagged me in this meme that focuses on authors of influence.
15 Authors (meme)
Fifteen authors (poets included) who’ve influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag at least fifteen friends, including me, because I’m interested in seeing what authors my friends choose.
An exercise like this opens one up to having others peek into your formation as a person. I am always drawn to see what books don the shelves of my friends. I have attempted to list my fifteen in an approximate chronological order and to explain a bit of why I feel each has been an influence on my life.
1) C.S. Lewis. Lewis is one of the first Christian authors I began reading in my time at college. Probably the two books that made the biggest impression on me then were Til We Have Faces and Surprised By Joy. More recently I have added his book The Great Divorce into the category of a book that needs to be read at least once every few years. Each of the characters in the book challenge me to continue in my own journey deeper into heaven despite my own fears and obstacles.
2) St. Athanasius. St. Athanasius and I spent my entire last year of college together. My honors thesis focused on the role of St. Athanasius in the Arian controversy of the fourth century. In a study of his Orations Against the Arians, my goal was to learn more about the formation of the Nicene Creed. Little did I know how influential this great saint would become in my life. The importance of the Incarnation has remained at the center of my life ever since.
3) Thomas Merton. One book I have returned to again and again since college is New Seeds of Contempation. It contains short passages that never fail to challenge. I also discovered Seven Storey Mountain at this time. It was fascinating to read Merton’s journey from a man with no religion to the life of a Trappist monk. His description of learning from the churches of Europe has remained with me to this day as a reminder of the importance of theology in Christian art.
4) The Fathers of Vatican II. I cannot even begin to describe the great influence of the sixteen documents of this last church council have made on my life. When I sat down to read them for the first time at seminary I was dumbfounded to find my most common thoughts and firm beliefs in the words of the documents. I remember thinking that I had finally discovered a source to point others to when they asked about my beliefs on matters of faith. It seems that the Dominican Sisters had taught us well back at Notre Dame High School.
5) Dorothy Day. It was also at Conception Seminary where I would discover Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement. Several seminarians on my floor had copies on their shelves of a book called The Long Loneliness. I found my own copy of the book one summer and had my eyes opened to a new world that called me to prayer and action. Day and her friend Peter Maurin called Christians to radical hospitality and volunteer poverty. Another book of hers that I return to often is On Pilgrimage.
6) Kathleen Norris. The Christmas of my first year at Conception Seminary I received a letter from a former college professor, Don Klinefelter. In the letter he suggested my reading a new book out called Dakota. In the book, Norris describes her move to her family homestead in South Dakota from the metropolis of New York. It was exactly the book I needed to read at the time. I was desperately struggling to adjust from the life of being a big man on campus to the desert lifestyle of the Benedictines. Norris helped show me the way to embrace the silence I was in need of at the time. It was the beginning of my love for the Benedictines.
7) St. Benedict. It wasn’t long after falling under the spell of Norris’ writing that I began to seek a stronger connecttion to the Order of St. Benedict. Before leaving Conception for theology school I was to become an oblate of the Abbey. Since then, The Rule of St. Benedict has been a companion. It also challenges me to embrace hospitality and above all challenges me to seek humility as a virtue. I am still not very good at it, but the rule definitely helps.
8) Anne Sexton. Somewhere near the beginning of my time at Mundelein Seminary, Fr. Brian Fisher read a poem to us entitled Not So. Not So. “Who is that?” was the first thought to go through my mind. I was overwhelmed with the beauty in her words. It did not take long for me to find a copy of her collection of poems, The Awful Rowing Toward God, and to spend much of my time at Mundelein reflecting upon these poems. Sexton’s life was a bitter struggle for faith that eventually ended with the taking of her own life. It saddens me to read her beautiful words, which are certainly at times betray a lack of inner peace, and know that she did not overcome her struggle for faith in a more positive way.
9) Abraham Joshua Heschel. Rabbi Heschel was also introduced to me in my first year of studies at Mundelein. His book, God in Search of Man, paints a picture of a God who is not at all passive in our world, but who is actively pursuing each one of us. Heschel was greatly influential around the time of the Second Vatican Council and his writings continue to garner my deep respect.
10) Flannery O’Connor. Later during my time at Mundelein I began to delve into the stories of Flannery O’Connor as well as her letters which are collected in The Habit of Being. I could relate to her as a Catholic who was raised in the South. Her stories are amazing in their depth of theology and their understanding of our human condition. A Good Man is Hard to Find is probably still my favorite one of her stories.
11) John Henry Newman. I was introduced to Cardinal Newman’s writings by Fr. Bob Barron. Barron taught a class on Newman’s writings and thought at the seminary, and since I had a rule of taking any class Barron was teaching, I signed up. The two writings that made the biggest impact on me then were A Grammar of Assent and An Essay on Development of Christian Doctrine. Two reasons Barron thought it was important for American seminarians to know Newman were that he is one of the few great theologians who wrote in English so one can read it without ideas being lost in translation and he was a man who had a deep knowledge and understanding of the early church fathers.
12) J.R.R. Tolkien. As a newly ordained priest one of my goals was to make time for reading. One of the first things I was to pick up was Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. The trilogy does an amazing job of presenting the story of God’s redemption in the context of a place called Middle Earth. A few things that continue to echo in the story for me are; Frodo’s refusal to call Gollum by anything but his true name, Smealgol (the sign that no matter how fallen, we keep something in us of our true nature), the gift of lembas bread (a food so powerful that one only needs a tiny bit for sustenance, but at the same time is poisonous for the evil), and the noble character of Faramir.
13) Timothy (Kallistos) Ware. I purchased a copy of Ware’s The Orthodox Church sometime in my first few years of priesthood out of curiosity. It sat on my shelf until my time as spiritual director at Notre Dame High School in Chattanooga. I had been fascinated by the Orthodox Christians I had met in the Holy Land and had a desire to learn more. Fr. Michael Cummins was finishing his STL degree and needed someone to fill in at his parish in Athens for several weekends. I spent my time outside of mass reading The Orthodox Church. It very much challenged some of my preconceived notions of Eastern Christianity which has tremendously effected my own spiritual journey since. I am currently re-reading it as a part of the St. Stephen’s Course in Orthodox Theology.
14) Alexander Schmemann. As a result of reading The Orthodox Church, I went in search of more. One of the next things I read about the Orthodox Church was a book called, For the Life of the World. This book more than any other in my life has influenced the way I see the Sacraments of the Church as well as what they mean for us as we live our faith. His books are also on my shelf to be read again soon as a part of the St. Stephen’s Course.
15) Christoph Schönborn. As a Roman Catholic who is interested in iconography, it would seem natural to come across the writings of Cardinal Schönborn. His book, God’s Human Face, he explores the importance of Christ’s Incarnation that lies at the heart of icons. Of course I should probably also mention his large role in the writing and editing of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
So there you have it, my fifteen authors of influence. Now I’m supposed to tag 15 people. Here are the people who come to mind that I would be interested in learning which authors are central to their lives, but you need not be on my list to participate. Conversation is always welcome here!
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