My family has been going to the library a lot over the summer to get books for the kids to read, and I picked this up on a whim. I thought it would be interesting to hear the actual Pope's thoughts on Christianity. Unfortunately, I didn't know that it was basically a compilation of his prior works. And I'm sorry but I'm not sure how much work is required to "skillfully curate" what someone else has to say. Sounds. a lot like someone basically just copied and pasted a bunch of stuff from other sources into book format.

As far as the content itself, it was fine but hardly anything revelatory. The Pope makes some good points about finding joy in the everyday things about the Christian faith (surprise, you should be joyful because the faith is 'good news' for your soul!), but I couldn't find anything in there that hasn't been covered multiple times by other authors, from devotional writers to Christian bloggers. I guess I was hoping for something a little more insightful from the head of the Catholic Church. That said, maybe the fact that I didn't learn anything new is a good sign that I'm on the right track with my own faith?

I can't say that I'd recommend this book for anybody other than those who are super interested in Pope Francis as a person and want to follow along with his speeches, writings, etc. For everyone else, including those who need or want to hear the message of this book... there are plenty of other resources where you can find the same information.

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Created Jan 18, 2025 at 4:04pm • Submit your own review...