If you’re looking for some fantastic books to add to your summer reading list, you’ve come to the right place! Joe interviews 11 Catholic creators and asked them which book changed their life.
Transcript:
Joe:
Welcome back to Shameless Popery, I’m Joe Heschmeyer, and I’m actually here at the Catholic Creator Conference, and I was thinking as we get near to the end of summer, some of you’re going to have a little bit of free time, maybe go down to the beach or the lake or somewhere where you might be thinking I should get something good to read. And I thought this would be a great opportunity to ask some of my favorite Catholic creators who you may or may not have heard of a book that was life-changing for them. So let’s start with you if you would please introduce yourself.
Guest:
Well, my name is Keith Nester and I’m a former Protestant pastor Catholic Convert, and I make videos on YouTube and all that kind of stuff.
Joe:
And where can people find you?
Guest:
Well, they can go to down to earth ministry.org and that’s down the number two earth ministry.org for my website. Or you can just search Keith Nester on YouTube and you can find me there.
Joe:
And what’s a book that has changed your life?
Guest:
I think the most pivotal book to me is the Fate of Our Fathers by James Cardinal Gibbons. That was the book that sealed the deal for my conversion. And I probably look through that book at least once every couple of years just again, because to me that was a book that spoke to who I was. He was writing to Protestants and in his time, which was in the early 20th century. And it’s so clear, it just punches you in the face, which is the kind of book I need because I’m not a real intellectual reader guy. I needed someone to just talk to me where I was. And that book nailed the Catholic apologetic to me in a profound way.
Joe:
Beautiful faith of our fathers, and it’s for anyone who may be coming from Protestantism or interested in Protestant, Catholic kind of questions and sounds very readable. Give me just an example of some of the arguments he gets into, and you don’t have to go super deep, but what kind of topics does he cover?
Guest:
Well, he covers the papacy, which I know you’re familiar with, and he talks about that and just a couple of chapters that are real easy to digest. And he gives specific examples of things like, well, why are there appeals to the Bishop of Rome if the papacy isn’t true? And he speaks to an audience that he knows is having these objections. So he talks about that. He talks about the can of scripture a lot, so things that people who are into apologetics are familiar with, but the way that he phrases that and the way that he puts that was something to a Protestant ears that really, it almost felt like he was anticipating everything I was going to say
Before I said it. He talks a lot about some of the stuff that you wrote in your book, Pope Peter, about why the Lord singles peter out, why the Lord calls Peter to this ministry, and he shows in the Book of Acts, for example, when Peter speaks, that shuts the debate down. And then how that decision was then carried out to all the other churches. So the way he talks was pretty amazing. One thing I thought was very interesting though, kind of in the light of one of the things that we deal with today with people that talk about the liturgy wars or whatever is he makes the case for why the church should still be using Latin and why that’s a good thing. Of course, then it got changed, of course. So I think it’s kind of funny, but it was just a great read. It’s definitely one that changed my life.
Joe:
Excellent. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.
Guest:
My pleasure.
Joe:
Thanks for joining. Thank you for having me. Introduce yourself and explain where we can find you or maybe can’t find you.
Guest:
My name is Max. I am the husband of the religious Hippie, and I made it such that no one can find me.
Joe:
You’re usually behind the scenes. I like being part of your debut. What’s a book that has been life-changing for you?
Guest:
Well, I’m going to cheat and I’m going to mention two, but I think there are two books that go really well together. They’re both books by St. Louis de Monfort, their True Devotion to Mary and Secret of the Rosary. And they were really impactful for me because they taught me about the necessity of devotion to Mary. I think it allowed me to enter more deeply into the mystery of our lady. And I remember when I first converted, I had a tendency to over intellectualize the faith and systematize it into a kind of philosophy reading that just allowed me to enter more deeply into the mystery. And yeah,
Joe:
The way he writes, people tend to either connect at a more emotional level like you just said, or they get really scandalized. And I like John Henry Newman’s Council, which I think was inspired at least in part by his own reaction to reading him, which is we don’t read love letters like police reports, and you don’t want to conflate the style of writing to say, wait, that couldn’t literally be true, but understanding the way it’s meant to be received. So did you read that as a Protestant or as a Catholic?
Guest:
Well, I actually converted from atheism.
Joe:
Oh, I’m sorry. I knew you were a convert. I didn’t know your backstory.
Guest:
Yeah, but I actually didn’t read those books until after I converted. But I remember our lady played a significant role in my conversion because I remember one time I was just having dinner with my mom and my girlfriend at the time, and I was just kind of talking to them about our lady and because at the time I was interested in Catholicism, but I hadn’t really committed to converting yet, and I was just talking about the beauty of the role of our lady and everything, and I just started weeping uncontrollably. It was absolutely insane. Wow.
