By Subhasis Chattopadhyay –
To read is to be replenished. To read is to be privileged to fight against unbelief and atheism. For when bad times come, which inevitably come, we tend to lose our confidence in the goodness of God. The nature of evil is that it will try to make us believe that there is no goodness in the world just because we encounter radical Kantian evil in our everyday lives. Lent is a time when all people of goodwill remember the Messiah’s one-to-one combat with the Father of Lies. Lectio Divina or holy reading goes a long way in helping us defeat the wiles of Satan. In Hinduism too swadhyaya (self-study of the Sacred Scriptures of the Hindus) is stressed.
The following books will help us self-actualise:
The Prayer of the Frog in two volumes. These two books are 
anthologies which must be read by everyone, whether they are Hindu or Christian. The anecdotes are hilarious, and these books will teach us why it is important not to take ourselves seriously. Often excessive asceticism leads us to term others reprobates. Fr. Anthony de Mello SJ teaches us first to find the moat in our own eyes and then not bother about the moats in the eyes of anyone else. Life is too beautiful for us to waste in fault-finding.
Begin with The Seven Storey Mountain by Fr Thomas Merton. The prose will dazzle you to search for his other works, and it will do you no harm to read through his Journals. What sets Fr. Merton apart from other religious writers is his existential honesty. He had differences with his Trappist superiors; he chronicles that. He had an affair with a nurse; he chronicles this too. Because of his agápē, he remains a misunderstood bridge between Catholicism and Buddhism. 
Thomas Merton is as honest as one can be in a world where everyone wants to paint an immaculate picture of themselves. A lesser monk would never write of his arrogance or affairs. Merton’s academic work on the poet William Blake, and engagement with art made him a moderate man who will be remembered long after harsh men are forgotten as fanatics. Frs. Merton and de Mello make Roman Catholicism truly Catholic — universal in all its honesty and foibles.
This Lent make sure that you practice moderation in most
things. If other religions and religious dialogues spook you, then this is the sacrifice that you must try in your life: God’s Light and Love shine everywhere and, in all hearts, and all of us are called to glorify this Light. If you want to know deeply about other religions from a Christian angle, then read Fr. Jacques Dupuis SJ’s Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism and if you want to know 
what Hindus think of the Gospels read Swami Muni Narayana Prasad’s Christ the Guru: A Vedantic Key to the Gospels.
It is very difficult to understand suffering. It is very difficult to experience the suffering of others. Without understanding suffering one cannot follow Christ: therefore, we must understand the greatest Western philosopher of the last century, Edith Stein PhD. St. Edith Stein’s On the Problem of Empathy is the one book needed for understanding the power of empathy in the most violent century in human history, that is, the last century.
Sacrifice is often internal; bring to the Lord the full force of your intellect in understanding God through these books as the Little Drummer Boy brought his drummer’s skill to the King of Kings. It does not take much to make God happy. Happy reading.
Subhasis Chattopadhyay is a blogger and an Assistant Professor in English (UG & PG Departments of English) at Narasinha Dutt College affiliated to the University of Calcutta. He has additional qualifications in Biblical Studies and separately, Spiritual Psychology. He also studied the Minor Upanishads separately. He remains a staunch Hindu. He had written extensively for the Catholic Herald published from Calcutta. From 2010 he reviews books for the Ramakrishna Mission and his reviews have been showcased in Ivy League Press-websites.
Good selection, Subhasis. Great reading. Be well.
Thank you Father.