/lit/ - Literature

>>18292994
Substance of prayer takes one of three forms
>Rosary
>Prayer Rule
>Prayer to the Saint whose work I'm reading
Dionysius says that prayer should be like pulling on a golden chain that is loosed from he heavens. While we struggle to pull ourselves upwards, our effort itself doesn't move us but is rewarded with a pull from above that elevates us.
Pour your heart and soul into it.
But very importantly - humble yourself.
If you need, play something reverential - like a gregorian chant or choir while you do.
It'd recommend sitting on the bare floor in a position not unlike the 'seiza' position. Anytime you get distracted, focus back upon the pain in your legs or your breathing.

>>16726755
For The Holy Bible try and go with RSV, Knox or Douay Rheims
I generally suggest looking into the Classics of Western Spirituality publisher after doing Proclus's Elements of Theology an ample amount of Edward Feser and Aquinas
Start here;
>Edward Feser - Introduction to Aquinas // The Last Superstition
>St. Augustine - Confessions
>G.K. Chesterton - Everlasting Man
>William Shakespeare - Hamlet
>Dante Aligheri - Divine Comedy
>Bela Menczer - Catholic Political Thought
>St. Athanasius - On the Incarnation
>JPII - Catechism
>St. Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologiae (Concise Transl.)
>Cardinal Sarah - The Day is Now Far Spent
>Michael Allen Gillespie - Theological Origins of Modernity

Going deeper
>Plato - Phaedo // Parmenides // Symposium // Phaedrus // Gorgias // The Republic // Timaeus // Laws + Epinomis
>Aristotle - Organon // Physics // Metaphysics // Nicomachean Ethics // The Politics
>Marcus Tullius Cicero - On the Republic, On Laws // On Duties // On Ends // On Old Age and Friendship
>Plotinus - The Enneads
>Iamblichus - Arithmetic Theology
>Proclus - Elements of Theology (read this after Parmenides and before Plotinus)
>Ancius Boethius - Consolation of Philosophy
>Eusebius - Ecclesiastical History
>St. Augustine - City of God
>Pseudo-Dionysius of Areopagite - Complete Works (Classics of Western Spirituality Print is good)
>John Damascene - The Fount of Knowledge
>Maxiumus the Confessor - Selected Writings (Same as above)
>Hildegard of Bingen - Scivias
>John of Climacus - Ladder of Divine Ascent
>Cloud of Unknowing
>Holmes - Apostolic Fathers
>St. Thomas Aquinas - Summa Contra Gentiles // Summa Theologiae (the real thing now - you cant go wrong with Aquinas)
>Dante Aligheri - De Monarchia
>Chretien Troyes - Arthurian Romances
>Meister Eckhart (Teacher & Preacher // Sermons by Classics of Western Spirituality are good versions too)
>Thomas a Kempis - Imitations of Christ
>St. John of the Cross - Dark Night of the Soul
>Catherine of Siena - The Dialogue
>Nicholas of Cusa - Selected Spiritual Writings (Classics of Western Spirituality print)
>Marsilio Ficino - Platonic Theology
>Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet - Discourse on Universal History

Then for more modern works;
>Giambattista Vico - New Science
>Joseph De Maistre - The Pope // Essay on the Generative Pricniple of Constitutions // St. Petersburg Dialogues (read all of his work)
>Alasdair MacIntyre - After Virtue // Whose Justice? Which Rationality? // Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry (again, really just read everything he's written lul)
>Charles Taylor - A Secular Age
>Edward Feser - Scholastic Metaphysics
>René Girard - Violence and the Sacred
>E. Michael Jones - Libido Dominandi
>E. Michael Jones - Logos Rising
>William T. Cavanaugh - Myth of Religious Violence
>Wayne J. Hankey Aquinas's Neoplatonism (Hankey is an absolutely fantastic modern theologian synthesizing Catholic Theology and Neoplatonic philosophy)
>Denzinger - Sources of Catholic Dogma