Book suggestions and volunteers needed

[Jennifer Weber]

Hi everyone!

I hope you all are enjoying your summers!  Just a quick note asking for a bit of help, even if you haven't been involved in a while.  Hopefully, Caffeine will continue in the fall, but we need reading material or broad topic suggestions.  Here are some of the ideal characteristics of a book for Caffeine.  Let me know if you know such a book or any topics that you'd like to learn about!

A good Caffeine book:
1.  Is a learning experience for people at different levels, regardless of knowledge or faith development level.
2.  Can be broken into segments easily, to be read aloud at meetings.
3.  Can have someone miss a chapter/segment and still participate in discussion.
4.  Touches on a need within our faith community (MoGo's, the entire demographic of young Catholics, etc).
5.  Sparks challenging discussions.
6.  Demands minimal preparation from the organizer/leader for the week

Also, as I have mentioned before, if you feel called to do so,  please consider helping out with Caffeine for a quarter.  Knowing that I will be an intern in the Fall, it would definitely help me out, and I think new leadership would help the group continue to learn and grow.  You all were awesome with the rotating leadership!  Interested in doing more?  Please email or call and we can talk about it!

God bless,
Jen

[Maria Bergh]

Hey Everyone,

 

(I'm not sure if you all even remember me...I've been Caffeine awol for too long)

 

I am suggesting an author named Carlo Caretto, a friar who resided in the deserts in the middle east, though of catholic, italian descent.  He has two excellent books (well, he has more, but he has two I am going to suggest) Love is for Living and Desert in the City they are both ~7 chapters, so it would be easy to do a chapter a week. 

 

Love is a retreat that centers around the mystery of the Eucharist and Christ's love in our lives (and how we are called to imitate it) It contains Bible passages that tie it back to scriptures for deeper reflection.  They are suggested, not required, and might make a good jumping off point for the end-of-meeting-prayer.

 

Desert in the City is a response to a meeting of the author with teens in Tokyo--twentysomethings who had read his reflections and previous book The Desert and wanted to find the spiritual poorness of spirit that he found in the desert, but had no desert available to them.  So it is a reflection on urban life, hectic secularity, and how this contributes to and can help overcome the distractions of the material world.  It is similar to the format of Love and can be used as a "retreat" as well.  I think there are Bible quotes here, too for reflection, but I can't remember.

Overall, if you like Merton I think you'll like Caretto, though Caretto comes later and is more charismatic, believing and urging individuals to recognize the church in themselves (where two or three are gathered...).  With 7 chapters, we can do an intro, go through each one, have an extra week for expansion if we don't get through one or no one shows up, and still have room to have meetings to reflect on the process and party at the end of the quarter.

Cons? 

 

1) While you can come and read a chapter in one meeting, I would suggest that it would be infinitely richer for each person and the group as a whole if there were preparation (I know, Caffeine isn't supposed to have homework)just reading through the very short chapters, maybe even a page at a time as prayer through the week, so that when we come together we could have discussion at a slightly deeper level, and more time to integrate the bible passages into the conversation.  Or vice versa--read the bible and then come to read Carreto in the group, so you see where he is coming from before you see where he goes.

 

2) He is out of print.  But I have scans of (I think) both books, which I am happy to email out to everyone, and he is cheap on used book websites.

 

Maria