Background
Romano Guardini was born on February 17, 1885 in Verona, into the family of a merchant. His family moved to Mainz when he was one year old and he lived in Germany for the rest of his life.
Guardini attended the Rabanus-Maurus-Gymnasium.
(The only true and unedited telling of the life of Christ...)
The only true and unedited telling of the life of Christhis life and times, in historical context, but not lacking the psychology behind his physical being and spirit. Unlike other books seeking to strip Jesus' story to reveal only the human being, Romano Guardini's The Lord gives the complete story of Jesus Christas man, Holy Ghost, and Creator. Pope Benedict XVI lauds Guardini's work as providing a full understanding of the Son of God, away from the prejudice that rationality engenders. Put long-held myths aside and discover the entire truth about God's only begotten Son.
https://www.amazon.com/Lord-Romano-Guardini/dp/0895267144/?tag=2022091-20
1937
(In this profound little work, originally published in 191...)
In this profound little work, originally published in 1911, Fr. Romano Guardini speaks with poetic wisdom about the fundamental language of symbols out of which the Sacred Liturgy is woven. When we speak this language fluently, we can offer ourselves, body and soul, more completely to the Lord.
https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Signs-Peter-Kwasniewski/dp/1508832080/?tag=2022091-20
1946
(A treasury of spiritual wisdom on how to prepare your min...)
A treasury of spiritual wisdom on how to prepare your mind, body, and heart for Mass from one of the twentieth century's great theologians, Meditations before Mass is Romano Guardini's smart and beautiful guide to spiritual preparation for the source and summit of Christian worship. Meditations before Mass is a wise, pastoral, and timeless classic on preparing for Mass--it is an example of twentieth-century theologian Romano Guardini at his very best. Meditations before Mass was written before Vatican II, but its relevance has endured over the past sixty years.
https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-before-Mass-Romano-Guardini/dp/0870612859/?tag=2022091-20
1956
(An extended inquiry into the nature of the modern age, as...)
An extended inquiry into the nature of the modern age, as well as a historical, philosophical, and theological analysis of modernity's prospects in the next millennium. This expanded edition includes the original text of The End of the Modern World, as well as the entirety of its explicit sequel, Power and Responsibility. Guardini analyzes modern man's conception of himself in the world, and examines the nature and use of power. It is the principle of individual responsibility that weaves both works into a seamless, comprehensive, and compelling moral statement. Guardini tirelessly argues that human beings are responsible moral agents, possessed of free will and answerable to God and their fellow man.
https://www.amazon.com/End-Modern-World-Romano-Guardini/dp/1882926587/?tag=2022091-20
1956
https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Before-Mass-Romano-Guardini/dp/1622821661/?tag=2022091-20
1956
(Originally written in 1918, this profound reflection on t...)
Originally written in 1918, this profound reflection on the nature of liturgical worship still stands as a guiding light for today's renewal of worship and prayer. In poetic terms, it clarifies the underlying principles and existential implications of the belief that when Christians join in the Eucharist and other liturgical celebrations, they do so not as discrete individuals but as interconnected members of the one People of God.
https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Liturgy-Milestones-Catholic-Theology/dp/0824517776/?tag=2022091-20
1978
(The Human Experience consists of four essays that converg...)
The Human Experience consists of four essays that converge into a discourse on the unfathomable mystery of what it means to be human. The first articulates providence as the singular embrace of free human agency with the divine dicta of history, as seen in the life of St. Francis of Assisi. The Kierkegaard-inspired “Meaning of Melancholy” shows the critical role of melancholy in illuminating the meaning of the human condition.
https://www.amazon.com/Human-Experience-Providence-Melancholy-Community/dp/1944418849/?tag=2022091-20
(You've matured, but have your prayers? Has your understan...)
You've matured, but have your prayers? Has your understanding of prayer matured since you learned to pray at your mother's knee? Or, like many of us, do you continue to pray, year after year, as you were taught as a child? If your prayers are difficult or boring, your problem may not be so much failure of will (you do try to pray well) as lack of knowledge about how mature souls pray. Most of us have been doing it so long that we pray automatically without really thinking about it.
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Praying-Principles-Methods-Christian/dp/0918477344/?tag=2022091-20
(You may have read the Catechism of the Catholic Church an...)
You may have read the Catechism of the Catholic Church and you may have studied The Baltimore Catechism, too, but if you don t know the Catechism that Jesus gave us, you don t know your Faith. Christ taught us the Lord s Prayer as the first and most important of all our catechisms. If you haven t considered it carefully, now s the time to begin — and here s the book to help you uncover the riches Christ placed in these familiar words. Unlock the secrets of the Lord's Prayer Msgr. Romano Guardini, acclaimed author of The Rosary of Our Lady and The Art of Praying, here reveals the holy wisdom of these 55 words from Jesus.
https://www.amazon.com/Lords-Prayer-Romano-Guardini/dp/0918477468/?tag=2022091-20
(These pages do not tell you what Jesus did, you know that...)
These pages do not tell you what Jesus did, you know that already! Instead, they take you into the mind and heart of the Son of God in a way you may not have thought possible. You will come to understand the inner logic of Jesus ministry: why Jesus life had to take the course it took, why He could not have been the earthly king many were expecting, and why He could not have conformed to the conventional ideas of a warrior, a hero, or even just a successful man. You will even see why He had to be abandoned by everyone including His disciples, yet His Father remained close to Him then, just as He remains close to you now.
https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Christ-Romano-Guardini/dp/1622822226/?tag=2022091-20
(This book collects a fascinating series of letters writte...)
