Book Reviews and More: In Conversation With God Volume 1 Part 2 Christmas and Epiphany

Sunday, 15 January 2017

In Conversation With God Volume 1 Part 2 Christmas and Epiphany - Francis Fernandez

In Conversation With God
Volume 1 Part 2 Christmas and Epiphany
Francis Fernandez
Scepter Press
ISBN 9780906138854
ASIN B006C1SFTO

I have been reading this series for over 26 years now. I have owned three copies of it in the vinyl editions. But I am loving the new eBook versions. Across the 7 Volumes in this series; or 14 eBook volumes because each book is split in two there are over 450 meditations. There is a meditation for each day of the church calendar, Advent, Christmas, Ordinary Time, Lent, Eastertide and of course the 34 weeks of Ordinary time. There are also 2 volumes dedicated to special feats, specific feats, novenas, Saints, and holy days that fall on specific calendar days.

There are a few features I love about the eBook versions that I want to highlight. First as a reader you can highlight and make notes easily in the digital editions. You can also pick colors and change your highlighting from year to year. But the best feature of the Kindle version is you can export your highlights and notes and start fresh. I also like having all the volumes on me at all times. I can use them to look something up, using the Subject index or index of quotations to look something up in any volume. I also love that in eBooks you can change the page color, the fond, and even font size to make reading better suited to your personally. At the end of reading this volume this year because of when the season fell I was concurrently reading this volume, Volume 3 Part 1 Ordinary Time Weeks 1-6, and Volume 6 Part 1 Special Feasts January-March. It is great just having them all on my phone and tablet.

Each reading in this book is about 6 pages long. Each Day is broken into three sections. There are numerous references. But I want to give you a sample few of the 26 highlights I made in this volume this year.

"The discovery of one's personal vocation, is the most important point in each person's existence. It changes everything without changing anything; just as a landscape, without changing, is different before and after the sun goes down, beneath the light of the moon, or wrapped in the darkness of night. Every discovery gives a new beauty to things, and a new light creates new shadows; one discovery is the prelude to other discoveries of new lights and more beauty."

"Our Lord wants us to avoid pain and combat illness with all the means at our disposal. But he wants us to understand, at the same time, that our pain and suffering can have a redemptive meaning and lead to our personal purification, even in the case of those which seem unjust or out of all proportion."

"The Church, of her very nature, does not fulfil her purpose in solving temporal problems. She follows Christ when he declared that his kingdom was not of this world, and absolutely refused to be considered a judge or a promoter of justice in purely human affairs."

"Today is a good day for taking stock of the year now ending and for making resolutions for the year about to begin. It is a good opportunity for asking pardon for our omissions, and the lack of love that caused them, and a good occasion of thanksgiving for all the good things God has given us."

"A good year for a Christian is one in which both joys and sorrows have helped him to love God a little more."

"Any year can be the best year if we make use of the graces that God keeps in store for us and which can turn to good the greatest misfortunes."

"We have to be attentive, because Our lord also shows himself in the normal events of every day. May we know how to recover this interior light, which for us breaks through the monotony of days which are all the same, and find Jesus in our ordinary life!"

"Christ always has something to tell us, each one in particular, personally. In order to hear him, we must have a heart which knows how to listen, a heart which is attentive to the things of God. He is the Teacher of always. He was the Teacher yesterday and will be tomorrow. What Jesus Christ was yesterday and is today, he remains forever.[302] And he speaks to every individual, to everyone who is ready to listen to him. Everyone who sincerely seeks a guideline for his life will find it. Our Lord does not deny his grace to anyone who truly seeks it."

"In the Church nobody is an isolated Christian. From the time of baptism each person is part of a people, and the Church presents itself to the world as the true family of the children of God. It was the will of God to sanctify and save mankind, not in isolation, separated from one another or without forming a people that would acknowledge it in truth and serve it in holiness. And Baptism is the door through which we enter the Church."

I have already finished three volumes in the eBook format, and I am unlikely to go back to using the physical books anytime soon. These books are a serious investment in money, and in time to read them. I took time over the better part of a year to slowly buy all 14 of the eBooks. Yet I can say that these books are like the parable of the pearl, get them, read them, treasure them in your heart. And they will have a profound impact on your spiritual life., and through the changes in you the world around you.

Of all the devotionals and spiritual books I have read over the last nearly 30 years I can recommend this series as one of the best. You can read it again and again and always get something more out of it. I was recently asked to come up with my all-time Top Ten Catholic Books this series came in at number 4 but to be honest 2-5 are almost all interchangeable. So this is one of my all-time top Christian reads!