Book Reviews and More: In Conversation With God Volume 6 Part 2 Special Feasts April-June

In Conversation With God
Volume 6 Part 2 Special Feasts April-June
Francis Fernandez
Scepter Press
eISBN 9780906138687
ASIN B006DJYIQE

It has been four years since I have purchased this volume, and I have now read this edition four times. There are three editions of these book available in English. The original vinyl bound. The Kindle Editions that split each volume (based on Kindle max file size at the time they were released.) And New Single volume eBook editions. I have owned a few copies of the vinyl, but now I love these Kindle editions.

I have been reading this series for 30 years now. Since they first started being available in English. At first, I bought them in the individual vinyl covered editions. And later replaced them with the boxset, twice. And then once the eBooks were available, I grabbed them up, and after 2 years of using the eBooks I gave my physical copy to a local schoolteacher to use in his high school class. I love these books and have read them around 15 times over years. I love these newer eBook editions.

I have said it before, and will say it again, but 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 font, and even font size to make reading better suited to your personally with my dual form of dyslexia.

When these books were originally released in English this was the second half of the sixth volume. Both Volume 6 and 7 are focused on special feats. Most of the days in these editions are Date specific feasts. This one goes from Saint Mark the Evangelist o April 25th to The First Martyrs of the Church of Rome on June 30th. This volume also contains a Corpus Christi Octave set of reflections. And some for specific days after Pentecost. A sample of the highlights I made in this volume this year are:

“The Christian knows that God works miracles, that he performed them centuries ago, and that he still works them now. Each one of us, with God’s help, will work miracles in the souls of relatives, friends and acquaintances as long as we remain united to Christ through prayer.”

“Countless pilgrims daily make their way to the innumerable shrines dedicated to Our Lady to discover God’s ways or to undertake them anew, to find peace of soul and consolation in affliction. In these places of prayer, the Blessed Virgin makes the soul’s encounter with her Son easier and his presence more accessible. Every Marian shrine is a permanent antenna of the Good News of salvation.”

“Consistency between our teaching and our behaviour is the very best proof of our conviction and of the validity of what we proclaim. It is often the one essential condition for talking to people about God.”

“God asks something similar of us: no less than to pass unnoticed whilst doing good and carrying out our obligations with human perfection.”

“Each of us, in his or her own different way, has received a specific call to serve God. And throughout our lives we receive new invitations to follow him in our own circumstances, and we have to be generous with Our Lord in each new encounter with him. We have to know how to ask Jesus in the intimacy of our prayer, like Saint Paul: What shall I do, Lord? What do you want me to leave for your sake? What do you want me to improve in? At this moment of my life, what can I do to serve you?”

“With their lives and their words, they considered themselves very much part of this world, of which they were convinced they were destined to be salt and light. An early writer summed it up as follows: Christians are to the world what the soul is to the body.”

“Do we edify others by our sobriety, by the way we spend money, by our unquenchable cheerfulness, by doing our work well, by keeping our word, by the way we live justice at work with our subordinates and our peers, by carrying out works of mercy and by never having a bad word to say about anybody at all?”

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. And as mentioned this is part of 2 volumes dedicated to special feasts, novenas, Saints, and holy days that fall on specific calendar days.

These books are incredible food for your spiritual life. Every time I read them, every day I am challenged, challenged to become a better version of myself, challenged to live more joy, more hope, more dedication. These books will change your life, and as you read them again and again you will only grow to appreciate them more.

I had planned on reviewing each of the eBook editions as I read them but have fallen behind. This is my fourth time reading this volume as an eBook. This series has been invaluable in my spiritual life. Sometimes I read it for years in a row. And every time I benefit from it. I grow, I deepen. I strive to mature.

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. A few years ago I was 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. This is one of my all-time top Christian reads!