I once had a spiritual director who told me that A Lent missed is a year lost from the spiritual life. Every year at this time, those words come winging back. And often my best Lenten devotion flows from reading. Here are a few reflective titles that seem worth mention for these 40 days.Philip Yance

Ecumenism in spiritual book publishing is alive and well. We are increasingly presented with spiritual reading intended for all ChristiansCatholic, Protestant and Orthodox. If there is any truth to the axiom lex orandi, lex credendi (our way of believing mirrors our way of praying), one is tempted t

Autumn is the most ambiguous of seasons. Throughout the centuries poets have used it as a symbol for either maturity or decay, much like a good news-bad news joke. But rather than wear oneself out trying to resolve this ambiguity, it seems wiser to submit to perplexity and agree with the 11th-centur

Did you know that: William Styron (The Confessions of Nat Turner, 1967, Pulitzer Prize; Sophie’s Choice, 1979, American Book Award; et al.) was able to read at age five and was publishing short stories as an adolescent? Agatha Christie’s first mystery, published in 1920, sold only 2,000

Back in the 1950’s, when I was a kid in a Jesuit high school, a novel called Mr. Blue, by Myles Connolly, was all the rage. The eponymous hero was a mystical type who combined the social activism of Dorothy Day with the contemplative reserve of Thomas Merton. In short, he made Catholicism cool