Practicing Christian Love in the Same Way as Christ

Practicing Christian love in the same way as Christ means that we are good to someone who needs our kindness, even if we do not like him. It means committing ourselves to the way of Jesus Christ and thus bringing about something like a Copernican revolution in our own lives. For in a certain sense, we are all still living before Copernicus, so to speak. Not only in that we think, to all appearances, that the sun rises and sets and goes around the earth, but in a far more profound sense. For we all carry within us that inborn illusion by virtue of which each of us takes his own self to be the center of things, around which the world and everyone else have to turn. We all necessarily find ourselves, time and again, construing and seeing other things and people solely in relation to our own selves, regarding them as satellites, as it were, revolving around the hub of our own self. Becoming a Christian, according to what we have just said, is something quite simple and yet completely revolutionary. It is just this: achieving the Copernican revolution and no longer seeing ourselves as the center of the universe, around which everyone else must turn, because instead of that we have begun to accept quite seriously that we are one of many among God’s creatures, all of which turn around God as their center.

- Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, What it Means to be a Christian

Recommended Reading

I am in the process of reformulating this blog to a more general discussion/community group and a bit away from the very specific book group we had originally started as. This idea had already been churning around in my head for awhile (because it's a topic near and dear to my heart, but the organized book study was too hard for me to keep up with). But the election of our new Holy Father, Pope Francis, has especially inspired this in me. It occurred to me that Pope Francis has immediately and dramatically presented an example of "Living Differently" that we should emulate and support in whatever way we are able. His name choice also inspires a powerful reminder of how much the testimony of the life of St. Francis is a perfect antidote to the problems of our world today: poverty, simplicity, trust, gratitude, peace, etc.

And so I hope that at this blog we can encourage some great reading and discussions as well as specific ideas for living a more fully Catholic life. There are two points I would especially like you to keep in mind while reading these posts:

1. None of the authors here have these concepts completely figured out. We all feel the importance of aiming continually in this direction, of greater imitation of Christ and the Saints and we hope to share what has worked out for us.

2. We are not all called to live this lifestyle in exactly the same way. So I hope you will find this a place for information and ideas, but not despair that you aren't doing all of these things or that some of these things don't seem to be a very good fit for your family.

Please note: We think these all have valuable ideas, concepts and/or inspiration in trying to live our Catholic more deeply and completely. This does not mean that we necessarily agree with everything in every book, nor are all of the books specifically Catholic. We will try to provide information on these distinctions within the discussion as we are able to get to them (titles with links will click through to the posts relating to that specific book).

7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker
The Anatomy of Peace by the Arbinger Institute
Catholicism by Fr. Robert Barron
Deus Caritas Est (God is Love) by Pope Benedict XVI
Happy are You Poor: The Simple Life and Spiritual Freedom by Fr. Thomas Dubay
The Reed of God by Caryll Houselander
St. Francis of Assisi by G.K. Chestserton
Spe Salvi (Encyclical on Hope) by Pope Benedict XVI
What it Means to be a Christian by Cardinal Ratzinger

(Book list in progress.)