Best of
Religion

1937

The Cost of Discipleship


Dietrich Bonhoeffer - 1937
    One of the most important theologians of the twentieth century illuminates the relationship between ourselves and the teachings of Jesus in this classic text on ethics, humanism, and civic duty.What can the call to discipleship, the adherence to the word of Jesus, mean today to the businessman, the soldier, the laborer, or the aristocrat? What did Jesus mean to say to us? What is his will for us today? Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount, Dietrich Bonhoeffer answers these timeless questions by providing a seminal reading of the dichotomy between "cheap grace" and "costly grace." "Cheap grace," Bonhoeffer wrote, "is the grace we bestow on ourselves...grace without discipleship....Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the girl which must be asked for, the door at which a man must know....It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life."The Cost of Discipleship is a compelling statement of the demands of sacrifice and ethical consistency from a man whose life and thought were exemplary articulations of a new type of leadership inspired by the Gospel, and imbued with the spirit of Christian humanism and a creative sense of civic duty.

The Soul of The Apostolate


Jean-Baptiste Chautard - 1937
    In this age of relentless activity it is easy for Christians, particularly those involved in good works, to fall into the pattern of the activist.  But mere activity and material results are not sufficient for a successful apostolate.In his classic work The Soul of the Apostolate,  Dom Chautard demonstrates that the very foundation of all apostolic work must be the Interior Life.  The apostle of Christ will grow to become an instrument and true channel of God’s graces to the world only through prayer, meditation and the cultivation of the Interior Life.  When one is involved in works of spiritual or corporal charity, his work can only be truly efficacious when he anchors his Interior Life in Christ.  Without Christ we can do nothing.  Inside you’ll learn about the:Pre-eminence of the Interior Life over the Active Life Dangers of the Active Life: for you and your apostolateThe Devil’s  special temptations for those working for Our LordSteps necessary in order to develop and grow in the Interior LifeNecessity of the Interior Life to a successful and spiritually fruitful apostolateFor anyone who would work for Our  Lord and His Church there is simply no book more important to read and to follow than The Soul of the Apostolate .

The Lord


Romano Guardini - 1937
    Unlike other books seeking to strip Jesus' story to reveal only the human being, Romano Guardini's The Lord gives the complete story of Jesus Christ—as man, Holy Ghost, and Creator. Pope Benedict XVI lauds Guardini's work as providing a full understanding of the Son of God, away from the prejudice that rationality engenders. Put long-held myths aside and discover the entire truth about God's only begotten Son.

Tears and Saints


Emil M. Cioran - 1937
    Researching another, more radical book, Cioran was spending hours in a library poring over the lives of saints. As a modern hagiographer, Cioran "dreamt" himself "the chronicler of these saints' falls between heaven and earth, the intimate knower of the ardors in their hearts, the historian of God's insomniacs." Inspired by Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, Cioran "searched for the origin of tears." He asked himself if saints could be "the sources of tears' better light.""Who can tell?" he wrote in the first paragraph of this book, first published in Romania in 1937. "To be sure, tears are their trace. Tears did not enter the world through the saints; but without them we would never have known that we cry because we long for a lost paradise." By following in their traces, "wetting the soles of one's feet in their tears," Cioran hoped to understand how a human being can renounce being human. Written in Cioran's characteristic aphoristic style, this flamboyant, bold, and provocative book is one of his most important—and revelatory—works.Cioran focuses not on martyrs or heroes but on the mystics—primarily female—famous for their keening spirituality and intimate knowledge of God. Their Christianity was anti-theological, anti-institutional, and based solely on intuition and sentiment. Many, such as Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila, and Saint John of the Cross, have produced classic works of mystical literature; but Cioran celebrates many more minor and unusual figures as well. Following Nietzsche, he focuses explicitly on the political element hidden in saints' lives. In his hands, however, their charitable deeds are much less interesting than their thirst for pain and their equally powerful capacity to endure it. Behind their suffering and their uncanny ability to renounce everything through ascetic practices, Cioran detects a fanatical will to power."Like Nietzsche, Cioran is an important religious thinker. His book intertwines God and music with passion and tears. . . . [Tears and Saints] has a chillingly contemporary ring that makes this translation important here and now."—Booklist

Creation and Fall Temptation: Two Biblical Studies


Dietrich Bonhoeffer - 1937
    Here he discusses the seeming scientific naiveté behind the creation story, God’s love and goodness, and humanity’s creation, its free will, and its blessedness. Bonhoeffer also tackles difficult questions that are raised from the first book of the Bible, questions about the seemingly redundant second story of creation, about God’s own beginning, about the source of the light that was created the first day. The author then expounds upon Adam and Eve’s fall from grace: How could they, creatures made in God’s image, have thought to oppose God so foully? Where did the first evil come from? How did humanity lose its right to live in paradise?In “Temptation,” Bonhoeffer questions how temptation appeared in the midst of Eden’s innocence, and he explores the very nature of evil. Bonhoeffer explains that Jesus Christ helps us to understand and conquer physical and spiritual temptation through His grace and goodness.

