What Makes Us Catholic: Eight Gifts for Life

by Thomas H. Groome

Book Overview

What makes a Catholic a Catholic? According to Thomas Groome, an expert on the essential ingredients of Catholic Christianity, Catholics share certain vital features of life and identity. What Makes Us Catholic explains and illuminates that character, and invites Catholics of all kinds to connect more deeply and imaginatively with their own culture and spirituality.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060633999
• ISBN13: 9780060633998
• Release Date: March 2003
• Publisher: HarperOne
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.61 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Amen

If you are looking for a hopeful, faith-filled perspective of the Catholic Christian Church then Thomas Groome's What Makes Us Catholic?: Eight Gifts for Life is for you. Groome's book is a fluent, thoughtful examination of what today's Catholic Church is called to be. It reminds us that each Catholic is an integral part of the Church (body of Christ).

How Do We Live As Catholics?

I was recently talking with someone who had read Thomas Groome's WHAT MAKES US CATHOLIC. She said "I did not recognize the Church in this book." While this may sound like a good reason not to purchase the book, it was actually a ringing endorsement. This woman was recently returning to the Church and it helped her realize the richness of her faith, a faith that has been tested, and in recent years marred by scandal, but none the less a faith that at its best mirrors Jesus Christ. While Groome himself is a professor of theology and religious education at Boston College, the work is not a catechism of sorts. It does not explicitly talk about what the Church teaches, but how the Catholic faith can shape a person. Groome focuses on eight areas that affect the lives of Catholics: grace, the sacramental way of life, community, scripture and tradition, social justice, reaching out to others, and spirituality. In each are he focuses on hat it means to live each of these areas, which for a Catholic is essential, since the Catholic faith is one that is based on lived experience (contrary to what some may think). Her also uses the gift of Catholic imagination, so much a part of Catholicism, but often neglected. The end result may be a Catholic faith that is not instantly recognizable, but if one looks through history and the way in which many Catholics live today, it is a Catholicism that is real and very much a part of human life. The book was first published in 2002, just as the current scandal in the Church was making the headlines in newspapers across the country, and throughout the world for that matter. For many who read Groome's book at that time, it was a reminder of what the Church has to offer and why it needs to be saved. This alone makes the book a gift to the Church. From a spiritual point of view, it is a great book to re-infuse a person's faith and give it a fresh perspective. Catachetically it is a great book to be used in RCIA programs. It is a readable book that will be an important resource for years to come.

Koinonia

Groome's new book on the Catholic community could also, it seems to me, be a portrait of the ideal 'catholic' community: that is, the Church, wherever it finds itself, behaving as the koinonia it was intended to be. The Church is a beloved community, an event more than a place, in which the Holy Spirit unites humans with one another and with God in bonds of love that then radiate outwards to embrace and heal the rest of the world. In reminding Roman Catholics of their essential witness, Groome has reminded Christians of all denominations of their essential calling.How different the world would be if catholics (Roman and otherwise) took seriously the proclamation that God is present in the world, thereby making the everyday holy and properly eliciting forth from us reverence and awe, a passion for social justice, and such a deep-seated joy in the "little" (sacramental) things of life that our consumerist mania would drop by the way! Groome's book aims to help us recapture this vision. His anecdotes, prayers, exercises are helpful rather than maudlin or pietistic. A very good book for Lenten meditation, but an even better one, I suspect, for Pentecost: what better time to reflect on the true nature of Church and koinonia? Highly recommended.

A thoughtful articulation of the Catholic faith

This book was a joy to read. Groome "unpacks" several key defining characteristics of the Catholic faith, including the sacramental view of God as present in the world around us, the thirst for social justice, the need to recognize and include people of all cultures. This book is a wonderful synthesis of what makes Catholics Catholic, and even though I was familiar with these ideas before reading the book, I found Groome's thoughtful explanation of each characteristic in its Scriptural and historical context to be particularly enlightening. Very refreshing was his empowerment of the laity to actively live their faith,and he offers many practical ideas on how to do so. Groome is also very honest about times when the Catholic church has fallen short of its own ideals, both in the past and in the present day, but the overall message is one of hope: the Holy Spirit is continuing to move throughout the Church and, as was stated at Vatican II, "as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth." This book is truly a refreshing drink for a thirsty soul.

What DOES Make Us Catholic???

I just finished Thomas Groome's "What Makes Us Catholic" and found it to be worthwhile reading. Groome describes a good priest as one who 'companions people like a soul friend and serves the community's spiritual hunger through Word and Sacrament... enabling the gifts of all to work well together--with "holy order".'Primarily, though, the book is about each person's call to holiness, regardless of station in life, and how our Catholic faith assists us in that life long journey.I've added to my "to do" list Groome's suggestion of writing a personal foundation prayer or morning offering as described on p. 202.A soundbite for this book would be "choose for life for all".