Posted on Leave a comment

Books to Read While Stuck at Home

If you’re stuck at home worrying, or just bored, here’s some good books to read that will not only help you pass the time but also make you better for having read them. They only have two things in common: I’ve enjoyed them all, and they all discuss boredom and confinement.

Enjoy!

(The pictures are affiliate links that will take you to Amazon to buy these books. Buying through these links will give me a small commission at no extra cost to you.)

Crime and punishment

This is a great classic to read anyway, but it’s a particularly good book for now, since it shows exactly how not to react to living alone and never going anywhere, and what might happen to your mind if you spend too much time alone brooding. So buy a couple of books and read them instead.

Chess

This is a short, fast read that will make you feel fortunate that you have the internet, books, etc and maybe even other people, or at least a phone to ward off boredom.

He Leadeth Me

This is the true story of a priest in Soviet prison during the cold war. It tells how his hardships and imprisonment led him closer to God, and how grace and prayer sustained him through those difficult times. Inspiring and encouraging. It is the companion volume to With God in Russia, which is also a great read.

The Price To Pay

This autobiographical book is absolutely thrilling. I read the prologue and I was hooked! I was reading it in another language and needed a dictionary to get through it, but I still couldn’t put it down–that’s how exciting this book is.

It’s the story of an upper class Muslim man in Iraq in the early 2000’s who decides to convert to Christianity, despite the fact that it is against the law for a Muslim to convert. He faces imprisonment, torture and near death for his new-found faith–and all that before he’s even get baptized.

The Count of Monte Cristo

A classic story of revenge and redemption. Always a good choice, but it’s particularly good for if you are bored and stuck at home for long periods of time. Firstly because it’s very long (over a thousand pages if you get the unabridged version, which is definitely the way to go.) So you won’t have to find another book too soon. And secondly because it’s partly about how one man deals with long term confinement…. Although plotting comprehensive revenge on all your enemies might not be the best choice of how to spend time at home. But it’s an exciting book.

Posted on Leave a comment

Lent, Pandemic, and Reassessing our Lives

Every Lent begins with a reminder that we will die. “Remember, man, that thou are dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.” St Jerome and many other saints are often depicted with a human skull, to show that they were conscious of their mortality. St Benedict told his monks, “Keep death daily before your eyes.”

Some people think this Catholic fascination with death is morbid and depressive. Quite the opposite. We are supposed to remember death, not so that we will forget to live, but so that we won’t. Your life is whatever you are doing right now, not some dream vacation in a vague future someday. Your life is your current habits, not your future reformed self, once you are old and retired and have time for holiness. Remembering that we might die reminds us to live.

The Catholic Church understands this, and invented Lent to help us remember that “unto dust we shall return.” Lent is almost over, all but the last, most sacred week. But this year, even if we failed to make a good Lent, we have another God-given reminder that “real life” is ephemeral.

A month ago, none of us would have imagined that everything could just close down—jobs, restaurants, schools, events. Plans changed overnight. Suddenly people aren’t going to work. Suddenly kids aren’t going to school. Suddenly people’s weddings are canceled, graduation is canceled…parties, social events, even Mass is canceled. COVID-19 has taken over everything, canceled everything, and definitely made for a more penitential Lent than most of us were probably planning on.

The timing is providential. Lent is there to remind us that the important things are not here, but in God. That we are not in control, but God is. And if Lent failed, then perhaps COVID-19 will succeed.

Reassessing Sundays

It’s hard enough for Catholics to be told that they can’t go to Mass on Sunday. The idea of spending Easter alone at home is heartbreaking; not just missing out on the beautiful Easter liturgy, but also not having the opportunity to celebrate Christ’s resurrection with friends and family.

For many of us, going to Mass on Sundays had been just a soulless fulfillment of a legal requirement. The Church says we have to go to Mass, so we go to Mass. But the real point is to keep holy the Lord’s day. We might have been going to Mass on Sundays, but were we really keeping them holy? Were we really understanding them as the day set aside for the service of God? And if not, what can we do to serve God on Sundays?

Reassessing Relationships

Sunday observance isn’t the only routine that could use reassessment from time to time.

The COVID-19 situation is forcing many people to spend longer periods of time alone with their spouses and families, which can be hard to deal with, even in the most loving and supportive of relationships. Lock any small group of people together in an enclosed space and dump some stressors on them, and their faults will become very evident very quickly.

As anyone knows who has tried it, taking care of very young children is hard enough even when you can get a babysitter for an occasional night out, or invite a friend over for a play date. If you add in social isolation and the fear of pandemic and its possible economic effects, you’re going to have some real challenges.

But on the other hand, this challenging time–and the fact that you now have no one to depend on but your spouse–is a reminder of how important it is to invest in your marriage. Marriage is a partnership where two people agree to take responsibility for helping each other find God. Once entered into, that relationship is your single most valuable possession, emotionally, spiritually, and even materially. So if quarantine conditions reveal weaknesses in your relationship, that is a great opportunity to invest in strengthening those areas. A kind word here, a loving touch there, a date night in, just listening–simple things that you might have been forgetting to do–can go a long way to building the foundation for a happier and stronger family. It might require a little creativity, but that’s kind of the point. We have to think outside the box now, because all the tidy little boxes we built for ourselves are gone now.

Whatever else it might be, this pandemic is a wake-up call for each of us, a reminder that what is really important is not our plans, our schedules, or our careers–a microscopic nuisance can change all of that overnight. What matters is our relationships with God, and with the people God has put in our lives.

Lent and COVID-19 are here to remind us to reassess our priorities. Life is now, and we only get one try. What are we going to do with it?