Catholic Women's Devotional Bible

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 1824 pages
• Published by: Zondervan September 1, 2000
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0310900611
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0310900610
• Book Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 1.5 inches
• Weighs: 2.2 pounds

Product Description
A Bible designed to make Scripture more accessible to Catholic women, focusing on deepening their spirituality by nurturing a love for God and his Word and teaching them how to use Scripture in prayer and daily life. It consists of the NRSV text with the deuterocanonical books, 260 Daily Meditations drawn from classic and contemporary sources, weekend meditation, character sketches of women of the Bible, and articles on living the Catholic traditions.

Back Cover Copy
The Catholic Womens Devotional Bible is designed specifically to nourish a womans spirituality, making it easy to form a habit of daily prayer and reading. It includes a years worth of meditations, drawn from classic and contemporary sources, all written by women.
Designed especially to meet the requirements of Catholics and those accustomed to liturgically-based forms of worship, it includes a six-year reading plan tied to the lectionary, making it easy to locate readings for daily and Sunday liturgies. Additionally, each weekend devotional is based on the life of a particular lady of the Bible, helping you see the relevance of her story today. Each book of the Bible is preceded by a brief introduction highlighting its historical context and its most important themes. Additional articles focus on topics like the sacraments, holy days, the liturgy, and spiritual direction, explaining the link between tradition and Scripture to help you gain a greater understanding of your faith.
Meditations are drawn from a rich variety of authors, including:

Joan Wester Anderson
Sister Wendy Beckett
Esther de Waal
Catherine of Siena
Dorothy Day
Fran Ferder
Briege McKenna
Julian of Norwich
Joyce of Rupp
Mother Teresa
Teresa of Lisieux
Macrina Wiederkehr

Scripture offers wisdom for important everyday issues like relationships, marriage, child-rearing, simplicity, prayer, and finding real peace. If you dip into it regularly, it will become a well of continual refreshment, nourishing your faith and strengthening your sense of Gods loving presence in your life.

Features Include:
- 260 Daily Meditations.
- 52 Weekend Devotions, Focusing on Women of the Bible.
- 50 Tradition Articles Linking Scripture with Important Elements of Catholic Life and Faith.
- Complete NRSV, Catholic Edition.
- 6-Year Reading Guide Keyed to the Catholic Lectionary.
- Indexes.
- Imprimatur.

Reader Reviews
I am a Catholic woman who was looking for a Biblical devotional for daily use. Obviously hard to find unless one uses Protestant books. I purchased this book, but immediately felt disappointed. I am an at-home, homeschooling, very traditional Catholic woman, and some of the reflections rubbed me the wrong way, or were hard to relate to, because they were so contemporary and did not seem universal enough to apply to my life. They also struck me less as meditations and more as anecdotes. However, after awhile, the book began having an unexpected effect on me which, while different than I expected, was positive nonetheless. While I could not relate to some of the anecdotes or reflections, I did find myself learning more and more about how to apply scripture to my life, beyond the obvious ways the Church has always taught. It was as if, by relating the experiences and thoughts of other women, the book was giving me permission to insert my own story, my own sufferings and struggles and joys, into salvation history. So, while I do not find myself meditating on the given reflections in the way I expected, they DO inspire meditation! A second positive effect is, I find myself obsessively reading scripture out of curiosity as to what the next reflection will be! Three words of caution: First, while some reflections are only a page or two apart, occasionally there are many pages between daily reflections. In that case, one must make a choice of reading many pages, or skip large sections of the Bible to keep pace with the sequence of reflections. Second, there are a few reflections which are questionable in terms of theological accuracy. One example describes Christ's birth as involving pain, blood, and an umbilical cord, which sounds to me like a denial of the Virgin Birth. Another cautions us against allowing our religious rituals to come between us and another person; this can be read in an acceptably orthodox way as advising us not to be too rigid, but could also be read as permission to skip Mass in the name of charity. Third, I am personally not fond of the inclusive-language translation of the NRSV. I realize it is approved by the Church, but sometimes in the awkward effort to use inclusive language, the meaning is diluted or completely altered. For example, sometimes the word "man" is used not simply to refer generically to any human being, but is meant to refer to Adam, either literally or figuratively. Therefore, changing it to "person" or "humankind" loses some of the intended meaning. As does the use of "students" in place of "brothers"; clearly those words are not synonymous. Thankfully, there are footnotes indicating the original words whenever these alterations are used. But these alterations seem unnecessary; I don't know of any woman who has ever been offended by the original language of the Bible, which was, after all, authored by God. Overall, a worthwhile book. I would like to see a somewhat different version for women, perhaps drawing more heavily upon women saints than contemporary authors, and with reflections which are more truly meditative than anecdotal,using a non-incusive-language text. Comments (4) | | (Report this)