Church Library

Dear brothers and sisters, we welcome you to our church library, where you can find answers to all questions thanks to the versatile collection of spiritual literature.

Please download the list of books available in our library: St. George Orthodox Church Library.pdf

Did you ever have that good friend that you can always go to for advice? Or when you weren’t even in need of advice, they share their life’s story and journey with you? They tell you what they went through, how they did it, and who helped them along the way.

Spiritual reading is like that. You see, when we pray, we talk to God. But when we read, we hear Him talk back to us.

Spiritual reading is important for building up a good conscience. To listen to the words of God and to meditate on them. What is even great about spiritual reading is that we have an abundance of writers from Saints to Popes, to theologians to read that will help us on our path the holiness.

After all, that is why we read spiritual books — build ourselves up, and to help us on our path to holiness.

So now that we have the why sorted out let’s get straight to the how.

How To Read Spiritually

Pick the spiritual book. The most common book is the Bible, but there are many books out there that will help you on your spiritual journey. You don’t have to be a theologian or a philosopher to read these books, spiritual books are found at any (intellectual) level that works for you.

Begin with prayer. To start to read spiritually we must start with prayer. To open our hearts and minds to hear the Words of God, but to open our hearts to accept it. You can say a small prayer, put on soothing music to get your mind and your heart ready to listen. In our days, we are usually busy running to one appointment to the other, but when we spiritually read, we are taking time out in our day to listen to what God has to say to us.

Read a little at a time. When you come across a passage that strikes you stop for that moment. Re-read it again and take a moment for it to absorb in you. Dwell on it. When you find your mind wondering, go back to reading and continue to do this process for as long as you like. There are countless lessons that we can read, and learn from by doing this.

Don’t demand too much too soon. We have to learn from this! When we start spiritual reading, we can figure that we can just zoom through the books, but in fact, you may find that it takes you much longer to get through the books. However, after reading and realizing that it is no ordinary book and there are depth and richness on each page, you will definitely slow down, and absorb it.

Just remember, this is nothing like fiction. While reading fiction books, you can zoom through it, and in a month you may or not remember the story. When we read for our souls, we don’t usually run through the books (there will be days where a book just can’t be put down) but we slowly absorb it.