Rorate Caeli

Book suggestions for summer


- Do you pray to Angels?
- My God, yes,... certainly.
- We do not pray to Angels often enough. They frighten the theologians, like those ancient heresies from the East, a nervous fear, indeed! The world is filled with Angels. And the Blessed Virgin, do you pray to the Blessed Virgin?
- Certainly!
- We say that... Yet do you pray to her as you should, do you pray well? She is our mother, certainly. She is the mother of the human race, the new Eve. But she is also its daughter. The ancient world, the world of pain, the world before Grace, nourished her for a long time in its desolate bosom - centuries upon centuries -, in the confusing, incomprehensible, expectation of a Virgo Genitrix... Centuries upon centuries, it protected within its old hands filled with crime, in its heavy hands, the wonderful little girl whose very name it ignored. A little girl, this queen of Angels! And she remained that, forget it not! The Middle Ages had understood this well, the Middle Ages understood everything. But just try to stop these imbeciles from reimagining in their own way the "drama of the Incarnation", as they say! Now that they think they must, for the sake of their prestige, dress up as modest justices of the peace, [...] it would ashame them to no end to proclaim to unbelievers that the one and only drama, the drama of dramas - for there is no other - took place without a backdrop and without trimmings. Think about it! The Word was made flesh, and the journalists of the time knew nothing of it! 
Georges Bernanos 
Diary of a Country Priest (Journal d'un curé de campagne)
1936

In the voice of the old and experienced priest, Bernanos saw clearly through the fog of modern theology, that often (mostly) hides imbecility, or worse, under the appearance of literary-inspired rhetoric -- as well as the emptiness of most journalistic coverage. May Our Lady of Mount Carmel, whose dear daughter of Lisieux inspired so much of his work, intercede for his soul. 

What about you, what are your book suggestions for this summer (winter for our readers in the Southern Hemisphere)? (You may suggest any publication, in any language, with any content you believe may enrich our lives.)