Book reviews

Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day supported and encouraged each other in their respective vocations and call to radical witness. Read more...

“Like a disease,” the authors of The Narcissism Epidemic write, “narcissism is caused by certain factors, spreads through particular channels, appears as various symptoms, and might be halted by preventive measures and cures. Read more...

The author of To Save a Thousand Souls has insightful understanding of the discernment process, the accompanying fears and concerns, the spiritual ebb and flow of candidates, and so much more. Read more...

What does religious life have to offer today’s world and our own places of call and commitment—our convents, rectories and monasteries, those places we call home? Read more...

The title of this book by Father Daniel Horan, OFM, Dating God: Live and Love in the Way of St. Francis, is intriguing. Its primary audience is young adults, and the book grew from a primary question: How can I know and love God today? Read more...

As in most pastoral ministry, vocation ministry can easily lead to situations where ethics are compromised. Read more...

The dense reading in this book gives way to valuable insights for those who work with future church ministers. Read more...

Why are priests happy? For many years various studies have indicated priests were some of the happiest people in any profession. Monsignor Stephen J. Rossetti tells us in great detail and nuance in his book, Why Priests are Happy: A Study of the Psychological and Spiritual Health of Priests (Ave Maria Press, 2011). Read more...

Father Pier Giordano Cabra successfully takes on the challenge of addressing consecrated life in his book "A Short Course on the Consecrated Life: Reflections on Theology and Spirituality" (2004, Institute on Religious Life). Read more...

This slim, highly readable book packs powerful lessons into a short volume. Every generation renews and evolves, as do trends in what young people expect in the organizations they join. This book helps us understand our newest generation and how to minister to it. Read more...

These two books both raise the right questions and provide careful guidance to adults considering the vocation of consecrated life. In addition, both are available for purchase at nrvc.net/store. Read more...

Religious communities dealing with the blessings and challenges of members who come from many different backgrounds will find insight and perspective in this book. Read more...

The meditations of four Cistercian nuns who help begin a new foundation in a remote land touch on fears, questions, and risks similar to what people considering religious life undergo. Read more...

With honesty and charm, Sister Helen Prejean, C.S.J. weaves together the threads of her spiritual journey in the book River of Fire (Random House, 2019). Read more...

Numerous times, as I read this book, I recalled my own discernment process and wished that such a compendium of the church’s vision and teaching about religious life and the vows had been available to me. Read more...

“Within every moment present there is a Presence.” How simply Father Paul Quenon O.C.S.O. puts it, and yet how challenging it is, to be fully present to each moment. Read more...

These five books each have a contribution to make for vocation directors seeking inspiration and understanding. Read more...

Scripture gives us a sense of what Peter and Andrew, James, and John went through after leaving their nets at the seashore to follow Christ, but what’s it like to make a committed choice as a religious in the 21st century? Read more...

In an exceptional book, 13 young women describe their journey into religious life and provide details about their present experience and hopes for the future. Read more...

Jean M. Twenge's most recent book aptly captures the essence of the generation emerging just after the Millennials. But what she reports is a little scary. Read more...

Seeking to increase your understanding and skills? Check out the books that have helped other vocation ministers. Read more...

One of O’Murchu’s strongest ideas is his reclaiming of the purpose of religious life as “our allegiance to the new reign of God.” O’Murchu proposes a new phrase to describe this priority—the Companionship of Empowerment. Read more...

The author of Grounded has her finger on the pulse of spiritual life today, and anyone who wishes to understand which way the Spirit is blowing should pick this book up. Read more...

Vocations Anonymous is a foundational book that ought to be a resource vocation ministers recommend and give away to inquirers and curious young adults. Read more...

These nine books all have something to offer to vocation directors and those with whom they work. Read more...

Young Catholic America: Emerging Adults, In, Out of, and Gone From the Church, by Christian Smith, provides valuable data and perspectives about what is happening in the faith life of young Catholics. Read more...

Communities experiencing growth draw people not from local contacts primarily but nationwide. Young adults are looking online for the religious communities they will join. Read more...

The reader can quickly see that “vocation,” in a general sense, and in particular realities, offers more questions than answers. Read more...

The new book, New Generations of Catholic Sisters, is packed with solid information and insightful analysis. Read more...

WHAT DOES IT MEAN to be a Catholic, young (“emerging”) adult in the 21st century? This is a fundamental question we vocation ministers ask ourselves as we accompany young women and men on their journey toward understanding, both intellectually and affectively, how God may be inviting them into a deeper relationship with God’s self, and thus into a life of service for and with Jesus Christ. After all, isn’t that what vocation discernment is all about? Read more...

I love hearing the vocation stories of my elder sisters, in particular how they first tuned in to God’s call and discovered our community. In many stories, the sister first discovered an inkling of a call in prayer or service, which she then discussed with her pastor or a wise friend who gave her a brochure or suggested she visit the sisters. Other stories revolve around personal relationships with our sisters, either through family connections or our ministries. Read more...

For those whose interests take them to historical accounts of world-shaping events, this book is not to be overlooked. For those charged with the formation of candidates and novices, a valuable tool may be found here in this book’s explanation of how religious life grew in tandem with the Catholic Church and with events that changed the world. Read more...

What does religious life have to offer today’s world and our own places of call and commitment—our convents, rectories and monasteries, those places we call home? Read more...

Father Pier Giordano Cabra successfully takes on the challenge of addressing consecrated life in his book "A Short Course on the Consecrated Life: Reflections on Theology and Spirituality" (2004, Institute on Religious Life). Read more...

