There is no shortage of nourishing Catholic food for thought, but there is a shortage of people telling you where to find it. COMPASS wants to reverse the shortage. Each week we recommend a book worth reading - and we tell you why; then we tell you where you can buy it on-line, for cheap. St Augustine read his way up to the heights of holiness, why can't we?
Ever read a letter written by a devil? Here's a book full of them. Screwtape is an expert tempter, and he is doing his best to coach his nephew devil into the temptors' hall of fame. He follows his nephew's progress and dispatches secret instructions about how to counteract God's action in the life of us poor humans. Lewis' unmatched style and alarmingly accurate insight into our sinful tendencies exposes the devil's ploys and helps you make sense of a lot of things that you probably didnt even know were besetting you. This book will change your world - guaranteed. That's why you gotta read it! Try the following choice tidbit for a taste of this revolutionary work.
"My dear Wormwood,
Even under Slubgob you must have learned at college the routine technique of sexual temptation, and since, for us spirits, this whole subject is one of considerable tedium (though necessary as part of our training) I will pass it over. But on the larger issues involved I think you have a good deal to learn. The Enemy's demand on humans takes the form of a dilemma: either complete abstinence or unmitigated monogamy. Ever since our Father's first great victory, we have rendered the former very difficult to them. The latter, for the last few centuries, we have been closing up as a way of escape. We have done this through the poets and novelists by persuading the humans that a curious, and usually short-lived, experience which they call "being in love" is the only respectable ground for marriage; that marriage can, and ought to, render this excitement permanent; and that a marriage which does not do so is no longer binding. This idea is our parody of an idea that came from the Enemy& [from Chapter 18]"
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