The Spiritual Reading Book Club: A Valuable Opportunity to Learn and Share Insights About Our Faith

There is no better place to grow in your faith through fellowship, study, and some downto-earth discussion than the Spiritual Reading Book Club. Meeting once a month, the club allows its participants to read at an unhurried pace, reflect, and gather to share insights about what they have read. Since its founding almost 10 years ago, the Spiritual Reading Book Club has been a joint effort of both St. James and St. John. Rita Leland, a parishioner at St. James, has been part of the Spiritual Reading Book Club since the very beginning.

“The book club has made me think more deeply about many subjects, like the Eucharist,” Rita says. “At the same time, I’m learning from the examples of different Catholics and saints. I can read something that’s a little different and deeper, and I have people to talk to about it. I like the depth of scholarship and that I have someone else to bounce ideas off.”

The Spiritual Reading Book Club reads two books each year and the topics offer great variety. Sometimes they read biographies of saints or those on the way to becoming saints, including Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, and our own Blessed Stanley Rother. Other books have delved deep into an aspect of our faith, such as the Eucharist. Other books address practical ways to live our faith, like Thrift Store Saints by Jane Knuth. Christian classics such as Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis are included and contemporary works like Learning to Pray by Fr. James Martin round out the list.

Rita values the discussion that happens around each book. There is a lot to digest over the course of a reading.

“You want to talk to someone about it and toss ideas back and forth,” Rita says. “We try to read a variety of books and things that will help us grow in our faith.”

Rita keeps an eye out for good recommendations from others or from online sources like the Catholic Book Club. While the book club meetings were interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, they’ve since returned to monthly meetings. Following a school year schedule, the club reads a book each semester. Parishioners who are interested are welcome to jump in even if the club is in the middle of a book. Meetings are on a Tuesday each month, but the schedule fluctuates. Two weeks before each meeting, announcements are posted in the bulletin indicating what pages the club is reading, and the time and location for the next meeting.

Rita appreciates that the books offer a lot of practical applications for her own life. The Spiritual Reading Book Club offers more than just theology or an academic approach to our faith. She often reflects on a moment that she witnessed in Mexico City.

“Years ago, I was going to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe,” Rita says. “There’s a huge plaza and I saw a grandmother crawling on her knees up the steps with a baby in her arms. That is faith, not knowing more theology than someone else.”

Be sure to check the bulletin for up-to-date information about the Spiritual Reading Book Club.

Some of the books that the Spiritual Reading Book Club has read

St. James parishioner Rita Leland