Best Spiritual Reading You've ever Done? (Other than the Bible, of course)

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I just finished The Power of Silence by Cardinal Robert Sarah, and have been working my way through In God’s Hands - the diaries of John Paul II.
 
The Spiritual Combat is one I will be reading and rereading for a long time
 
The best I’ve completed to date is probably Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart by Fr. Jacques Philippe.

I just (re)started The Power of Silence, having finally bought it in English after more than a year of struggling with it in the original French. I’m hoping to get through it by Easter. Three long-distance train journeys in four weeks should help with that :+1:t3:

Even the introduction is quite profound.
 
I was really impressed by the Interior Castle. (This translation was very approachable.) I wished I had found it a whole lot earlier! It’s pretty much a textbook on prayer, by someone who’s Been There and Done That and Done It Well. The cool thing about it is that it gets more and more abstract, the further along your path with God you get. So you’re able to totally relate to the earlier parts, but once you reach the edges of your own personal experience, it starts getting harder to comprehend. But because we don’t have a solid edge to our relationship with God-- we get glimpses of stuff that’s further along than where we’re at, if that makes sense? – you’re able to grasp bits and pieces of the more advanced stuff.

I’ve never actually finished the whole thing. But I really enjoy reading over “my territory” and the bits that are just over the horizon. And where that line is drawn will change for each individual who reads it, and where they are in their life at that particular moment.
 
midori said:
I was really impressed by the Interior Castle. (This translation was very approachable.) I wished I had found it a whole lot earlier! It’s pretty much a textbook on prayer, by someone who’s Been There and Done That and Done It Well.
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Have you read “St. Teresa’s Way of Perfection?” Also awesome.
 
The Holy Longing by Fr. Ron Rohlheiser. I read it shortly after I converted. It put into perspective what I had just experienced.
 
“Power of Silence” again here except I haven’t completed it yet. I just need to be in the mood for spirit to read it, like really concentrate. Every chapter inspires many thoughts in my head and there is me talking with the other voice (which I hope is Jesus) and I keep on thinking about it. Or maybe the other thoughts come from the mirrored me that also thought the same way Cardinal Sarah is saying it!!! and now feels no longer alone because he’s thinking the same way too. Not sure if this make sense… 👻 but anyhow… here it is.
 
I completely agree- It feels like Sarah is speaking directly to you.
 
The Spiritual Combat is by Dom Lorenzo Scupoli and I second the suggestion.
 
The Intimation of Christ by Thomas A Kempis written in the early 1400s. Only the Bible has been translated into more languages.
 
Maximilian75 said:
I just finished The Power of Silence by Cardinal Robert Sarah, and have been working my way through In God’s Hands - the diaries of John Paul II.
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Power of Silence was amazing. I highly recommend it. Some other greats reads have been St. Augustine’s Confessions (Frank Sheed Translation), Fr. Thomas Dubay’s Fire Within, Fr. Timothy Gallagher’s The Discernment of Spirits: An Ignatian Guide for Everyday Living, and The Way of a Pilgrim (author unknown).

My current book that I just started is Benedict XVI’s Jesus of Nazareth and it is also quite amazing.
 
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Maximilian75 said:
When I finish In His Hands, Confessions is next in my queue.
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Awesome. I highly recommend getting the Frank Sheed translation for it’s ability to beautifully convey Augustine’s poetic mastery of Latin while simultaneously remaining extremely readable.

I tried reading a different translation a few years ago (I can’t recall which one) before researching and getting the Frank Sheed one and I found it quite a strain to get through, where as the Frank Sheed one was instantly captivating.
 
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St. Catherine of Siena’s ‘The Dialog’. Sayings of the Desert Fathers. St. Therese of Lisieux’s Autobiography (or the abridged version I think I read) . Now I’m reading some things by St. Francis de Sales to deal with scrupulosity/doubt/anxiety/fear/etc

If I had to subjectively and personally rate as “best”, it would have to be The Dialog because it helped convince me the Catholic Church is true before converting.
 
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