Anyone who has worked with young adults has heard the question, “How do I know if I am doing God’s will?” or “What is God’s plan for my life?” Awakening Vocation: A Theology of Christian Call (Liturgical Press, 2010) deals with these important questions" Read more...

Sheena Iyengar’s book, The Art of Choosing (Twelve, 2010), is a study of how and why we choose all of the things we choose. She illustrates in this extensive narrative that we are surrounded with opportunities to choose; in fact, we live in a culture that bombards us with opportunities to choose. Read more...

Young adults are bombarded with a multiplicity of choices and options. This multiplicity, coupled with the need to make choices in a timely fashion, at times overwhelms and complicates. Into this muddled situation comes What’s Your Decision? by J. Michael Sparough, SJ, Jim Manney and Tim Hipskind, SJ as a welcome and much needed resource. Read more...

Most experts in racial justice see the Catholic Church as “Those who preach, but don’t practice.” In this stellar work, Racial Justice and the Catholic Church, African American priest and moral theologian Bryan N. Massingale asks: “Does Catholic faith have any relevance for the struggle for racial justice and equality in 21st century America?” Read more...

Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults documents that emerging adults are the least religious adults in the United States today, struggle with concentration, and generally indicate that religious tradition matters little to most of them. At more than 300 pages, Souls in Transition is a tour de force. Read more...

“Dot to dot” is the image that comes to mind when considering what Tim Muldoon accomplishes in his book about the contemporary American Catholic Church, Seeds of Hope: Young Adults and the Catholic Church (Paulist Press, 2008). Muldoon has been able to connect some of the significant “dots” of our life as a church and to be hopeful for our future. Read more...

Reviews on From the Pews in the Back (Liturgical Press 2009), an anthology of 29 essays from young American Catholic women, and This Flowing Toward Me by Sister Marilyn Lacey, RSM, a meditation on vocation. Read more...

What is very clear from the pages of Religious Life and Priesthood by Sister Maryanne Confoy, RSC, is that the tensions experienced in the church today were present throughout the Second Vatican Council. Vatican II was not simply an event in church history but a microcosm of the church universal grappling with the essentials of its life, not in concerted harmony but in ongoing debate. Read more...

When the call to religious life taps at our hearts, it’s fear of how that would change things that makes us back away and ask for time. Read more...

It was with much anticipation that I finally sat down to read Elizabeth Gilbert’s," Eat, Pray, Love." I have treasured other works dubbed as “spiritual memoirs,” which for me offer a personal and honest search for God through the ordinary challenges and sometimes raw realities of life. These can offer hope, learning and reassurance for one’s own life pilgrimage. Read more...

We are called, as Americans and as Christians, to build a society that benefits all the people in it. Read more...

A NUMBER OF RECENT BOOKS examine the role of faith, church, religion and spirituality in the 20-and 30-something Americans that vocation ministers largely engage as future religious. David Kinnaman’s UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity and Why It Matters (Baker Books, 2007) and Robert Wuthnow’s After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty and Thirty-Somethings Are Shaping the Future of American Religion (Princeton, 2007) both provide dense, though helpful, sociological assessments of this demographic. Read more...

In Patricia Wittberg's book, From Piety to Professionalism—and Back?, the author provides analysis and insight into the contemporary issue of religious identity and its accompanying ambiguity by illustrating how personal and corporate identity have been radically affected by changes in institutional commitment and sponsorship over the past 40 years. Read more...

ALTHOUGH MANY CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIANS see Hollywood as an enemy of the Gospel, Greg Garrett, the author of a recently released book, The Gospel According to Hollywood (Westminster-John Knox Press), sees just the opposite. A professor of English and an Episcopal seminary instructor, Garrett thinks that many Hollywood movies work to transform society according to Gospel teaching. Read more...

Vocation ministers will find valuable reading in two books on discernment and a book on Catholic teens. Read more...

A study of newly ordained priests gives insight to the aptitudes they need and the preparation that seminaries provide them. Read more...

The author of this slim book places the vowed life in the context of the contemporary church and world. Her reflections are interwoven with challenges and opportunities posed by the signs of the times. Read more...

For those seeking to understand contemporary religious life for women, a new book sheds light on a complex picture, New Faces, New Possibilities: Cultural Diversity and Structural Change in Institutes of Women Religious Read more...

Two films propose to examine spiritual topics close to the hearts of vocation directors. And a new book on intersection of race and religion demands attention. Read more...

Young adults are predominantly Latino in the Catholic church, and we need to help them ask: Who were you created to be? What gifts do you have that intersect with the world’s great needs? What brings you profound joy? In what places and spaces does that joy, and do those gifts, manifest most completely for you? Read more...

The vast majority of religious in the United States are significantly older and less racially diverse than those considering religious life. How does the current membership foster the feeling of belonging among new members from very different upbringings and cultural backgrounds? That is an ongoing question for us. Read more...

This new book for women considering religious life is informative, wise, and practical. The many anecdotes from Catholic sisters and vocation directors keeps it authentic and realistic. Read more...

Addressing a multitude of issues, ranging from diverse prayer experiences to women’s ordination, Creating Spaces offers an invitation into the joys and struggles of these women as they navigate a deep longing to belong within the Catholic Church. Read more...

Faith and spirituality are integral to the identity and vocation of Asian American Christians, who encounter challenges and also opportunities in their religious vocational journeys. Read more...