The Strangest Way: Walking the Christian Path

by Robert Barron

Overview

Is Christianity a bland, domesticated religion, unthreatening and easy to grasp? Or is it the most exotic, unexpected, and uncanny of the religious paths? For the mystics and saints -- and for Robert Barron who discovered Christianity through them -- it is surely the strangest way. "At its very center," writes Barron, "is a God who comes after us with a reckless abandon, breaking open his own heart in love in order to include us in the rhythm of his own life." What could be more compelling?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781570754081
Publisher:	Orbis Books
Publication date:	05/28/2002
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.50(d)

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	7
	Preface: Strange Christianity	9
	Introduction: Paths and Practices	13
	Prelude: Apprenticeship	13
	The Problem with Modernity	18
	Back to Practices	24
	Being a Saint	29
Chapter 1	Walking the First Path: Finding the Center	31
	Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited	35
	The Place of Safety and Power	45
	The Place of Detachment	49
	Practices for Path One	53
	Practices of Prayer	53
	Pilgrimages and Processions	57
	Medals, Crosses, and Garb	59
	Fasting	63
Chapter 2	Walking the Second Path: Knowing You're a Sinner	67
	The Nature of Sin	72
	Dante's Purgatorio	76
	Jesus as Judge and Savior	93
	Practices for Path Two	99
	The Confession of Sin	99
	Truth-Telling	103
	Forgiveness	109
Chapter 3	Walking the Third Path: Realizing Your Life Is Not about You	113
	Mission	118
	A Flannery O'Connor Interlude	123
	The Cosmos	136
	Practices for Path Three	145
	Discerning the Will of God	145
	The Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy	151
	Nonviolence	153
	The Liturgy	158
	Concluding Meditation: The Strangest Way	163
	Notes	169