Joe:
Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. That’s tremendous.
Guest:
Yeah. Thank
Joe:
You all. Well, that’s two good books people can check out. So first, please introduce yourself.
Guest:
Hi, my name is Evan Es. I’m a YouTuber and a proud Catholic.
Joe:
And where can people find you?
Guest:
Just Evan? August.
Joe:
Can you spell it? Just,
Guest:
Yeah. So it’s EVAN and then R, and then August.
Joe:
Perfect. And you’ve been blowing up on the internet, if you don’t mind me saying so.
Guest:
Yeah. Yeah, it it’s insane. Youve had some
Joe:
Pretty amazing, amazing stuff. So books would, or what book would you recommend people
Guest:
Yeah.
Joe:
That you’ve found just personally life changing. What
Guest:
Books have you written?
Joe:
No, no, not that I’ve written. Please don’t
Guest:
Do that. On a serious note, man, one book that really changed my life was Mere Christianity by CS Lewis. I love that book. I love how CS Lewis just makes it so simple, makes it so easy to understand that literally any denomination you can watch it, read it, and I’m just blown away by it. I love CS Lewis’s. He’s great.
Joe:
And that particular series, I’m sure you know this, but it is adapted from radio talks, so everything is written in this extremely easy to read style because it was originally written to be listened to. So the prose is, it’s succinct and clear and it’s bracingly beautiful.
Guest:
Yeah,
Joe:
That’s an excellent choice. That’s one of my favorite books.
Guest:
Yeah, no, it’s great.
Joe:
Excellent. Well, thank you so much. That’s tremendous.
Guest:
Yes, sir.
Joe:
First do you introduce yourself?
Guest:
Okay, cool. Yeah, I’m Braden from the Catechumen. I run that YouTube channel dedicated to Protestant Catholic dialogue.
Joe:
Wonderful. And what is a book that you found personally life changing people might add to their summer reading list?
Guest:
I know it’s so hard to pick one book, but there’s this really good book from a really awesome, not really awesome, I’ll just say just an apologist. His name is Joe Meyer and he wrote this book called The Early Church was the Catholic Church. And I’m actually being serious. I was going to say, okay side. This is going to be a few other books, roses Among Thorns, St. Francis De Sales, really, really good devotional book. I went through that with my wife and it really helped me bridge the gap of being guilty for not having time to study as much and pray as much because we had a kid so couldn’t wake up early. And it’s crazy how applicable his advice is to people with who are their vocation is just the married life and having, just being among the lady. Right. So very, very good book. Sorry. We see
Joe:
That slowly. Can I throw a quick aside?
Guest:
Yeah, do it.
Joe:
St. John Paul, the first has a beautiful essay comparing Francis DeSales and Jose Maria Riva as Two Saints with a particular devotion to the lay apostolate. So yeah, your read of him saying this really, this hits home for a married person more than most spiritual writing. It is. It absolutely. It’s
Guest:
For, it’s so good. And it’s like if you’re trying to be faithful in a way that takes away from your vocation, from your time to your kids and your wife, that’s inordinate, then you’re not being faithful. So you have to have a balance there. But no, seriously, your book, the Early Church was the Catholic Church really helped me bridge the gap in my conversion. I had already made a lot of the pathway there on my own, but then when that book came out, I was like, okay, I got to read this. I’m coming from a Baptist perspective, and it seemed like a lot of the questions that you were addressing, baptism, the three tier church hierarchy, apostolic succession, that sort of stuff really resonated with me. And so it really helped me understand where we were getting that from the early church.
Joe:
Glory to God, I like being on the list with one of my favorite saints of all time.
Guest:
Francis sales. There we go. Yeah, basically kindred spirits right there. So good stuff. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, thank you so much. For sure. Alright,
Joe:
So first things first, can you introduce yourself and explain where people can find you?
Guest:
Yes. My name is Dom, do Maso. You can find me on YouTube. The Logos Project is the name of the channel, logos, L-O-G-O-S. And the channel revolves around the theology of Pope Benedict. Mostly other people too, but he’s kind of the main inspiration. So
Joe:
Beautiful. What’s a book that you’ve found personally? Life changing?
Guest:
Well, it’s going to be by Benedict.
Joe:
I was hoping it would be.
Guest:
Yeah, it’s a very nerdy book. It’s probably his most dense book,
Joe:
Which is saying something for Pope.
Guest:
Yeah, it is. Yeah, it’s called Eschatology Death and Eternal Life. It would take too long to explain why it changed my life, but
Joe:
It’s not the end of the world.
