By: Edalat Hope from Virtue Books
On the 31st of July, there was a massive announcement.
St John Henry Newman is going to be named the 38th Doctor of the Church. And honestly, it couldn’t have come at a better time. In a world full of confusion, Cardinal Newman reminds us of something many Catholics have forgotten.
Newman wasn’t always Catholic. He was an Anglican pastor and a brilliant academic at Oxford. Amongst Protestant circles, he was actually quite a renowned scholar.
Yet, one day, this professor knelt before Fr. Dominic Barberi and asked to be received into the Catholic Church.
At the heart of John Henry Newman’s conversion was his great love for the Early Church Fathers.
Cardinal Newman was an absolute mastermind of the faith who would spend hours pouring through the writings of the Church Fathers. It was particularly after reading saints like Leo the Great and Augustine that Newman began to see it.
The fullness of Christian truth rests in the Catholic Church.
After reading the Fathers, he confessed that he was on the wrong side of history. “I saw my face in that mirror, and I was a Monophysite (in religious error).”
Through much prayer and reading, Professor Newman would grow to become not only a saint but a Doctor of the Church.
Despite this great success story, many people see the Church Fathers as terrifying.
Some people worry about how long and confusing they can be. But it’s OK.
The Church offers a path for the faithful, even accessible to the busiest of Catholic mums. I would encourage everyone to read these great fathers… but probably not because of the reasons you’re thinking of.
Here are 9 reasons why you should read the Church Fathers (even if you’re not an academic)
- Grow in Holiness
Spiritual reading isn’t just about facts but about becoming holier. Reading the Church Fathers is like a spiritual fertilizer that nourishes the soul and helps virtue take root.
Spiritual reading inspires us to think about God more often. This may seem trivial at first, but really, it’s your thoughts that have the biggest effect on the way you behave. St Paul encouraged the Philippians to contemplate whatever is good and noble. And even St Jerome recommended to “Always have in your hand a pious book, that with this shield you may defend yourself against bad thoughts.” Spiritual reading raises our minds towards the divine.
When we read the Fathers, we begin to examine our own lives. Their holiness becomes a mirror. When we read about the virtues of the saints, it’s an opportunity to see how we measure up against that example. We see our advancements but also our faults, so that they can eventually be overcome
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St Alphonsus Liguori says to grab one small, practical point from your spiritual reading and actually live it out. That’s how you grow in virtue.
In fact, he and St Bernard were so convinced of this that they said spiritual reading and prayer are “the arms by which hell is conquered and paradise won.”
- Listen to God’s Voice
Every devout Catholic wants to know God’s will. But what if the problem isn’t that He isn’t speaking, but that we’re not listening?
St Ambrose said that “We speak to him when we pray. We listen to him when we read.”
God often speaks in silence. And reading the Fathers puts you in that sacred space of silence where you can grow.
In this period of reading, you don’t just learn more but are given more clarity about your own life.
It was in reading ‘The Life of St Anthony’ that St. Augustine advanced his conversion towards God. The same thing with St Ignatius of Loyola. After reading the lives of the saints while bedridden, he redirected his life and started the Jesuits.
When people read the Father well, they listen to God.
3. They’re a buffet
When people hear the word ‘Church Father’, they can get overwhelmed.
And it makes sense.
Some of these authors have written thousands of pages of super sophisticated and complex theology. But you can take a deep breath.
The Church Fathers aren’t a one-size-fits-all experience.
If you ask any scholar, they’ll let you in on something. Very, very few people have actually read all the Church Fathers. It’s impossible. There are just too many. But that can be to your advantage.
Instead of imagining the Fathers as this big steak that you have to eat even if you’re full, think of it rather as a buffet.
In a buffet, you don’t eat everything. You can’t. But people are still excited to go because they can choose what they want and tailor a nutritious meal to their own appetite.
Similarly, if you aren’t very academic, you don’t have to abandon the Church Fathers. Instead, read the Fathers who don’t focus on sophisticated abstract theology and are more practical.
Conversely, if you really want to challenge yourself, there will be stuff for you. If you want to learn more about scripture, the lives of the saints, or Catholic teaching, I promise you there is enough for you there.
In life, many people stunt themselves before they can even start growing. Many people give up on their intellectual life because of fear.
Fr Gregory Pine recommends at least 1 hr of study per week to grow in holiness, even to those who aren’t intellectually gifted.
Although it’s good to be challenged, it’s not about reading something confusing. It’s about making an effort to contemplate God and be transformed into His likeness.
4. It’s Ecumenical
Pope John Paul II and St Thomas Aquinas are absolute spiritual masterminds. However, outside of the Catholic Church, they are rarely read.
The Fathers offer something different and ecumenical.
Their voices predate the major schisms which have divided the Church, so they are ‘Fathers’ to many.
The Calvinists may not read many modern Catholic writers, but have a deep love for St Augustine. Similarly, the Orthodox have a shared appreciation for the Eastern Fathers like St Basil and John Chrysostom.
These early witnesses to the Catholic faith give us an opportunity to discuss Christianity on a common ground. It provides a unique authority for understanding the Bible, without solely resorting to one’s personal interpretation.
Many Christians like Dr. John Bergsma and Dr. Scott Hahn converted from Protestantism after realizing that the early Church Fathers, whom they honoured, were Catholic.
