Weekly Book Review

I started this project last week because I want to become more diligent in my reading habit, which tends to center around helping whatever child is reading something I like or plunging through whatever we've assigned to the students at the high school where I teach.   Recognizing I won't grow intellectually feasting on what can be mental fast food, I'm making myself take on more solid mental food.   As soon as I hit on this project, two books presented themselves to me.  Ergo, I reviewed Dawn Eden Goldstein's book last week, and this week, I'm taking on Kevin Well's, The Priest We Need to Save the Church.

The book holds a personal connection for three reasons: 1) the author is the brother of my current pastor, 2) the priest he describes in the first part of the book, I remember the story of his murder in Germantown and 3) a favorite priest of mine, gave me the book. 

Kevin weaves his memory with reflections in a compelling way. His faith and his encounter with the Divine, and his understanding of what priests must arm themselves to be Christ's disciples and the church's servants here on Earth shines through.  I particularly loved the sections discussing the nature of prayer and what it means to priests.  Gems like a little note from his uncle (the deceased priest) to a woman discussing the dryness of prayer, "The fruit of prayer is virtue --becoming more like Christ, not feeling good."  and when he talks about how our Blessed Mother expects heroism are lovely moments to hold in the heart.  It took me a while to read because such moments made me pause and reflect on how often I run through prayer, or seek solace in the sacraments and interpret feeling as grace.

This is not a book to devour, but to allow yourself to read through, as if you were sitting with a favorite uncle or teacher, listening to the spiritual memoir not merely of one man, but of multiple individuals living out the faith, being called to a deeper vocation than they knew.  Even more startling is the underlying theme that such is the call for each of us, priest and laity alike, and that we can never cease going deeper and deeper into Christ's service.

He admonishes priests who somehow apologize for their vocation or their relationship with Christ, or who neglect the need to stay close to Mary, and under the gaze of the Eucharist.  He stresses over and over again, how the world is starving for authentic witness, for prayerful priests who labor to grow ever deeper in humility and holiness, and let their connection to Christ be the means by which they connect with all others.

Well's book also remains a love letter to his uncle in addition to a guide book for priests on how to imitate the saints who came before them, who spent hours in adoration, who poured over scripture, who loved the Eucharist, and who poured out their lives in the sacraments and service to their sheep.  It's a welcome reminder of the reality we hope for in all our priests, in contrast to the unfortunate and sad reality we've read about in the news as of late.

Saints and sacraments and vocations, these are the means by which God reveals to us how we are to relate to the world, to Him, and we need reminders most especially when life seems at its darkest.  We need good married couples that are luminous in their love for each other and their children, we need priests who devote themselves to their flock out of love of Christ, and we need single people striving to go through the narrow gate, to reveal all the ways in which one can love the Lord and be in but not of this world.   Kevin Well's book is a good reflection of this better reality, of the more real reality we're called to, than the one we see lived out day to day.