Guest:
Yeah, I mean, I was reading a lot of NT Wright years ago, and I love Nt Wright still, but he created a crisis in my way of understanding how Catholic tradition works with Greek influence on the Bible and on the church fathers. And Benedict really helped me in that book basically come to terms with that and understand it better. So I used to be very anti Plato, and thanks to Benedict, I actually developed a love for Plato, but he talks about so many different things, the soul communion, the Trinity life and death, and it was just like an experience of a read. And so it’s so prayerful,
Joe:
Beautiful
Guest:
And poetic, and I don’t think I’ve ever come to a book that’s risen to that level yet. So
Joe:
Yeah, I personally have found his Regensburg address to be one of the best defenses of the harmonious encounter between Christianity and Greek thinking.
Guest:
Yes,
Joe:
And it’s perfect, of course for the Logos Project where you take this term from Greek philosophy and it’s brought into scripture in an inspired way.
Guest:
Exactly. Yeah, no, that address I’ve read several times and every time I read it, there’s something new that comes out of it. It’s such a masterful address and it’s very personal. He’s just addressing the university based on his life as a student. And so all his theology is like that. It comes from his personal life. So it’s never like this cold science, it’s always a personal science, and that’s always drawn me to him.
Joe:
Yeah, you’re right. It is on the one hand, it’s very deep and someone’s even very dense, and it is always still extremely personal. He is never lost sight of his own standing as a person before their creator. Well, would you say that people who the Regensburg address are likely to also enjoy eschatology? Are they similar enough stylistically that
Guest:
Yeah, actually I think that a good summary of big chunks of eschatology would be his encyclical space. Alvy.
Joe:
Wonderful.
Guest:
That’s great.
Joe:
Okay.
Guest:
So I would say go read space. It’s more accessible. Eschatology is dense. I struggled through it in several areas, but if you’re up for it, it’s rewarding. It’s definitely changed my life.
Joe:
I like that you’ve given people kind of an easy mode and a hard mode and even easy mode’s a little bit hard.
Guest:
Yeah, no, absolutely. But he’s just such a wonderful man. I think he’s a saint, and it’s not just me saying this, but I think he’ll be a doctor of the church. I might be biased, but it doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Okay, there you go.
Joe:
So I’ve heard many people say the same thing.
Guest:
Yeah, his writings are beautiful, and they’re meditative, they’re spiritual, and they’re very intelligent.
Joe:
And
Guest:
So that’s the motivation behind so many of the videos that the Logos project.
Joe:
Yeah, beautiful. Thank you so much. That’s a tremendous recommendation. You’re welcome.
Guest:
You’re welcome.
All right.
Joe:
First things first. Can you introduce yourself and where we can find you?
Guest:
Yes. So I’m Amber Rose, a religious hippie, and you guys can find me basically on any social media platform except for TikTok at the Religious Hippie.
Joe:
And you’ve already been proceeded by your husband who mentioned he’s kind of behind the scenes at Religious Hippie. So if people want to make that connection to say, oh, okay, I think we just heard about that channel a minute ago.
Guest:
Yes, yes. He does all my lighting and all my editing. Well, not editing, but he does all the crazy camera stuff too.
Joe:
Excellent. Well, what is a book you would recommend, particularly people who might be end of the year or end of the summer, they’re going to have a little beach read or a lake read or something, and a book that you found personally?
Guest:
Yeah, the one that I’ve carried with me for the last five years is actually The Imitation of Christ.
Joe:
Oh, by Tom’s campus? Yes, yes,
Guest:
Yes. And I just have always loved that book because I felt like I was always, and this is just a personal opinion of mine, I had always been very soft on myself. I always gave myself excuses for sin. I always gave myself like, oh, God will forgive me. Oh this, oh that. And this book really put into perspective how horrible that mindset really can be and how much we hurt God during when we sin. And so for me, this book really put into perspective just how much we really do need to get sin under control, and we do need to basically just get our flesh under control in general. That book just calls me out so much. It’s crazy.
Joe:
I read somewhere that it was the second most copied, I think, second most printed book after the Bible in the medieval period. I
Guest:
Think
Joe:
I heard that too. It was just like this tremendously influential book of, and it’s written at a level that is pretty accessible. It’s a very popular book and yeah, very challenging book as well.
Guest:
Yeah, it just challenges you spiritually. And that was something that I didn’t have previously. Everyone always kind of just was like, oh, well, you’re just human. Oh, it’s just human. You mess up. But nobody was ever telling me, yeah, okay, it’s okay to mess up, but you have to make amends and not want to do that again. You can’t just presume God’s forgiveness. And that book really put that into perspective for
Joe:
Me, the difference between striving for greatness and falling short and not really striving for greatness at all.
Guest:
Yes, exactly. And it was so crazy because I found out that Thomas Keas wasn’t canonized yet because he was buried alive.
