Reflections of the Kingdom

Julian of Norwich: And the Mystical Body Politic of Christ by Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt My rating: 3 of 5 stars Book : *** Performance : *** Not for the Faint of Heart It’s an academic piece, so performance wise it was adequate. This book itself was a look into the writings of Julian of Norwich, who is created with writing one of the earliest surviving english language works by a woman. While living as an anchoress in a cell at St Julian Church in Norwich, she became seriously ill and experienced several (16) visions; after which wrote them done into what would become known as the short text [The Showings]. Much later, she reexamined those visions and attempted to explain them better in what would become known as the long text [of Julian’s Revelations of Divine Love]. The net result is that her writings show a fairly mystical , while at the same time very corporal, understanding God’s love and redemptive desire for man, primarily from an aspec...

Torat Ahava - Loving Torah by Rabbi Avi Weiss My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is a five (5) volume work covering the Jewish Torah (aka The Pentateuch or the first five(5) books of the Christian Old Testament). Right off the bat you recognize that this is an ambitious effort that eventually runs well over 658 pages. Each volume is dedicated to one of the five (5) books and within each volume, the chapters basically cover a specific story within that book, which is further divided into brief commentaries on specific elements within the story. As I come from a different tradition than what can be extracted from these commentaries, I can’t really evaluate how faithfully that represent concepts within the Jewish tradition; however, I can say that I found them to be very thought provoking and enjoyable. Most Christian analysis of these books tend to focus on extracting understanding and support for the message presented about Jesus in their New Testament and ...

Putting God First: Jewish Humanism after Heidegger by Alick Isaacs My rating: 3 of 5 stars This book was a struggle for me. To begin with, I am in no way, shape or form a fan of the typically philosophy texts … most of which hurt my head trying to understand the wordy, sesquipedalian attempts to describe such existential basics such as Why is there air? Here my struggle was aggravated by my lack of familiarity with both German and Hebrew, which served to compound the number of words that had no clear meaning or understanding for me. That is a long winded way to say that this text is not very accessible to the average reader … but if you are a glutton for head games, there are some interesting concepts that you still might be able to tease out here. The book is divided into four (4) parts, each dedicated to some aspect of Jewish life: Segulah (Being Jewish), Galut (Exile), Churban (Destruction) and Tikkun (Rehabilitation) and how they relate to the th...

Praying the Psalms in the Voice of Christ: A Christological Reading of the Psalms in the Liturgy of the Hours by Frank J. Matera My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book is designed to be a companion to the Divine Office; also known as the Liturgy of the Hours because of how it is divided across the hours of the day (with five current times for Morning, Day, Evening, Night and “Office of Readings). Each “hour” presents a collection of psalms, communal antiphons/responses, readings, canticles/hymns, intercessions and other prayers as the continuous prayer of the Holy [Catholic] Church. The focus of this work is on the Psalms found within each "hour.” The author’s premise is that instead of interpreting these psalms through the context of history, there is a much deeper spiritual meaning that can be discovered when take a more christological approach to understanding. “The Liturgy of the Hours [LOH] provides several aids for reading the psalms: (1) a general ti...