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08/05/2022 – Book study commencing Aug. 28th: “How to be Holy / First Steps to Becoming a Saint” by Peter Kreeft // Join us and spread the word! …

August 5, 2022 JimmyB 0
Categories : How Then Shall We Live? , How_to_be_Holy_by_Peter_Kreeft , Warrior Tools

A brother recommended this to me, and I am thankful for that. I recommend the book and your participation with us in a group study that is wrapped in prayer and fellowship. I would recommend you go into Amazon, call this one up and perform a “browse” in the upper left hand corner to that includes: 1) The chapter headings, and 2) Chapter One – The ten reasons to read this book. The ISBN reference is 978-1-68149-692-4. I am going to order used copies @ $3.50 each to cover us here locally, and I am leaning to a Kindle copy as well.

35 chapters and only 172 pages. It is not about the messenger but this book looks like “quentessentail Kreeft” as one reviewer notes. Check out the reviews. Let’s review just one chapter a week , starting with chapter one on Sunday, Aug. 22nd, a target first post day. Let’s all think of ourselves as facilitators . We can deploy Socratic dialogue, by asking questions, so we can draw out the strength of our group.

I am going to give a short promotion from a short excerpt right from the top at the beginning of chapter one. And I will follow that with my best attempt at a short summary of each chapter, perhaps a sentence or two excerpt for each chapter.

God has a sense of humor and so does Kreeft, our fellow image bearer.:

“The cover of this book is a joke. You’re going to read How to Be Holy by whom? Mother Teresa? Saint John Paul II? Saint Francis of Assisi? No, by Peter Kreeft. That’s like reading How to be Honest by Pinocchio.

If you want to know how to be a sailor, do you read a book by a sailor or a landlubber? If you want to know how to be an astronaut, do you read book by a successful astronaut or by a wannabe astronaut? So if you want to read a book about how to be a saint, do you read a book by a saint or by an absent-minded philosophy professor?

If you choose the second, I have a time share in Florida I would like to sell you.

So why read this book? I have ten reasons:

  1. Experts are sometimes not the best people for beginners to learn from at first. “This book is not a great chef serving up a gourmet dinner, it is one desparately poor bum telling another where there’s free food.
  2. “My second answer is this is all I have to give you. But even a little answer to a great question is more precious than a great answer to a little question.”
  3. “Third, and most important of all, the wisdom in this book is not from me. It’s from God and His saints, I just pass it on.”
  4. “This book is about the same thing and written with the same motive, but it’s short and simple and makes only one point instead of 350 of them, as the book on Aquinas did.”
  5. “… short books are the most powerful, as lean meat is the most nourishing.”
  6. “… Feelings do us, we do love.”
  7. “The simplicity of this book makes it universal…”
  8. “… It is because holiness is the meaning of life.”
  9. “It’s simple. Sanctity isn’t rocket science. De Caussade says: ‘What is the secret of finding this treasure {holiness}? There isn’t one. This treasure is everywhere. It is offered to us all the time and wherever we are? (p. 23) To be in search of it like being a fish in search of the sea.
  10. “It will give you more than happiness. It will give you joy. Try it; You’ll like it. Guaranteed.

One Insertion here before Contents:


“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.” Romans 8:28 // Note: Not mostly true, but His Absolute Truth. How can that be?

CONTENTS – Chapter Titles

  1. Ten Reasons to Read this Book
  2. A Radically Life Changing Idea
  3. Why the Idea is not as Ridiculous as it Seems
  4. An Irrefutable Logical Proof of its Truth.
  5. How this Truth Changes Your Life.
  6. God as Your Guru
  7. How Divine Providence Does What Seems is Impossible
  8. Faith and Reason: Can We Believe it if We Don’t Understand it
  9. Why Surrendur does not Squash Individuality
  10. Where to Find God: The Practice of the Presence of God
  11. Overcoming Deism and the Absence of God
  12. The Epistemology of Holiness
  13. Little Things
  14. Holiness is Easy
  15. Methods
  16. Faith, Hope and Love are Only One Thing
  17. Unselfconsciousness
  18. Love is All You Need
  19. Love and Sex
  20. When to Find God: “The Sacrament of the Present Moment”
  21. The Future
  22. Peace
  23. Failures
  24. Suffering
  25. Objection: I Can’t be a Saint
  26. Duties
  27. Activity and Receptivity
  28. Spiritual Warfare
  29. Grace
  30. Detachment
  31. Creation
  32. God and You Only?
  33. Praying While Working
  34. Gratitude
  35. “Progressive” or “Conservative”

Appendix 1: A Meditation of the Relationship between Being and God’s Will

Appendix 2: A Dialogue between stupid and Sensible (the Two Parts of My Soul)

Soli Deo Gloria!

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