Joe:
This is a really dark story, but they buried him. And occasionally in this period, people made their best guess as to whether someone was dead. And the vital signs are very faint or seemingly non-existent heartbeat. You don’t feel any breathing. But when they went to move his body, they found claw marks on the inside of the coffin. And so they weren’t sure if he’d despaired or not. And so he was never canonized, but he has tremendously valuable spirituality. It is really a tragedy that this final mysterious battle that he faced, it’s
Guest:
Just unknown, plowed
Joe:
His legacy in that way
Guest:
Because it is
Joe:
Incredibly influential.
Guest:
He’s fantastic. He’s helped me so much spiritually, and I think that in itself kind of calls to his holiness and things of that nature. Of course, we can’t say for sure either way, but we also don’t condemn anyone to hell. So we can also just be like, oh, well maybe we’ll ask for his intercession and see if he maybe gets canonized one day. We’ll see.
Joe:
There you go.
Guest:
We’ll see.
Joe:
He seems like the kind of person a cause could be opened for.
Guest:
Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. That’s what I’m thinking. Hey, you never know.
Joe:
Excellent. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate that.
Guest:
Thank you, Joe. I’ll talk to you later.
Joe:
Alright.
Guest:
Alright.
Joe:
Well first things first, could you introduce yourself and say where we can find you?
Guest:
Yes. My name is Adrian and I run the channel Sips with Sarah on YouTube. And you can also find me at sips with Sarah on X Instagram, TikTok sip with sarah.com, all that good stuff.
Joe:
Wonderful. And end of the summer people might be looking for a good read. What’s a book that has changed your life,
Guest:
Man? So this book, actually, it came out a long time ago, but I think a lot of people are picking it up again. Atomic Habits not a theological book, but it has actually helped me in some spiritual aspects as well. So I can tell a little bit about the
Joe:
Book, please, please do.
Guest:
So it’s basically about how to form good habits and get rid of bad habits. So it’s very practical. You might not think of it in a spiritual sense, but what it helped me do was be more disciplined. At the time I was in college and I was terrible with managing time,
So it basically gave very practical tips. So some of the tips it gave were like make the things that you want to do more of that are better for you, easier to do. So if you’re like, I don’t read enough, well have your book out on your table, open to the last page you read or something like that so that it’s super easy for you to see it, remember to read and pick it up and sit down. Whereas things that are less healthy habits make those harder. So if you play video games too much, which I did at the time, take your PlayStation, unplug it, put it in the closet, and when you want to play it, plug it back in when you’re done, unplug it, put it back in the closet. So make there more steps to things like that. And then it also just taught me the value of doing small things and not worrying about making the maximum amount of progress in one sitting with something. If you want to be somebody who reads a lot, for example, we’re talking about books, maybe just read a couple pages every day and you don’t have to worry about, well, I only a couple pages, I didn’t read four chapters today, so I’m a failure. No, you’re making progress. And that’s way better than reading four chapters one day and then not reading for three weeks, which is most likely what happens if you try to over whatever you call it, overcompensate in one sitting for lack of progress.
Joe:
Going from sedentary to marathon runner isn’t the way you go from sedentary to doing a little bit of
Guest:
Walking
Joe:
And then maybe a little bit of jogging, a little bit of running.
Guest:
So that’s helped me a lot in spirituality. Some of the same principles apply. People are like, what should I do for my prayer life? And some people think that you’re not praying unless you’re praying for two hours every day. I wake up at 4:00 AM before the sunrise rises so that I could pray with the sunrise for three hours. And then you don’t have to do that. And if you set that as your standard, you’re going to fail because anybody’s going to fail that if you’re not a monk, and then you’re going to be discouraged and you’re just not going to do it at all. So it’s better to just pray. I’ve told people if you want to start praying the rosary, but you’re like, that’s kind of a big time commitment, which it’s really not, but I understand some people might feel that way. Just pray a decade. It’s what, three minutes, four or five minutes? Just pray a decade every day. That’s great.
Joe:
Yeah, baby steps.
Anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Chester said that. And there’s a real sense in which we see the ideal as unreachable, so we don’t bother trying. And I think this is a great, and I might even pair your suggestion if you don’t mind, with the books, the Power of Habit and a book called Deep Work. Those three are kind of a trifecta where it just is really like, okay, you want to live a more virtuous life, you want to have better habits. Here are really practical ways, and you’re right that they’re not explicitly religious books because plenty of non-religious people also want better habits in their life, but they certainly matter if you’re someone striving to live a life of virtue rather than a life of vice or someone just trying to say, you’ve got these great goals for yourself. And maybe you look back over your summer and you say, I was going to read 10 books and I’ve read half of one. What are some ways I can change that moving forward? I like that. That’s a really good one. And I think there’s something very encouraging about the power and the efficacy of those baby... Read more on Catholic.com