The Restless Believers (Book Review)

John Kirvan, C.S.P, The Restless Believers, Toronto: Paulist Press Deus Books, 1966, pp. 109.

The first lines of the introduction to the book go thus: “The Restless Believers is a feeling book. It is closer to being a shared experience than a theological analysis.” I couldn’t agree more. The author takes us through a series of issues confronting young people of his day. He gives us some of their responses and their take on these issues and challenges us to come up with ways of responding or meeting their needs. He doesn’t venture to provide any solutions and so, those looking for readymade solutions will be disappointed.

The book has 11 chapters, each focusing on a problem faced by young people. As I read through, I was beginning to form the impression that some of the problems and a good number of the author’s ideas were conspicuously pre-Vatican but when I cross-checked the date of publishing the book, I realized that it was published in the immediate post-Vatican period and so the influence of the Vatican was not very strong. The author does however make mention of the Vatican Council in the latter chapters and hints at its possible outcomes and influences on the faith and beliefs of the restless believers.

The book is about adolescents and young adults and their struggles to believe in Catholic doctrine. During this phase of life, the young person is questioning his faith and beliefs. She is beginning to recognize the need to develop and change her previous beliefs. Hence, this is a critical time- a time when faith can be made or broken. Throughout the book, there is a lot of talk on faith: what it is and isn’t. But the focus is on the believer and how she must undergo this battle. Other topics explored include: Morality, Sacred-Secular divide, Pluralism-Unity, Rational belief in God and Role of institutions.


The book is simple and easy to relate to. Those working for young people will find in it a reflection of what they experience. Even though the book may seem old-fashioned, the issues it addresses are perennial and universal and hence, can be of interest to anyone looking to understand a young persons faith struggle. I recommend this book to all those involved in youth ministry irrespective of the setting.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Great Grand Masti 2 (2016) (Movie Review)

Image
Dir: Indra Kumar Starring: Vivek Oberoi, Riteish Deshmukh, Aftab Shivdasani, Urvashi Rautela Dur: 2 hrs 10 mins Genre: Comedy Rating: 1/10 Comment: The jokes, gestures and costumes are sexually suggestive. An absolute waste of time. “What an opening line”, you might think. But to say otherwise would be an absolute lie. This film is in fact, a great grand waste of time. It’s horrible whichever way you look at it. The story is weak and thrives on cheap thrills and sorry jokes. The actresses are no doubt eye-catching but the rest is all a blur. The comedy is in fact tragedy and the film attempts to play on the basest desires of man. It’s unbelievable that actors like Riteish and Vivek would do such a film. I am not a big fan of bollywood but I still feel bad when I see bollywood making films like these. All of a sudden, I see that sex is being propagated through Indian cinema. The views of sex are changing and filmmakers and actors are not hesitating to take on unconvent...
Read more

A Day with Don Bosco

                              Don Bosco was declared the Patron of Youth by Pope John Paul II in 1989. He received his mission: to be Father to the young, in a dream at the tender age of nine. He nurtured this call throughout his life and never wasted an opportunity to gather boys and direct them to God. He did not do this as a spiritual director, (at least no at first!) but rather as a friend, a companion and a seminarian. As a young boy, he would attract youngsters with his magic tricks, tightrope skills, games etc and then get them to recite the rosary with him or recount to them the Sunday sermon (which he remembered thanks to his prodigious memory). Already then, he had ingeniously found a way to combine religion and entertainment. His entertainment was necer for entertainment sake but rather a façade or an advertisment for religious instruction. Even as a young pries...
Read more

St. Joseph: A Father after the Father's Heart (Book Review)

Image
  St. Joseph: A Father after the Father’s Heart , Hyderabad: Don Bosco Publishing House, 2021, Rs. 150, pp. 240. The book is a compilation of articles from various authors writing about qualities of St. Joseph. They have used the litany of St. Joseph as an index and have put together articles on each of the invocations. All the contributors are Salesians from different parts of India but there a couple of contributors from abroad as well. The book lends itself to be a souvenir of the Year of St. Joseph that Pope Francis declared. Let me start out by commenting on the quality of production. The paper is of good quality and so is the design and layout. It is neat and has an attractive cover. Coming to the content, it gets rather repetitive but that is understandable considering that there is so little Biblical foundation for an exposition of St. Joseph. The articles often reference Pope Francis’ letter Patris Corde and extensively utilize Pope St. John Paul II’s apostolic exhort...
Read more