This book collects a fascinating series of letters written by theologian-philosopher Romano Guardini in the mid-1920s in which he works out for the first time his sense of the challenges of humanity in a culture increasingly dominated by the machine. With prophetic clarity and unsettling farsightedness, Guardini's letters poignantly capture the personal implications and social challenges of living in the technological age — concerns that have now come to fruition seventy years after they were first raised.
https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Lake-Como-Explorations-Ressourcement/dp/0802801080/?tag=2022091-20
(Grow beyond “Thou Shalt Not” Learn how to cultivate virtu...)
Grow beyond “Thou Shalt Not” Learn how to cultivate virtue so that you’ll please God in what you do— not just in what you don’t do. Here are ways to make the key virtues that lead you to God a permanent part of your character.
https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Virtues-That-Lead-You-ebook/dp/B005KC33MA/?tag=2022091-20
Romano Guardini was born on February 17, 1885 in Verona, into the family of a merchant. His family moved to Mainz when he was one year old and he lived in Germany for the rest of his life.
Guardini attended the Rabanus-Maurus-Gymnasium. After studying chemistry in Tübingen for two semesters, and economics in Munich and Berlin for three, he decided to become a priest. After studying Theology in Freiburg im Breisgau and Tübingen, he was ordained in Mainz in 1910.
Although he was born in Verona, Italy, Romano Guardini moved early in life to Germany. He was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1910, and throughout the remainder of his life he became widely known as one of the most respected theologians of the twentieth century. He wrote in German, but much of his work is available to English-speaking readers through translations, many appearing years after the books’ original German publications.
Guardini fulfilled many roles during his life: chaplain, professor, literary critic, and film reviewer. His reputation rests, however, on his profound erudition and the wisdom he consistently brought to the theological and moral problems he explored — in an elegant, meditative style — in his writings. Although he used his influence to help bring about the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, with its far-reaching reforms of the Catholic Church, he was regarded as somewhat of a reactionary, a throwback to an era when the doctrines, teachings, and traditions of the Catholic Church had profound meaning and influence in the day-to-day lives of Catholics.
In his book "The Virtues: On Forms of Moral Life" Guardini writes not a treatise but a series of reflective essays on how to practice such virtues as “disinteredness”, “courtesy”, and “justice before God.” The Virtues is recommended by a Choice critic “for anyone concerned with the deeper qualities of man.” In "The Wisdom of the Psalms" he offers a series of near-mystical meditations on selected Psalms, providing the reader with a guide for devotion based on the scriptural texts.
In 1923 he was appointed to a chair in Philosophy of Religion at the University of Berlin. In the 1935 essay "Der Heiland" (The Saviour) he criticized Nazi mythologizing of the person of Jesus and emphasized the Jewishness of Jesus. The Nazis forced him to resign from his Berlin position in 1939. From 1943 to 1945 he retired to Mooshausen, where his friend Josef Weiger had been parish priest since 1917.
In 1945 Guardini was appointed professor in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Tübingen and resumed lecturing on the Philosophy of Religion. In 1948, he became professor at the University of Munich, where he remained until retiring for health reasons in 1962. Guardini died in Munich, Bavaria on October 1, 1968. He was buried in the priests’ cemetery of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Munich. His estate was left to the Catholic Academy in Bavaria that he had co-founded.
In 1952, Guardini won the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. Guardini's book "The Lord", published in English translation in the late 1940s, remained in print for decades and, according to publisher Henry Regnery, was "one of the most successful books I have ever published." Father Guardini has been highly praised by both Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.
(You've matured, but have your prayers? Has your understan...)
(A treasury of spiritual wisdom on how to prepare your min...)
1956(This book collects a fascinating series of letters writte...)
(You may have read the Catechism of the Catholic Church an...)
(These pages do not tell you what Jesus did, you know that...)
(An extended inquiry into the nature of the modern age, as...)
1956(The only true and unedited telling of the life of Christ...)
1937(Originally written in 1918, this profound reflection on t...)
1978(The Human Experience consists of four essays that converg...)
(Grow beyond “Thou Shalt Not” Learn how to cultivate virtu...)
(In this profound little work, originally published in 191...)
1946Yet while Guardini lamented the erosion of Christian Revelation in people’s lives, he remained confident that men and women could find a way to retain faith despite the turmoil and rapid change of twentieth-century life.
Guardini's books were often powerful studies of traditional themes in the light of present-day challenges or examinations of current problems as approached from the Christian, and especially Catholic, tradition. He was able to get inside such different worldviews as those of Socrates, Plato, Augustine, Dante, Pascal, Kierkegaard, Dostojevski and Nietzsche, and make sense of them for modern readers.
It is difficult to summarize such a rich and varied body of work, but at least three broad themes can be identified in the author’s many books. One theme concerns the role and place of man in modern, technological society. He recognizes even at this early date that the twentieth century is profoundly different from the past. Guardini, however, remained optimistic in the face of the changes, believing that it was possible to create “a new virtue, a new skill in intellectual government in which... we can break free.”
A second broad theme that emerges in Guardini’s work is the problem of faith. He explored this problem most effectively in "Pascal for Our Time", a book that examines the spiritual life of the seventeenth-century philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal. A final broad question that Guardini’s work attempts to answer is less philosophical and theological and more pastoral: What role does the Church play in people’s lives, and how can individuals become better Catholics?
Quotations: “People become saints for who they are, not for what they write.”