The Unity of Philosophical Experience


Étienne Gilson - 1937
    For that reason, the various doctrines, as well as the definite parts of these doctrines, which have been taken into account in this volume, should not be considered as arbitrarily selected fragments from some abridged description of the medieval and modern philosophy, but as a series of concrete philosophical experiments especially chosen for their dogmatic significance. Each of them represents a definite attempt to deal with philosophical knowledge according to a certain method, and all of them, taken together, make up a philosophical experience. The fact that all those experiments have yielded the same result will, as I hope, justify the common conclusion...that there is a centuries-long experience of what philosophical knowledge is—and that such an experience exhibits a remarkable unity."

The Pentateuch and Haftorahs: Hebrew Text English Translation and Commentary


Joseph H. Hertz - 1937
    They aim at the elucidation of the Text and the exposition of the spiritual and ethical teachings of the Torah. A vast literature has been sifted, apart from the standard Jewish and non-Jewish commentaries and illuminating extracts which are included in the notes.While reproducing all the advantages that made the original edition successful, the Soncino edition incorporates two new and interesting features which greatly enhance its value and utility. In place of the Revised Version which was originally adopted as the Translation, the American Jewish Version has been substituted. This translation has been universally accepted as conforming more faithfully to traditional Jewish interpretation. Secondly, the work has been carefully planned so as to occupy a single volume only in place of the original five.This copyright Edition, published under the authority of the Trustees of the late Dr J H Hertz, accordingly presents in one light and compact volume over 1,000 comprehensive pages of Hebrew Text, English Translation and Illuminating Notes".

The Mystery of the Grail: Initiation and Magic in the Quest for the Spirit


Julius Evola - 1937
    He demonstrates how the main features of the legend are from an older tradition analogous to the great heroic sagas and cycles of the North, and that the Grail itself is a symbol of initiation. Evola uncovers the hidden meaning in the often surreal adventures of the knights who searched for the Grail, interpreting them as inner experiences and tests for the seeker. He also explores the history of the myth in the Middle Ages, its use by the Knights Templar and the Cathars, its legacy during the decline of the Holy Roman Empire, and its links with Rosicrucianism, alchemy, and Masonry. This excursion into the realm of the Grail throws new light on an endlessly fascinating subject.

Christ at the Round Table


E. Stanley Jones - 1937
    During the recent years of his service in India Dr. Jones has been holding Round Table Conferences with groups of about fifteen Christians and non-Christians. At these Conferences there has always been an atmosphere of sincerity. Those who attended were of different opinions, convictions, training, and experience in their religious life, but all were seekers after the truth. Contents: Beginnings; At Grips with Life; What Can We Gather from All This?; Conversion-Horizontal and Vertical; The Collective Redemption; The Growing Savior; The Trend Toward Experience; Almost; Where is the Place of Certainty and Authority?; Interpreters of Christ; Missions at the Round Table; Nations at the Round Table; The Most Sacred Round Table of All; The Cross-the Key to Life; The Way; Christ-the Universal; and The Cosmic Round Table.

Divini Redemptoris: On Atheistic Communism


Pope Pius XI - 1937
    Pius XI states that “bolshevistic and atheistic Communism” threatens “Christian civilization” everywhere and promises a new barbarism worse than that of Jesus’ time. It aims at “upsetting the social order” and undermining Christianity’s foundations. He states that the Church cannot remain silent and must defend truth and justice.Pius XI had already condemned communism in five encyclicals beginning in 1924 when he wrote the 1937 encyclical. In this encyclical, he relates how as early as 1846, Pius IX had condemned communism, and Leo XIII labeled it a “fatal plague.” However, from its center in Moscow, communism continues to “struggle against Christian civilization.” Bishops also have spoken out against communism, but the pope says that “clever agitators” and their “subversive ideas” only grow in influence. In the encyclical, he states that he will present communism’s most corrosive ideas, uncover its method of action, and refute its claims with the truth of the Church.

The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga


Paul Brunton - 1937
    What is the meaning of the world? What am I? What is the object of my existence? Deeds can never be greater than ideas and to cure our own or the world's sorrows, ignorance will have to be replaced by the hidden knowledge.