Emily’s Top 10 (Or So) Spiritual Reads
I was asked during a Living Memento Mori book club to give a list of my favorite spiritual reads. It’s so hard to narrow it down, but these are the ten I picked! (In random order): *
One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp
I love this book. Ann speaks so eloquently about how to trust God when life has wounded you, scared you, terrified you…how do we keep believing when, as Samwise Gamgee said, “so much bad has happened?” Ann talks about how.
I Believe In Love, by Fr. Jean C.J. D’Elbée
I have read this book—which is really a retreat—so many times. Pages are dogeared, marked, and notated. D’Elbée speaks eloquently of St. Therese’s “Little Way’, and of the way of trust. (If you haven’t read St. Therese’s A Story of a Soul I recommend this edition.)
In Sinu Jesu, by a Benedictine Monk
This book is a journal of the monk’s inner locutions—messages from Jesus that he heard—during Eucharistic Adoration. The book has many letters that focus on the priesthood, so it’s a great book to give priests, but it also has messages for everyone, especially the message to completely trust in Jesus. (Are you sensing a theme in my books?)
Be Holy: A Catholic’s Guide to the Spiritual Life, by Fr. Thomas G. Morrow
I always take this book on retreat. No matter how many times I’ve read it—and I’ve had it for more than 10 years now, I think, so it’s a lot of times—I find something new to take into my spiritual life. Essential.
Acedia and Me: Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life, by Kathleen Norris
A beautiful book that doesn’t just talk about acedia, sometimes called the “noonday demon”, and a problem in the spiritual life (to put it mildly), Norris, a Benedictine Oblate, talks about her struggles with depression, her marriage to a fellow poet (who also suffers from depression), and her relationship with various Benedictine monks and sisters. It speaks eloquently about suffering, the ebb and flow of the spiritual life, and how to find God.
These Beautiful Bones: An Everyday Theology of the Body, by Emily Stimpson
A lot of people could be forgiven for thinking that St. Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body is just for married couples, and only revolves around sex. NOPE. Emily shows us that it’s a lot more than that—it covers how we eat, how we dress, how we keep our homes—in short, it’s all encompassing. Engrossing and thought provoking.
The Catholic Table, by Emily Stimpson Chapman (same author as six, just married!)
Buy this for the amazing recipes. Stay for the talk about how to care for the body, food being “bad” or “good” (spoiler: NEITHER), and the Catholic view of hospitality.
Deep Conversion/Deep Prayer, by Fr. Tomas Dubay, S.M.
A follow-up of sorts to his previous book, Prayer Primer, this takes us deeper into the realm of prayer—of moving from having a prayer life, to being deeply in love with God, and deeply devoted to prayer.
On Being Catholic, by Thomas Howard
A beautiful look at the Catholic faith, written in logical, beautiful, compelling prose. Excellent for apologetic purposes.
A Right to be Merry, by Mother Mary Francis, PCC
Mother Mary Francis, PCC (Poor Clare Colettine) was the abbess of the Poor Clare’s Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Roswell, NM. This book tells of the life inside the cloister. “What do you do all day?” people asked. She tells you, in warm, beautiful stories—and shows how women who have given up everything have a “right to be merry” just as any woman in the world does!
This book is different because I’ve listed the Kindle option here. If you want a paperback copy of the book—and trust me, you do—you need to write to the sisters in New Mexico! Here’s the ordering information. (And by ordering from them, you help support the nuns! Winning!)
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