Man of Prayer
To assure that readers know the author’s reputation, Ignatius Press places on the back cover of Hungry for God a quote from the Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, Archbishop of Denver: “Ralph Martin has been charting the landscape of Catholic renewal for more than two decades.”
And, to be certain that his readers understand that the Catholic renewal movement has at least the informal blessing of Rome, early on in the book Martin includes words by Pope John Paul II from a speech to representatives of the various renewal movements during Pentecost weekend in 1998: “The institutional and charismatic.aspects are co-essential as it were to the Church’s constitution. They contribute, although differently, to the life, renewal, and sanctification of God’s people.”
Keep in mind that many devout Catholics hold other opinions of the charismatic renewal within the Church. Traditionalists believe that Protestant Pentecostal theology, thought, and practice have no place in the Catholic Church. Others hold a “Baptist” view that tongues were a gift for the apostolic age only. Some faithful Catholics even believe that extraordinary phenomena can be dangerous to the Church and to individual souls.
Even so, there is much to ponder here. Martin is a fine writer, and when he isn’t selling his conviction that speaking in tongues is for every Catholic, his words can benefit everyone.
But sell he does. Easing into it, he writes, “Some have taken the stance that you have not received the Holy Spirit unless you speak in tongues. . . . While it is not necessary to speak in tongues in order to receive the Spirit, it is a helpful thing for most people” (p. 61). Further on he intensifies: “It is not uncommon to have someone come for help in receiving the Spirit who either openly or hiddenly says, ‘I like this and that.aspect of the work of the Spirit, but I don’t want to pray in tongues.’ Usually this reservation indicates an attitude of wanting to keep control and not letting the reins of our life into God’s hands. Although a person can receive the Spirit without speaking in tongues, there is usually an inhibition to the Spirit’s working as freely as he desires until the person comes to the point where he is willing to speak in tongues. . . .Our experience also shows us that tongues is intended to be a basic part of a Christian’s prayer life. . . . Every Christian can expect to receive this gift and, with proper instruction and encouragement from other, mature Christians, will most certainly do so” (p. 66).
Unquestionably Ralph Martin is a man of prayer, and Hungry for God speaks eloquently of the deep yearning of the human heart for that communion without ceasing. Emphasizing the necessity of drawing close to Jesus and letting him show us the Father who loves each of us profoundly, Martin writes, “When God is close and specific and concrete, we are called to respond to him in a way that both allows and demands a more total yielding of our lives in specific ways. A personal God can claim a personal response of me in my most unique and innermost depths.”
He rightly continues, “Whether we speak in tongues or not . . .one simple fact is relevant to all of us. We need the Holy Spirit. . . . It is the Spirit that each day is awakening our own spirit to a conscious awareness of the presence of God, an understanding of who he is, and a hunger to be one with him.”
The remainder of the book contains suggestions for achieving this oneness with God through a rich life of prayer. Acknowledging the difficulty of arranging a hectic life to assure time for prayer, Martin cautions, “If we do not make commitments and guarantee their fulfillment by scheduling time for them, we allow our life to be ruled by whatever or whoever grabs us first. That frequently is not the Lord.” He discusses ways to do this, as well as the importance of choosing a place to pray (neither too hot nor too cold) and spiritual books to accompany prayer time.
A chapter on common difficulties is particularly valuable. In commenting on the frustrating periods of dryness experienced by every Christian, Martin gives interesting ideas about how these can become “special times of grace.” His suggestions for combating restlessness, preoccupation, busyness, anxiety, sin, and superficial distractions are excellent, and his sections on fasting, intercessory prayer, right relationships, and the Christian’s need for community are full of useful insights.
Martin writes in his preface, “The message of this book is that God can be found. Prayer is possible. Union is offered.” This is vital news for every Catholic—charismatic or not.
— Ann Applegarth
Hungry for God: Practical Help in Personal Prayer
3 stars
By Ralph Martin
Ignatius Press (2000)
165 pages
$10.95
ISBN: 0-898-707-765
Shadowing Peter
The saying goes, “You can’t know a man unless you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.” If that’s true then Catholic apologist Stephen Ray has a good handle on the apostle Peter.
