Review: Prayer and the Will of God by Dom Hubert Van Zeller

Each major liturgical season, I like to read an inspirational book, a personal read that will help me live my life more in accord with God's wishes rather than my own ... a case of my decreasing, while He increases.

With this in mind, I jumped at the chance to review Prayer and the Will of God by Benedictine writer, Dom Hubert Van Zeller.  I've read a couple of Van Zeller's books:  Holiness for Housewives and Holiness: A Guide for Beginners and have found him to be quite readable but also highly inspirational and spiritual.  I was thrilled the Catholic Company had a Van Zeller book on their "review shelf".

Van Zeller (1905-1984) was considered a great spiritual director for Catholics and non-Catholics alike during his prolific vocation as a Benedictine retreat master and inspirational writer.  Van Zeller's writings are just as appropriate for today's world as when he originally put pen to paper.  He wrote Prayer and the Will of God as two separate volumes in 1963 and 1964 with the intent to teach people of that time how to turn to God in their worries about war, racial issues and the explosive generation gap which led to the "sexual revolution".  I'm so glad Sophia Institute has decided to republish this particular volume for today's faithful.

The first part of the work, Prayer, clearly and concisely explains why we must pray (not can or should, but MUST) as often as possible to God.  Then Van Zeller discusses how to pray, gives examples of prayer from the Gospels and the Gospel writers, and details the beauty and depth of the Our Father, the consumate prayer.  Van Zeller understands that we all have problems with prayers and the last couple of chapters of this first part delve into "distracted prayer" (how to combat it and how to turn it to the good), dealing with seemingly unanswered prayers and concludes with "fruitful prayer" -- what it is and how to do it. 

Part two than discusses the foundation of prayer -- seeking the will of God, always.  Van Zeller's take is that until we seek God's will, prayer and life will be hopeless.  He discusses understanding and responding to God's will and follows this with an illustrative chapter of how various saints consistently lived joyfully by doing God's will.  The book than turns to the practical issues of discovering, embracing and accepting God's will.  The book has a full chapter using Christ as an example of absolute acceptance of the Father's will -- from the seemingly haphazard way of His birth (which in fact is shown completely intertwined with the prophetic statements in the Old Testament) to his Passion and Death.  Nothing is haphazard where God is concerned. The book concludes with how we can each be an apostle of God's will and help others to follow the Way.

I really, really liked this book.  For this review, I read it cover-to-cover but this is one of those books to which I will constantly refer.  Each chapter is a week's worth (or more) of meditation on it's own while read as a whole the book is extremely powerful!  Van Zeller had a gift for writing deep, spiritual concepts in simple, easily understood words.  I will use this book for the rest of Advent and into the Christmas season; I will read bits and pieces and re-read and pray and meditate and generally let these words of wisdom slowly soak into my heart and soul.  I know I will be a better person with each read. 

I also wanted to mention that I love the cover of this book -- an image of the Ravensburger Shutzmantelmadonna (c. 1480) from the Church of Our Lady in Ravensburg, Germany.  What a lovely image to link to Van Zeller's amazing work on God's mercy and love for us all.

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This review was written as part of the Catholic book Reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on Prayer and the Will of God and to purchase your own copy of this inspirational work.

Van Zeller, Dom Hubert – Prayer and the Will of God – Sophia Institute Press (Manchester, NH). 2009. ISBN: 978-1-933184-59-3 (paperback, 156 pgs).

Review: Hunting for God, Fishing for the Lord

Occasionally, when I’m looking for a book to review I try to choose one that is outside my comfort-zone, that discusses a topic for which I’m, at best, vaguely familiar. Hunting for God, Fishing for the Lord: Encountering the Sacred in the Great Outdoors is just such a book – I don’t fish (either regular or fly-fishing) and I’ve never been hunting (either with a bow or a rifle). With a bit of skepticsm, I wanted to see how a parish priest could help me “encounter the sacred in the great outdoors”.

Superficially, Father Classen’s book, Hunting for God, Fishing for the Lord: Encountering the Sacred in the Great Outdoors, is a real “guy book”. As a matter of fact, I chose to review it because I thought one of my brothers, in-laws or friends might enjoy the book. I thought of my husband and how he loves the outdoors: especially camping and hiking. This book is full of hunting and fishing stories, including the trite “one that got away” stories, with lots of helpful suggestions of how to catch those trophies.

But that’s just superficially.

This is a great book about fully experiencing God’s creation by doing not just watching. This book, in fact, is almost a companion to the one I wrote on creativity: my In His Image: Nurturing Creativity in the Heart of Your Home stresses the need to imitate the creator by nurturing creativity in the heart of the home so that we can fully experience His love and care for us; Fr. Classen’s book stresses the need to exist actively in God’s creation to fully experience His love for us. Both books stress the need to DO as a way to BE, a way to exist, rather than just passively accepting God’s gift of creation.

Fr. Classen, Associate Pastor of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque parish in the St. Louis (Missouri) Diocese, has written not just a classic book on fishing and hunting. His book also helps to place the enthusiast in the spiritual realm by explaining the difference between the childish obsessive pursuit of the “trophy trout” and the child-like pursuit of nature and God’s creation. He shows throughout the book the importance of the child-like wonder and peace garnered by being in nature. He also pokes fun at his own obsessive pursuit that ruined his experiences; it wasn’t until he became child-like in his hunting pursuits that he was truly successful, both spiritually and literally.

There are many times throughout the book that Fr. Classen hits it dead-on. He shows that the need for our society to try to re-invent peace and calm through our own acts never works. The fishing father rather shows the better way: peace and calm for mind, body and soul by reveling in God’s creation, even on a pre-dawn hike to a deer stand in Missouri autumn or hip-deep in the rushing waters with the fly to beat all flies.

Although this book is, as I mentioned earlier, a “real guy’s book”, much can be gotten from this book if the reader is married to (or mother of) an outdoor enthusiast. Father does a great job of putting the hunting, the pursuit of the prey, the search for the ultimate lure or fly in their proper perspective – all is worthless without trust in God, without love of His creation, without discernment of God’s will. The writing is not just informative; it’s also written with a gift for the English language, a turn of phrase that says much more than the words.

I would definitely recommend this book for those guys out there who are either outdoor enthusiasts and/or those guys who are searching for the spiritual in their lives. It is a great read – and has many great hunting tips as well as tips on improving the reader’s prayer life and getting us all on the road to sanctity. I would also recommend it for the moms, spouses or sisters of nature enthusiasts, especially those who don’t really understand the desire of our men to go out and spend hours in a stand, waiting for the elusive buck.

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This review was written as part of the Catholic book Reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on Hunting for God, Fishing for the Lord: Encountering the Sacred in the Great Outdoors and to purchase your own copy of this soon-to-be outdoor enthusiasts' classic.

Classen, Rev. Joseph F. – Hunting for God, Fishing for the Lord: Encountering the Sacred in the Great Outdoors – Our Sunday Visitor (Huntington, IN) 2006. Paperback (220 pages). ISBN: 978-1-59276-217-0.