Catholic Fire

I have read nearly all of Christopher West’s books, and, in my opinion, Fill These Hearts: God, Sex, and the Universal Longing is his best book to date. In Fill These Hearts , West has done a masterful job in weaving together lessons from classical and contemporary art, literature, music, movies, and the Christian mystical tradition to explain the deep yearnings within our bodies and spirits as revealing the cry of our hearts for God. West believes that most people view the Christian life as a life of stoic repression and he methodically sets out to demolish the idea that God wants us to block the deepest desires of our hearts. According to West, God does not want us to repress our desires nor does He want us to seek immediate gratification by indulging our desires. Instead, God wants us to sublimate the world’s pleasures and to ready our hearts for the banquet He has prepared for each of us. In Fill These Hearts , West seeks to help us aim our desire according to God’s design a...

Christopher West, senior fellow of the Theology of the Body Institute, was interviewed last week for an in-depth feature segment on ABC’s Nightline. The interview was filmed on location in North Carolina during one of his conferences and also in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, near the headquarters of the Theology of the Body Institute. The piece will air either tonight (May 7) or tomorrow night (May 8). ABC Nightline airs at 11:35 EST. Check your local listing for more information. Nightline has an average nightly viewing audience of four million. Please pray for those who will be exposed to the message through this medium. Over eight hours of taped interviews were edited down to seven minutes. We ask for your prayers through the intercession of John Paul II that the message of The Theology of the Body will be presented authentically. Read the ABC Online article by clicking here.

Reading Christopher West’s new book, Heaven’s Song, is a life-changing experience that will leave a lasting imprint on your heart as well as your soul. Heaven’s Song possesses the power to purify and to heal the hurts inflicted on each one of us by the culture of death, thus, drawing our hearts into a deeper, more intimate union with the Lord. It possesses the potential to heal the individual, the married couple, the Church, and society as a whole. In Heaven’s Song, West explores the newly discovered hidden talks of Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, which he shared in his Wednesday audiences. These ten prepared talks (which were never delivered due to the delicacy of their nature) represent some of Pope John Paul’s most beautiful work. The themes of the ten tracts include: deeply moving reflections on the intimacy of lovers in the Song of Songs, penetrating insights into the marriage of Tobias and Sarah in the Book of Tobit, and the new illuminations on the “spousal nature” of ...