The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1911-02-04
TASTE FOR SPIRITUAL READING.

Every Catholic home should have a
good supply of spiritual books for
daily use. Where so much time is
given to the newspaper, it should not
be thought unreasonable or excessive
to ask quarter of an hour for reading
about the interests of the soul and the
best means of safeguarding and pro-
noting them. 1t profits a man moth
ing to gain the whole world if he loses
his soul.
The daily practice of Spiritual Read
ing gives us growing insight into our
relations toward God and our neigbor,
shows us how we may regulate all the
activities of life by Christian stand
ard, supplies eficacious motives for
doing so, helps us to remove the many
obstacles and difficulties we encounter
in the work, and emphasizes the nee
essity of perseverance in it. Besides,
it contributes to establish order in
the soul,-to bring the memory, the
imagination, and the passions into sub
lection to reason, this to the will, and
the will to God. Needless to say, all
these effects are the work Of the Holy
Ghost, of which the reading is but an
occasion or condition. Yet occasions
or conditions have a close bearing on
effects. The opening of window is
not the cause of the sunlight entering
a room; neither is the reading of a
spiritual book the cause of the effects
that follow; and still without the open
ing in one case and the reading in the
other, both room and soul would re-
main in darkness.
Spiritual Reading is closely connect
ed with the spiritual life; and as this
life is but vaguely understood by
many, few words about it will not be
amiss The spiritual life is the new
life, superadded to our rational life,
which is born in us by Baptism and
restored to us, when lost, by Penance.
With it we become children of God
and His heirs, nay more, in a certain
sense, partakers of His Divine Nature.
It therefore raises us to plane I'M
measurably above that of our natural
being, gives us an object and end to
aim at and strive for, beside which all
human objects and ends appear worth
less, and holds before us an ideal in
finitely loftier, more beautiful and per-
feet than imagination ever pictured or
mind ever conceived. The end and OBJ
ject is union with God; and the ideal
is Jesus Christ, likeness to whom, or
conformity to His image is condition
and sign of our predestination. For
harmony and beauty, for peace and
happiness, for benefcent and uplifting
action on humanity, no other form of
life can be compared to this. Yet men
will not see it's beauty, or believe in
it's happiness, Or trust to its offer of
redemption and salvation. "They are
like the children sitting in the market
place, i. and saying: eve have
piped to you and you have not danced !;
we have mourned and you have not
wept" - "They have forsaken the foun-
tain of living water, and have digged
to themselves cisterns, broken els
terms, that can hold no water"
The daily practice of Spiritual Read.
ing would contribute powerfully to
rouse the world from this fatal lethar.
gy. Through it men would come to
! know the gift of God" offered to them
in the new life of grace and adoption
They would learn to appreciate it, to
love and desire it, and to strive for
it with the ardent energy they now
waste in pursuit of pleasure, wealth
and power.
But taste for Spiritual Reading
has to be acquired; and being a grace
it must be prayed for insistently, fol-
grace is conditioned by prayer Then
we must begin with the simpler and
more interesting form of reading-bi
ography. The lives of sanity mer
and women Of modern times, whether
canonized or not, reveal to us the spir