The need for spiritual reading

I'm reading in This Tremendous Lover about the need for spiritual reading to progress or even continue in the spiritual life. (Before my evangelistic friends get all excited, tops on his reading list is the Gospels, then the remaining Scripture.) Boylan thinks this is more necessary now than in the past, because:

• people don't pay attention to homilies any more
  
• our neighbors and friends aren't necessary Catholic or even Christians in their beliefs
  
• magazines and books are carefully crafted to focus our minds on this passing world, specifically, those aspects of this passing world that are most ephemeral and least worthy of our attention
  
• American culture itself is now a pagan culture; anyone merely imbibing the feeling of the times will not become Christian
  

The kicker is that he wrote all this in 1947! Television hadn't even been invented! Henry Miller's books were still banned in the United States!

Some Catholics nowadays look back at the 1950's as a highwater mark of Catholic culture in the U.S. That Boylan could describe the state of American Catholicism in 1947 with the same language I describe the current state of affairs just goes to show - something. But what? A modernist would say that both Boylan and I are filled with sound and fury, signifying nothing; orthodox believers have been decrying the current state of affairs for all of recorded history. And after all, in 1947 a black person couldn't drink from the same water fountain as me (a white person) in the capitol of the U.S. Isn't it much better nowadays?

Needless to say I don't buy the modernist position. More babies born out of wedlock; more babies killed in the womb; fewer strong families; fewer strong institutions; less willingness to sacrifice oneself for others; the overt sexualization of all relations. None of these are signs of healthy societies.

Well, I didn't plan to get so far away from my original point. The real goal of spiritual reading is to learn about Christ; about His life, the world He created, His desire for us, our desire for Him, His laws, His Passion. The more we know about Christ, the easier it is to grow in friendship with Him. And love for Christ is the basic commandment ("You shall love the Lord with all your heart, all your mind, all your strength; and your neighbor as yourself"). We can't love someone we don't know. We tend to sentimentalize the Gospel, to make Jesus into a nice guy that just wants us to be happy. Well, He does want us to be happy; but the happiness He has in mind for us is a far cry from the pleasant, pagan sensuality that so many of us mean by that word. He offers us joy. Spiritual reading helps us understand the difference between joy and pleasure; between the supernatural hope that Jesus calls us to share, and the faith in this world offered by all the multitudes that would lead us away from Him.