After the penance service last Wednesday evening, Holy Wednesday, iow, the Wednesday before Easter, I was hungry and drove down to the Hamilton Marketplace on 130.

Jersey Mike's had already closed, so I prepared to drive home when I saw Panera's lights on. I tried their new turkey sandwich. It was alright but woefully expensive.

The Barnes & Noble next door was still open and I had been a good girl lately, especially taking the sacrament of reconciliation, so I thought I would at least look around and perhaps treat myself to a book or two. Browsing is a high in itself, if you don't know.

The Christian section was plastered with DaVinci Code and Gospel of Judas books. I felt sorrow that someone might think this kind of intense marketing epitomizes Christian publishing in general. To tell the truth, I do not know why these topics are in the Christian book section, next to the Bibles and the catechisms. I guess, in the popular modern mind, the topics belong together? And perhaps marketing is aggressive because the publishers know their time is short (Rev. 12:12). Soon these topics will be discredited in the minds of most.

That was a digression. I'm not even tempted by those books.

I selected a paperback by Joseph Pearce called "C. S. Lewis and the Catholic Church". It is published by Ignatius Press and Pearce is a convert to Catholicism. I have a couple of books from Ignatius Press that I like. However, I am cautious about Fr. Fessio -- based on private comments from a friend who knew him in San Francisco. Fessio's relationship with Pope Benedict is well-known and sales of the former cardinal's theology books must be quite a windfall for the company.

So far, the book has held my interest and I am an impatient reader these days with the kids home on break. The big thing that I never put together in Lewis's life was the early and prolonged influence of Puritanism. He had a love / hate relationship with it. Geez, I don't know how I missed such a blatant biographical item but I did.

The second book I haven't started yet. Even before I bought it, I thought to myself that my husband probably bought it off my "secret" Amazon Wish List for my birthday or for Mother's Day. I remember logging him into my "secret" Amazon Wish List a few weeks ago. He said that I needed some books to read and he would treat me. So I may get a duplicate. It would not be the first time that's happened.

Anyway, I selected Borg's "Reading the Bible Again For the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously But Not Literally" because, well, I'm thinking that Borg died, what, last fall? No, no, I'm wrong, that was Bob Funk. Still, both Jesus Seminar people and I've only read Crossan, if his autobiography counts. Anyway, I need to find that "second naivete"** that Ricoeur speaks of. I read Scripture very, very critically, from a literary perspective. You know, form criticism, source criticism, etc.

** The "second naivete"' refers to Barth's and Ricoeur's common conviction that theological interpretation of the Bible ought to lead us beyond a critical preoccupation with the text to a fresh encounter with the divine reality to which the text bears witness.