It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.
If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.
~ C.S. Lewis
A close companion to, but definitely distinct from, the lives of the saints is their writings, which we often call classic devotional literature. These are:
— classic because they have stood the test of time; any writing that is less than 50 years old and referred to as “classic” is suspect.
— devotional because the author has taken the time to go beyond the superficial and peer into the life of her own soul.
— literature because the themes addressed are timeless, as helpful to a contemporary reader as it was to the original audience.
The number of these titles is countless. Some are in print; some are not. Some are over-appreciated; some are under-appreciated. Some are easy to read; some are most difficult. To be sure, however, spending time with these types of books, figuratively chewing on the words and lingering with them as with a good friend is most helpful in our process of becoming like Jesus.
While there is no official categorization for the variety of texts that comprise classic devotional literature, Emilie Griffin, in a recent article on spiritual reading for “Catholic Library World,” does take a helpful stab at it. Her categories include:
• Narrative Spirituality and Biblical Formation – This includes the Bible as devotional literature and the materials that the Church herself uses, usually in worship, to remind us of the meta-story of Creation-Fall-Reconciliation-Renewal and our place in it.
•
Spiritual First Person Narratives – These are personal accounts of conversion and growth in Christlikeness and include titles like Augustine’s
Confessions and Dorothy Day’s
The Long Loneliness.
•
Spiritual Writing –
The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence and Jean-Pierre de Caussade’s
The Sacrament of the Present Moment (aka
Abandonment to Divine Providence) are good examples of this category, books that were written as instruction in the spiritual life, from mentor to mentee.
•
Biographies, Histories, and Saint-Stories – Written for inspirational and devotional purposes, selections such as
The Little Flowers of St. Francis and Athanasius of Alexandria's
Life of St. Antony tell the lives of devotional figures that often did not leave behind their own writings.
•
Fiction – Dostoevsky’s
The Brothers Karamazov and the writings of Flannery O’Connor come to mind for this category; works that tell the story of the joys and absurdities of life so well that we cannot help but reflect and be changed.
The offerings in classic Christian devotional literature are wide and deep. They provoke and affirm and challenge and transform. In the words of Eugene Peterson, a late 20th Century author that has left more than one title that will one day be considered classic, “Take and read.”