In “Peter, Keeper of the Keys,” the first in a planned ten-part video series to be distributed by Ignatius Press called The Footprints of God: The Story of Salvation from Abraham to Augustine, Ray begins an informative re-tracing of salvation history—through the actual sites where key events transpired. The result is an engaging tour of Christian history and doctrine.
In Ray this excursion has an enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide. Outfitted by turns in canvas hat, vest, binoculars, sunglasses and sandals, he comes across as a Catholic “Crocodile Hunter.”
Recounting the first pope’s missionary adventures from the Holy Land to Rome, Ray draws heavily from Scripture to show how Peter’s activities are relevant to Catholics’ lives. And he manages to keep things fun. Trudging up Mt. Tabor, where the Transfiguration took place, he remarks: “Boy, these disciples must have been some tough guys.”
Given Ray’s successful work as an apologist, the production has a strong apologetics angle. “Keeper of the Keys” underscores the scriptural and historic basis of such Petrine principles as papal authority, infallibility, and the succession of the chair of Peter.
The video begins in Bethsaida where Peter grew up. To give a sense of what life must have been like for Peter prior to his life-changing encounter with Jesus, Ray explores such details as an ancient fishing boat, bronze fishing hooks, and the basalt used to build homes in first-century Palestine
Next he takes us to Capernaum where he introduces a modern-day commercial fisherman who describes the challenges he faces. Then it’s on to Cesarea Philippi where Ray scales a rock a hundred feet high and five hundred feet long. This is the spot, he explains, on which Christ asked his disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” And here is where Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God”—prompting Jesus to respond, “You are Kepha, and on this Kepha I will build my Church.” In other words, we’re looking at the very spot on which the Church was born.
Next stop is Mt. Tabor and then the Mensa Christi, or table of Christ, where, after the first Easter, Jesus astonished the apostles by showing up for breakfast by the sea. Here, as he sits by an open fire, roasting fish, Ray reads the passage from John 22 describing the scene.
From there it’s on to Jerusalem, where we are shown the upper room; then to Joppa and to Caserea by the sea, where Peter baptized the Roman centurion Cornelius and his household. Ray points out that, although it was Paul who became the missionary to the Gentiles, Peter was the first to open baptism—and therefore salvation—to non-Jews. In so doing, Ray explains, Peter laid the groundwork for papal authority and the fact that his decisions were binding upon the whole Church.
Finally, we are whisked two thousand miles away to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Our host describes how the magnificent church was built over the Circus of Nero, on the very spot where Peter was crucified. He points out that the bones of Peter lie directly beneath the basilica’s main altar and Michelangelo’s dome.
Ray also takes us to the Church of St. John Lateran, known as the Cathedral of Rome, which contains the pope’s chair. Citing Exodus 18:13, Ray explains the theological significance of the “chair of Moses” and demonstrates evidence for the authority of the chair being passed on to Joshua. Jesus recognizes the authority of the chair, says Ray, and therefore Peter inherits the authority not only of Christ but of Moses as well.
The video makes excellent use of music, artwork, and maps—and opens up meditations of Scripture and the Catechism that could only be coaxed with such vibrant and evocative sights and sounds. I watched “Keeper of the Keys” with my family and was impressed by its ability to raise questions in children’s minds. My six-year-old son wanted to know, for example, why Peter was crucified upside down.
The video bears an imprimatur from Bishop Carl F. Mengeling, of Lansing, Michigan, ensuring that its content is free from doctrinal error.
I wish we didn’t have to wait so long for the rest of the series to be released. Videos on Mary, Moses, Abraham, David and Solomon, Elijah and Elisha, Paul, the Apostolic Fathers, and the Doctors of the Church will follow through 2005.
— Tim Drake
Peter, Keeper of the Keys
4 stars
Hosted by Stephen Ray
Ignatius Press (2002)
70 minutes
$24.95
Puddle Reflecting Starshine
It is hard to not enjoy reading Ronald Knox. The former Anglican turned Catholic priest was a brilliant stylist whose writing and thought are as substantive as his prose is witty. An acclaimed preacher, Knox was an incisive homilist whose observations and exhortations are as compelling and relevant as they were sixty years ago.
