The Parish Team Reading List

At Sunday Mass during lockdown, Fr Patrick promised to make recommendations for lockdown reading. Here, the Pastoral team list the books that they have been reading recently and those that have made and impact on them. They have made some difficult choices to narrow the number down to five each and they are in no particular order - happy reading!

Fr Patrick

THE JEWISH STUDY BIBLE
(Edited by Adele Berlin and Marc Brettler)

Fr Patrick says, "Reading the Old Testament is difficult and a lot of the time you really need someone to explain to you what you are reading and its significance. This is an excellent commentary which contains an introduction to each book of the bible and a page by page commentary. It is Jewish -so it doesn’t reference Jesus Christ. But I find it fascinating."

THE TEMPLE: ITS MINISTRY AND SERVICES
(Alfred Edersheim)

Fr Patrick says: "Edersheim was a nineteenth century Rabbi who converted to Christianity and became an Oxford Don. This is a description of the Jerusalem Temple and its liturgy at the time of Christ. It is absolutely fascinating and not difficult to read. It throws a great deal of light on the activity of Jesus in the Temple."

JERUSALEM: THE BIOGRAPHY
(Simon Sebag Montefiore)

Fr Patrick says: "This really is a page turner. It’s an easy to read history not just of Jerusalem – which is riveting enough - but of the People of Israel. Montefiore is not a Christian and so his treatment of the Christian part of the history of Jersualem is rather dismissive and not balanced. However it’s a very good read!"

INTRODUCTION TO CHRISTIANITY
(Joseph Ratzinger)

Fr Patrick says: "This is the collected lecture notes of the young Professor Ratzinger’s Introduction to Theology course at the University of Munster in the late 1960s. It is brilliant and insightful – but it is anything other than a light read. If you are interested in theology and want to learn more – this is a good place to start. But you will need to devote time and energy to this book. If you do – it will be very rewarding."

THE LORD
(Romano Guardini)

Fr Patrick says: "This is a classic text by the twentieth century German theologian Romano Guardini. In this text, he synthesises the four Gospels into a single biography of Jesus. It is deep, lovely and beautiful. It is a text to meditate over or to read a chapter at a time. Everyone should read this beautiful book!"