5. Better Understand the Church
Christ commanded every Apostle to preach the Gospel. But only a few actually wrote anything down.
All the Apostles preached what Christ had taught them. They preached what we now call Apostolic Tradition, the oral teaching of Jesus and the Apostles.
These original disciples died in the first century. But the beauty about Apostolic Tradition is that these teachings are passed down to their successors. John believed in the True Presence of the Eucharist and taught St Ignatius of Antioch. From there, St Ignatius would give one of the earliest defenses of the Real Presence.
The Fathers are a window into how the earliest generations of Christians and Apostles understood and lived the Gospel.
When Irenaeus wrote about St Clement of Rome, a student of Peter, he had the “preaching of the apostles still echoing [in his ears].” And St Augustine affirmed that “What they learned, they taught.”
The Fathers speak about dogmas and certain practices, not as private opinion, but as being universally held since the Apostolic age.
If you want to see what the Church which Christ made looks like, don’t invent a time machine. Just read the early Church Fathers
6. Interpret Scripture
Scripture is infallible. And individual Church Fathers are not.
Whilst that’s true, that doesn’t mean that single Church Fathers are irrelevant. In the Second Vatican Council, the document that discusses holy scripture (Dei Verbum) also wrote that “she [the Church] also encourages the study of the holy Fathers of both East and West and of sacred liturgies.”
It is because when these early Christians agree on the meaning of scripture and have a consensus, it likely points to it coming from an Apostolic Tradition.
Currently, there are thousands of denominations. As we’ve seen, interpretation of scripture can differ… a lot. Protestants resort to the ‘Bible alone’, yet still differ on the meaning of basic things like Baptism.
So, having some sort of authority to guide what some scriptures mean is a great help.
As you read the Fathers, you’ll notice just how much they quote scripture and how they understood these verses.
This doesn’t mean Catholics can’t interpret the Bible, or that they can understand a verse in only one way. Rather than the Council of Trent’s reform decree, it is unwise and dangerous to interpret scripture against the consent of these Fathers.
7. Become Wiser
The Church Fathers were not just a bunch of academics but were leaders.
In the early Church, the roles of priest, teacher, and saint were interchangeable.
The very first Church Father, St Clement of Rome, was a writer but was also the Bishop of Rome and a saint. And the thing he’s writing about isn’t to clarify dogma but to help a Church crisis.
The Church Fathers aren’t like modern-day professors. They don’t just focus on brain knowledge. Throughout their life, they’ve focused on divine wisdom and intimacy. And because of that, they have a great ability to draw us to God and inspire this loving wisdom in us.
A lot of these fathers wrote the way they preached. That means as you read these Fathers, you begin to understand the way their mind works as if you met them or sat in on their sermons.
We don’t all have the ability to ask the saints for some wise advice. But sometimes, they give it to us in advance.
8. Defend the Faith
St Peter tells Christians to “Always be ready to make your defense… accounting for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). Today, how many Catholics are unable to do that?
People in society are looking for answers, and many Catholics aren’t prepared to give them. And because of this, many people drift away from the Church to atheism or other religions.
If there were more people to give a defense of the faith that we cherish, I can guarantee there would be more Catholics.
Reading the Church Fathers can be very good for apologetics because many of the Fathers themselves were apologists. The early Church had to battle heresies and persecutions, so to defend the Church, they wrote that they believed and rebutted these claims. Sometimes, even the same problems the early Christians were facing, we’re still battling today. The Fathers give you an insight into how to approach certain questions.
But even by writing their beliefs, they clearly show what the earliest Christians believed.
To those who say that the divinity of Christ was invented at Nicea, the writings of St Ignatius of Antioch obliterate this claim when he calls Jesus “God”.
To those who say that the early church never prayed for the dead, St Cyril of Jerusalem and the Fathers would disagree.
And to those who say there were no bishops or apostolic succession in the early Church, Jerome and St Irenaeus would beg to differ.
9. Develop a Love for East and West
In the Catholic Church, there can be a bit of Western-centrism.
I know that the Pope is in Rome and that the majority of the Catholic Church is Roman. However, the word ‘Catholic’ means universal. True Catholicism expands beyond the borders of Roman Catholic traditions and flows over into the beauty of Eastern Catholicism.
When you really get into the Fathers, it’s almost impossible not to develop a love for both the East and the West.
After reading the works of Fathers like St Basil, John Chrysostom, and Athanasius, you can begin to see the truth and beauty that lies in the Eastern Church.
Similarly, many Orthodox people can develop an Eastern-centrism. However, after reading some of the works of Augustine, Ambrose, or Jerome, it’s difficult not to fall in love with the Western Fathers.
The Church Fathers were Catholic. And to be Catholic means universal.
Are the Church Fathers necessary for you to read?
Not at all. There are many people who were made saints even without reading.
But reading the Church Fathers in a prayerful manner is certainly helpful to holiness. Prayer and spiritual reading are the two arms by which we are drawn closer to Heaven and further from Hell.
There is an abundance of readings of the Fathers.
About Our Guest Blogger
Edalat Hope is a Catholic blog writer for ‘Virtue Books and Gifts’, an apostolate dedicated to deepening the love of God across Australia and beyond. His aim is to help make accessible the classic spiritual works and practices that have formed saints for generations. https://www.virtuebooks.com.au
