C.S Lewis on the Joy of New Books
Oh, how I can relate! I think if Lewis was living in the 21st century, he'd agree that one of life's sweetest sounds is the UPS truck stopping in front of your house with new Amazon boxes.
Here's what he wrote to his boyhood friend, Arthur Greeves:
"I quite agree with what you say about buying new books, and love all the planning and scheming beforehand, and if they come by post, finding the neat little parcel waiting for you on the hall table and rushing upstairs to open it in the privacy of your own room.
Some people--my father for instance--laugh at us for being so serious over our pleasures, but I think a thing can't properly be enjoyed unless you take it in earnest, don't you?
What I can't understand about you though is how you can get a nice new book and still go on stolidly with the one you are at: I always like to be able to start the new one on the day I get it, and for that reason wait to buy it until the old one is done."
- C.S. Lewis, The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Vol. 1: Family Letters 1905-1931, p .170
In which the dead Christ lies
"We should never come to a sinner without the reverence that we would take to the Holy Sepulchre. Pilgrims have traveled on foot for years to kiss the Holy Sepulchre, which is empty. In sinners we can kneel at the tomb in which the dead Christ lies."
Peter Kreeft on Raising Catholic Kids
"#2. Be Catholic yourself. You can’t give what you don’t have. Believe it, love it, live it. Don’t be ashamed of it, or worried about it. Actively assume it, like the air you breathe, so you don’t have to either push it, like a time share salesperson, or be skittery and worried about it, like someone accused in court. It’s not a product any more than your kids are. It’s truth and goodness and beauty. It’s a Person. His name is Jesus. If you don’t know Him, you don’t know the Faith and you can’t pass it on."
- Dr. Peter Kreeft in a talk he gave to Catholic parents a couple weeks ago
Best. Bibliophile. Quote. Ever.
"Books. I put out my hand, like one of Christ's beggars, and I asked for books--books that are nourishment for the Catholic, apostolic and Roman minds of many young students. I put out my hand, like one of Christ's beggars, and each time had it brushed heedlessly aside! Why, Jesus, can people not understand the profound christian charity of this alms, more effective than a gift of the finest bread."
- St. Josemaria Escriva, The Way
