What is a Reading Plan?
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Chances are, if you are thinking about being a friar, you are already a reader. Perhaps you want to be a better reader, one who is quicker, more attentive, sharper of eye, or less easily distracted. Indeed: a friar must be a good reader. How do you, then, become a “good reader?” What do you begin doing now to get there? You commit yourself to a Reading Plan.
Reading isn’t a luxury for a friar. No more than eating or prayer is. Being a “good reader” is not adopting a skill-set, it is part of the discipline of virtuous daily living. Obviously, you don’t have to be a scholar to enjoy or profit from books in a disciplined way. There is time in your day to read. If you don’t believe me, re-evaluate your schedule by logging all your activities for the average week. I bet you’ll find plenty of in-between time that you can use for personal, smart reading. All you need is an hour or two of that kind of reading every day. As St. Josemaria Escriva says: “An hour of study, for a modern apostle, is an hour of prayer.” What is a Reading Plan? It is reading with a direction in mind. You do not just read a book and then another book, - in other words, - but you read a group of related books, for an intended end/goal, over a designated period of time. THREE BOOKS WORTH YOUR TIME FOR CONSIDERING HOW TO READ LIKE A FRIAR: (1) Josef Pieper’s Leisure, the Basis of Culture (2) Antonin Sertillanges’ The Intellectual Life (3) Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book |
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The Habit of Study
Below are reading plans to get you started in acquiring a habit of study for your life.
These lists will be updated from time to time, and more will be added, and so on.
These lists will be updated from time to time, and more will be added, and so on.