“Modern spiritual classics” recommended by Kathleen Norris, Martin E. Marty, Joyce Rupp, Joan Chittister, and other prominent U.S. Catholic contributors

Spiritual seekers have long looked to free their souls in written wisdom, but those hoping to climb the heights today might find themselves buried under a pile of books at the nearest Barnes and Noble. From The Secret (Atria) to The Purpose-Driven Life (Zondervan) to the latest selection from the queen of daytime television, it can be hard to discern the diamonds from the dross.

Who is today's St. Augustine, whose fifth-century spiritual autobiography, Confessions, is still in paperback? Who can wield a pen with the likes of Julian of Norwich or St. Teresa of Ávila? Will any of the current crop of gurus survive the next decade, much less the next century?

We at U.S. Catholic asked some of our long-time contributors-award winners, theologians, activists, scientists, and writers of classics themselves-to choose a work that may indeed feed souls for generations. What they picked-from fiction to film, poetry to peacemaking-may surprise you. And though you won't likely find the nine works reviewed here on Oprah's next list, we hope that you may at least discover a new addition to your spiritual bookshelf.

Selected Poems
By Denise Levertov (New Directions, 2002)
Denise Levertov's work surely stands as a spiritual classic for our time. Levertov had a lifelong commitment to social justice and a gift for writing about both politics and faith in a way that did not stifle her poetic gifts.

Scriptural allusions abound in her early poems-"O Taste and See," "The Jacob's Ladder"-but beginning in the 1980s, Levertov's work openly reflected her rediscovered Christian faith. In a 1990 essay, "Work that Enfaiths," she describes envisioning a long poem, a "Mass for the Day of St. Thomas Didymus," as a "secular meditation," much as musical composers have done for centuries. By the time she was working on the Agnus Dei she discovered that "the experience of writing the poem-that long swim through waters of unknown depth-had been also a conversion process."

Levertov's struggles with doubt and aversion to institutional religion will resonate with many, who might also value the way she grounds her poetry about faith in the natural world. "The Mountain's Daily Speech is Silence" is the title of one poem. And "Flickering Mind," which begins, "Lord, not you, / it is I who am absent," is a primer on what it means to pray.

In a 1984 essay, "A Poet's View," Levertov addresses head-on her gradual moving from a "regretful skepticism" to "a position of Christian belief," her increased willingness to adopt the rituals of the church in the hope that faith might follow, "and with it some way to deal intellectually with...troublesome mysteries and paradoxes."

The fruits of her endeavor are evident in the richness of her poetry from this period. In "Annunciation" she yanks the biblical story off the page and puts it squarely inside the reader's life, asking, "Aren't there annunciations/of one sort or another/in most lives?"

Reviewed by Kathleen Norris, whose most recent book is Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life (Riverhead, 2008).

Compassion: Listening to the Cries of the World
By Christina Feldman (Rodmell Press, 2005)
Is there a virtue more indispensable in our world today than that of compassion? I doubt it. Browse through local and world news. Much of it reveals the necessity of compassion for both personal and world transformation.

My first influential encounter with this quality began in 1982 with Compassion by Donald McNeill, Douglas Morrison, and Henri Nouwen (Image). Their presentation of Jesus as the embodiment of the "God of compassion" both inspired and challenged me.

Ever since then I've felt drawn to embrace and live this gospel quality. Consequently, I've read and studied numerous books on the topic. But not until I came across Christina Feldman's Compassion: Listening to the Cries of the World, did I feel so motivated.

Although Feldman's style is non-academic, her work breathes foundational depth. In eight short chapters she urges the reader to reflect on the components of compassion "for ourselves, the blameless, those who cause suffering, those we love, and those in adversity." She consistently inspires and challenges her readers to live compassionately not by offering guilt-ridden "shoulds" but by clear, concise statements, such as the following:

"Compassion speaks of the willingness to engage with tragedy, loss, and pain. Its domain is not only the world of those you love and care for, but equally the people who threaten you, the countless people you don't know, the homeless person on the street, and the situations of anger and hatred you recoil from. It is here that you learn about the depths of tolerance and understanding that are possible for each one of us. It is here that you learn about dignity, meaning, and greatness of heart."

This book, written by a Buddhist dedicated to living compassionately for four decades, contains immense potential for rousing the reader toward living the central quality in the life and teachings of Jesus. It belongs on every Christian bookshelf.

Reviewed by Joyce Rupp, a Servite Sister, spiritual guide, international speaker, retreat facilitator, and author of Open the Door: A Journey to the True Self (Sorin, 2008), which is available at joycerupp.com.

Life Together
By Dietrich Bonhoeffer (HarperOne, 1939, 1954, 1978)
My "modern spiritual classic" is Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together. The story of this little book is so dramatic that telling it in detail might distract from its stunningly simple contents.

The story: When Hitler came to power in Germany, the Gestapo put priests and ministers on its "to be watched" list. As resistance grew among the too-few protesters, "watching" turned to snooping, limiting, eventually arresting, and finally executing the dissidents, as in Bonhoeffer's own case.

When the official churches and seminaries were taken over by Nazis and their stooges, courageous evangelical Protestants formed a gutsy "Confessing Church," which stood up for Jews and the Christian gospel. A score and more seminarians fled to Finkenwalde, an almost hidden estate in the dunes near the North Sea. A few landowners who loved theology and admired the seminarians provided housing and classroom space.

The leader was 30-year-old Dietrich Bonhoeffer. By then he had written a fashionably pretentious doctoral dissertation, had been to Rome, Barcelona, New York, Cuba, and Mexico, and even served a German church in London. But in 1935 he was needed to teach and to lead.

In Life Together none of the turgid style designed to impress Bonhoeffer's theological professors remains. This book, not a record of Finkenwalde life but a book of celebration and counsel that reflects his experience there, has much to say to Christians everywhere today. It was used during church struggles in South Africa and would be a profitable read for church struggles and soul struggles in North America.

To the point: In our culture "everyone" loves Jesus and wants to be "spiritual," but often in isolation. Life Together speaks to the heart, showing why self-directed spirituality is self-serving and self-defeating. Bonhoeffer's illegal seminarians made a great point of being grounded in and related to the community, the suffering and messy church. In italics he warned: "Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. Let him who is not in community beware of being alone." We've been warned-and inspired.

Reviewed by Martin E. Marty, Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago and an ordained Lutheran minister.