By Phoebe Farag Mikhail

The Great Lent is upon us, and with it a call to spend less time on eating and more time on prayer, spiritual reading, and charitable giving. Today I’m sharing my Lenten reading with you, and I’m blessed with a few giveaway copies to share as well. To enter a giveaway, subscribe to my email newsletter here, and make a comment below indicating the book you would like to be entered for.  Please also share any additional Lenten reading suggestions you have. You can also see last year’s Lent reading recommendations here.

Before the books, I have two wonderful articles about the practice of the Great Lent in two sister Orthodox Churches: the Armenian Orthodox Church and the Coptic Orthodox Church. “Giving it up? Fasting during the Great Lent in the Armenian Church,” is an article written by the Rev. Fr. Daniel Findikyan of the Armenian Orthodox Church in the latest issue of The Treasury magazine, on pages 4-13. My favorite quote: “Fasting refocuses our eyes of faith. It recalibrates our lives, allowing us to recognize the divine gift of God’s life-giving love, and to seize it gleefully and gratefully.” “Making Lent great again: Some thoughts on Lenten preparation” is a blog post by Deacon Daniel Malyon of the Coptic Orthodox Church on his blog, Musings of an Orthodox brit. My favorite quote: “This distinction between the Orthodox practice of fasting and simply abstaining from foods is vital, it reminds us that the Great Lent is a journey in which we take our full selves out of the busy modern life to seek the fullness of God once more.”

And now for the books! The giveaway closes March 6, 2018 at 11:59 EST, US and Canada addresses only please.

For children and young adults

Everything Tells Us about God by Katherine Bolger Hyde, illustrated by Livia Coloji

This beautifully illustrated children’s book, published by Ancient Faith Publishing, is based on a story told by the late Fr. Thomas Hopko. In it the author describes how everything, from the water we drink to the roads we walk on, tell us something about God. “Playgrounds and stadiums tell us Christ is the winner in every game, every contest, every battle. He is the victor over our one great enemy, death.” My favorite part of the book comes at the end:

Do you see God’s puzzle coming together? But we need one more piece to complete it: YOU … You have a face that shines with the light of Christ to everyone you meet. God is talking to the world around you—through YOU!

I loved reading Everything Tells Us about God to my children, and I even found my eight year old son paging through it again today. As with all children’s books published by Ancient Faith Publishing, this is a high quality book that will stand the test of time. I will be giving away one copy of Everything Tells Us about God to one of my readers. Subscribe to my newsletter and comment below to be entered!

A Year of Every Tuesday by Grace Brooks

When Grace Brooks announced the third book in her “Every Tuesday Club” series, I jumped on the opportunity to join her launch team. I’ve reviewed the first two books, Queen Abigail the Wise and Vanessa the Wonder-worker on this blog post. The new book, A Year of Every Tuesday, takes a slightly different approach as a series of short stories as each of the girls in the Every Tuesday Club look back on the past year. I am in the middle of some heavier reading and I cannot wait to take a break from that and dig into this book in this wonderful young adult series. I will be giving away one copy of A Year of Every Tuesday to one of my readers. Subscribe to my newsletter and comment below to be entered!

For adults

Guidelines for Prayer by Fr. Matta El-Meskeen (Matthew the Poor)

This short and beautiful book was a wonderful start to the Great Lent for me. Written by the late Fr. Matta El-Meskeen (Matthew the Poor), the abbot of the Monastery of St. Macarius the Great in Scetis, Egypt before his departure to the Lord in 2006. He was a prolific writer, well known in the West for his books Communion of Love and Orthodox Prayer Life: The Interior Way but also the author of numerous other publications in Arabic that are widely circulated among the Coptic Orthodox in Egypt. The blog The Works of Father Matthew the Poor in English works to translate these as well as many of his homilies, and is a treasure trove of reading by him. It is hard to choose my favorite quote from this book but here is one: “Prayer begins by an encounter with Christ. It continues through love towards Him, then partaking in Him, followed by actually sharing in His life and in His cross.” This book is available in hard copy here, and as an ebook here. I have one hard copy of Guidelines for Prayer, obtained from the monastery, to give away to one of my readers. Subscribe to my newsletter and comment below to be entered!

Living Wisely with the Church Fathers by Christopher A. Hall

I just started reading this book and it is another treasure during a time when we are drowning in information and yet starving for wisdom. Christopher Hall takes us back to the age of the Church Fathers of the first five centuries of Christianity and collects their timeless advice on relevant topics such as martyrdom, wealth and poverty, sex, gender, marriage, entertainment, and a balanced life. In each section, Hall provides an overview and the cultural context to understand the advice. In the chapter about wealth and poverty he explains:

As we listen to the voices of these ancient Christians addressing the range of complexities and confusions surrounding wealth and poverty … notice how fervently, how loudly the church fathers tend to speak. They are turning up the volume, trying to catch people’s attention, for the rich in their churches and in Roman society at large to often turned a blind eye to the horrendous need facing them on a daily basis.

We face a widening gap between the poor and the rich here in the US, and many of us are similarly blinded to it. The early Christians might indeed have something to teach us on this. Hall quotes St. Gregory of Nyssa, for example:

But if one man should seek to be absolute possessor of all, refusing even a third or a fifth to his brothers … he is more ruthless than any beast; wolf does not drive wolf from the prey … this man in his limitless greed will not admit one fellow-creature to a share in his riches.

