Meditating on readings

By Tony Staley
Compass Editor

James Kurt undertook an enormous project: To write daily meditations based on the liturgical readings for all three years of the Sunday liturgical cycle, the two-year weekday cycle, plus holy days and major feasts.

The result is the 727-page Our Daily Bread (Authorhouse, Bloomington, Ind., 2004; ISBN 1-4208-0839-7).

Kurt, a self-described "hermit in the city" - Jersey City, N.J. - said he spends six hours a day in prayer, including Mass, Liturgy of the Hours, rosary, Stations and meditation.

For the book, he read the day's Scriptures three times, then wrote without revision at the direction of the Spirit.

Each of his meditations are about one page long and include extensive quotes and paraphrases from that day's readings, which he ties together into a thematic whole.

How well he succeeds is up to the individual. Fr. Kevin Shanley, O.Carm., in a review in The Explorer, newspaper of the Diocese of Joliet, Ill., calls it an "excellent resource for priests and deacons, but also for the laity and all who hunger for the meaning of the Word of God."

I thought the book read like an old-fashioned sermon and his frequent references to readers as "brothers and sisters" were patronizing. Rather than string together the Scriptural quotes in an effort to find meaning, I wish he'd used stories to bring new light and understanding to the readings. Perhaps it's just the writer and editor in me, but I continually wished that he had revised what he wrote.

Find a copy in a bookstore and judge for yourself.