Captive Flames features twenty-one of those homilies, compiled by Knox and first published in 1940. Each focuses on a particular saint or Christian hero; they are arranged chronologically, beginning with St. Cecilia, an early Roman Christian, and ending with G. K. Chesterton, the prince of paradox. Knox states in the dedication to Arnold Lunn (another notable convert and Catholic apologist) that “though all the settings of these sermons be fugitive, the main theme of them is something which does not alter with our shifting perspectives, does not grow old. The saints do not belong to a period . . . They are fixed stars, not subject to any law of impermanence. And this book is about saints; a puddle reflecting their star-shine” (p. 5).
Within this overarching theme there are a number of interrelated themes. One is that these saints were able to accomplish amazing things (including martyrdom) because they saw clearly their goal—the kingdom of God—enabling them to make holy and wise choices here on earth. Another is that they never had it easy. As exciting as their lives may have been, they were difficult lives, filled with conflict, pain, suffering, and intense difficulties.
Among those difficulties were heretics challenging the authority of the Church and her doctrinal claims. While the saints battled these teachers of false beliefs with logic and arguments, they also fought with prayer and holiness. The mind, Knox emphasizes, inevitably follows the heart, and his words of warning in this regard are well worth considering today: “For the times are evil; and the world’s mind would not have traveled far from God if its heart had no traveled far from God first” (p. 55).
Although many of these sermons are about specific English saints and martyrs, the central insights are timeless. In his sermon about St. George, the patron saint of England, Knox observes that, “A country cannot be merry while it forgets God. And a country cannot be merry for long, or with safety, if it tries to be Christian without being Catholic. . . . A man will never be light-hearted in this world unless he is thinking of the next world; this world is too checkered an affair for that” (pp. 21, 22).
Further developing this idea, he comes to a decidedly politically incorrect conclusion: “Wherever Protestant opinion really rules a country, you always find legislation of one sort or another which is designed to stop people from being merry. . . . A false religion, no less than lack of religion, will destroy, in the end, a nation’s peace of mind” (pp. 22, 23).
But while taking on Protestantism in several places, Knox is more concerned with the conflict between those who believe in God and those seek to eradicate him from reality. Speaking of the modern distaste for religion, dogma, and truth, Knox explains that secularists “hate [the Catholic Church] not because it is something arrogant, not because it is something uncomfortable, not because it is something foreign, but because it is something out of date” (p. 71). These are sobering words for those Catholics seeking to make peace with the world. Dialogue, yes; indifference, never. Being comfortable with the world should raise a red flag. “God’s saints don’t content themselves with overcoming the world,” Knox notes, “they are determined to make the place quite inhabitable for you and me. That is the boast of our religion; it’s also the reason why some people dislike it” (p. 134).
This book is worth buying for the sermons on Thomas More and Chesterton alone. Knox demonstrates how More, the man for all seasons, still attracts and fascinates the non-Catholic. Of More, Knox remarks, ” There were only a few people who kept their heads, and those few who kept their heads lost their heads, like St. Thomas More” (p. 95). Of Chesterton, his hero and good friend, Knox states, “He will almost certainly be remembered as a prophet in an age of false prophets” (p. 179).
If Knox could see how popular Chesterton remains today he would be pleased, for he recognized that Chesterton’s early works had a tremendous influence “on young men for the most part and on Protestants” (p. 180)—including himself and other luminaries such as C. S. Lewis. Similarly, it is satisfying to see the current resurgence of interest in Knox, a man who followed loyally in the footsteps of the saints he praised, providing a wealth of intellectual and spiritual nourishment for those of us now following in his footsteps.
— Carl E. Olson
Captive Flames: On Selected Saints and Christian Heroes
4 stars
By Ronald Knox
Ignatius Press (2001)
184 pages
$12.95
ISBN: 0-898-708-362