Hall is one of the associate editors of the widely acclaimed Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture series as well as the author of three other books organizing key writings of the Church Fathers on different themes: Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers, Learning Theology with the Church Fathers, and Worshipping with the Church Fathers. InterVarsity Press has provided me with a giveaway copy of Living Wisely with the Church Fathers to give away to one of my readers. Subscribe to my newsletter and comment below to be entered!

Two Become One: An Orthodox Christian Guide to Engagement and Marriage by Fr. Antonios Kaldas and Ireni Attia

My most popular blog post in 2018, When Sex is a Game, We are All Losers, addresses the Orthodox Christian view of marriage as a sacrament making two people created in the image of God into one. This new release from Ancient Faith Publishing is cowritten by Christian counselor Ireni Attia and Coptic Orthodox priest Fr. Antonios Kaldas, both of whom have much experience preparing couples for marriage and counseling married couples. It is both a guide for engaged couples preparing for marriage, as well as a great reminder for married couples on many important issues. The book is at once practical and theological. This passage on sexual relations in marriage, for example, reflects a clear understanding of the ideal as well as an acknowledgement of some harsh realities:

Within marriage itself, the overriding principle of divine love means that sexual activity must always be by mutual consent. It is possible for rape to occur within marriage, and it is just as horrible a violation of divine love as the rape of a stranger. Christian marriage leads us away from these kinds of perversions of the beautiful gift of God and back into the great good for which that gift was always intended, by restoring it as an act of self-giving, outward-looking, other-focused agape love.

I have one ebook copy of Two Become One to give away to one of my readers. Subscribe to my newsletter and comment below to be entered!

Between Midnight and Dawn: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Lent, Holy Week, and Eastertide by Sarah Arthur.

As a literature lover I am greatly enjoying this unique daily Lenten reader. While many other readers focus on Scripture or sayings of early Christian writers, this reader offers selections of literature, providing another way to contemplate during this season of spirituality. Organized by the weeks of Great Lent, the days of Holy Week, and the weeks of Eastertide, each section contains suggested Scripture readings and a selection of poetry or short prose readings corresponding with different themes according to the week. The selections are diverse and include contemporary and classic authors. Yesterday’s reading included a poem by Renaissance poet Christina Rossetti:

Let us to-day, while it is called to-day,/set out, if utmost speed may yet avail–/The shadows lengthen and the light grows pale:/For who through darkness and the shadow of death,/Darkness that may be felt, shall find a way,/Blind-eyed, deaf-eared, and chocked with failing breath?

Today’s comes from Amit Majmudar, a contemporary Indian-American poet: “Our musician/Has touched us once, gone quiet now to listen—Is this mind flat or sharp? How well’s it tuned?/The absence of his hand is opportune,/His famous silence proof we have his ear.” Sarah Arthur has compiled several anthologies on different themes, including At the Still Point: A Literary Guide to Prayer in Ordinary Time and Light Upon Light: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. Paraclete Press has provided me with one giveaway copy of Between Midnight and Dawn for one of my readers. Subscribe to my newsletter and comment below to be entered!

Classics

 On the Incarnation by St. Athanasius of Alexandria

In a recent blog post, Michael Hyatt discussed why reading the “old books” is so important, and gives three reasons for reading older books: old books have been tested, they give us context, and they remove our blinders. He got these three reasons from C.S. Lewis in his introduction to a translation of the classic On the Incarnation by St. Athanasius of Alexandria. This introduction can be found in the SVS Press translation of this book. I re-read this Christian classic during Advent, but this is required reading for the Lent season as well. Consider this explanation of how Christ’s incarnation demonstrates the goodness of God:

A king who has founded a city, so far from neglecting it when through the carelessness of the inhabitants it is attacked by robbers, avenges it and saves it from destruction, having regard rather to his own honor than to the people’s neglect. Much more, then, the Word of the All-good Father was not unmindful of the human race that He had called to be; but rather, by the offering of His own body He abolished the death which they had incurred, and corrected their neglect by His own teaching. Thus by His own power He restored the whole nature of man.

The complete book can also be downloaded for free from https://www.ccel.org/ccel/athanasius/incarnation.html, although this is an earlier English translation.

For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy by the Late Fr. Alexander Schmemann

I’m rereading this classic and it’s as if I am reading it for the first time. Written by the great liturgical scholar of our time, this is a book that truly points its readers to the joy of the Resurrection and its link to the experience of the sacraments in the life of the church. I love this explanation of the beauty of the liturgy in the Orthodox Church:

…It is the joy of expectation and this expectation of joy that are expressed in singing and ritual, in vestments and in censing, in that whole “beauty” of the liturgy which has so often been denounced as unnecessary and even sinful. Unnecessary it is indeed, for we are beyond the categories of the “necessary.” Beauty is never “necessary,” “functional,” or “useful.” And when, expecting someone who we love, we put a beautiful tablecloth on the table and decorate it with candles and flowers, we do all this not out of necessity, but out of love. And the Church is love, expectation and joy.

I have one ebook copy of For the Life of the World to give away to one of my readers. Subscribe to my newsletter and comment below to be entered!

May you enjoy a blessed Lenten season.

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