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Read Spiritual Works

 

Reading spiritual works is one of the better habits to exercise every day. Since the Bible itself indicates that "all scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16), the goal of this habit is to be intentional every day with reading the Bible and other spiritual works. Determine what specifically you will read (spiritual direction is recommended), and use habit strategies and these examples to help you read spiritual works every day:

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• Read the Bible. An easy way to start is with the Daily Bible Readings. Go deeper with a daily Bible reading plan like the Bible in a Year.

• Read the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC). Use a daily Catechism reading plan like the Catechism in a Year.

• Read other recommended spiritual works:

  • A Family Guide to Spiritual Warfare: This book explains how to “clean up” your household by cultivating in your family a civilization of love, and it teaches how to withstand the spiritual attacks that inevitably come to destroy the harmonious family life you create.

  • An Introduction to the Devout Life: Learn from St. Francis de Sales' writings that address the question of how to get to heaven, including the practice of 16 important virtues.

  • Angelic Virtues and Demonic Vices: Aquinas's Practical Principles for Reaching Heaven and Avoiding Hell: In this book, Saint Thomas guides us on how to pursue our true celestial homeland while avoiding running to a false heaven. He outlines the various vices and their 40+ daughters, and he details how to conquer them.

  • "A Year With...": These books are designed to read one section per day for a year.

  • Confessions of St. Augustine of Hippo: The greatest autobiography ever written.

  • Cultivating Virtue: A guide for practicing the virtues based on the examples of the saints.

  • Dark Night of the Soul: In this book, Saint John of the Cross presents for us a portrait painted from his own experience of one who advances successfully through the struggles of the spiritual life.

  • Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: The Diary chronicles God's message given through St. Faustina to the world to turn to His mercy.

  • Holiness Is Not That Complicated: On the Pursuit of Personal Sanctification Through the Principles of Avoidance, Deed, and Grace: This book invites you to rediscover the essence of the Christian life—the calling to holiness.

  • Into the Breach: Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted's 2015 Apostolic Exhortation to Catholic Men. See also the Into the Breach Video Series based on this book.

  • Manual for Spiritual Warfare: A field guide to help spiritual warriors recognize, resist, and overcome the enemy.

  • Manual for Men: A field guide and instruction manual for all men who want to be real men of God.

  • Manual for Women: A guide for women to know what it means to be a woman after God’s own heart.

  • My Way of Life: This is a simplified version of St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica, which is one of the most significant works in world history and also one of the most challenging works to read.

  • Navigating the Interior Life: A guide for spiritual growth, which includes identifying one's own root sin. 

  • Navigating the Interior Life - Root Sin Workbook: This complimentary eBook helps to identify one's own root sin, which isn't what you might think.

  • ​Saintly Habits: Aquinas' 7 Simple Strategies You Can Use to Grow in Virtue: Use this book as a guide to virtue that will transform your understanding of what a virtuous life looks like and learn how to put this new knowledge into practice.

  • Saints Who Battled Satan: In this book, the author details the heroic combat of 17 saints who defeated the Enemy.

  • Spiritual Warfare and Divine Mercy: The Weapon for Our Times: The author provides a broad overview of spiritual warfare, the development of one’s prayer life, and a powerful encounter with the divine mercy message and the treasury of weapons Jesus gives us through it.

  • Spiritual Warfare Q & A: Intended as a how-to manual for the Church militant, this book includes six dozen spiritual warfare questions that were asked of the authors on their radio program over several years.

  • Superhabits: In a culture that prioritizes short-term fixes over long-term solutions, Superhabits offers a foundational, back-to-basics plan that produces both immediate and enduring results in overcoming whatever issue you are struggling with.

  • The Art of Living: Explore how practicing the Cardinal Virtues gives us the freedom to love.

  • The Battle of the Virtues and Vices: Defending the Interior Castle of the Soul: In this spiritual masterpiece, Pope Saint Leo IX, identifies our foes: “The enemies in this battle—the vices and temptations which infect our fallen nature—are invisible and internal.”

  • The Imitation of Christ: Apart from the Bible, this is the most widely read devotional work in Christianity. 

  • The Interior Castle: In this book, St. Teresa imagines the soul as a magnificent castle full of spacious and elaborate rooms. And, as St. Teresa describes, at the heart of this castle stands the seat of the King Himself.

  • The Liber Christo Method: A Field Manual for Spiritual Combat: This is a tactical field manual for those interested in not only learning more about spiritual combat, but also engaging and winning the spiritual battles of this present day.

  • The Paradise of the Soul: Forty-Two Virtues to Reach Heaven: Saint Albert the Great, one of the greatest Doctors of the Church, recognized 42 distinct virtues. His teachings not only name and define the virtues, but also direct and guide us in their fruitful exercise.

  • The Sinner's Guide: Covering what many spiritual writers neglect, Venerable Louis of Granada discusses both virtue and vice—how to both do good and avoid evil. This book has been compared to The Imitation of Christ for its breadth, intensity, and usefulness for devotion.

  • The Spiritual Combat and a Treatise on Peace of Soul: This book was first published in 1589 and provides timeless guidance in spiritual discipline. St. Francis de Sales (1576–1622) read from it himself every day and recommended it to everyone under his direction.

  • The Story of a Soul: This is the autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux, the youngest Doctor of the Church.

  • The Traditional Virtues According to St. Thomas Aquinas: This is a practical book that surveys St. Thomas Aquinas’s entire treatise on the virtues while highlighting those aspects that touch most powerfully on the life of fathers, leaders, and mentors.

  • The Virtues, or the Examined Life: This book is about the virtues of the Christian life--both the theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity) and the cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance)--and it deals particularly with the question, how it is possible for believers to decide for the morally good and to live accordingly.

  • True Devotion to Mary: The greatest book of Marian spirituality and the source of the phrase “to Jesus through Mary”.