Reasonable Pleasures

Reasonable Pleasures: The Strange Coherences of Catholicism by James V Schall, SJ, 200 pages

In this book, Fr Schall celebrates the reasonable pleasure found when seemingly unconnected ideas are found to complement each other, revealing more of the world.  Reasonable Pleasures explores the happy coherence between politics and heaven, justice and immortality, sports and liturgy, wit and virtue.

Each chapter begins with a set of quotations from sources ranging from Plato and Aquinas to Chesterton and Schulz, with the remainder of the chapter explicating those quotations, expanding on their meaning and showing how they intersect.  Like most of Schall's writing (including The Classical Moment), Reasonable Pleasures is not an exciting book.  It is not a manifesto or a jeremiad, a call to battle or one side of a shouting match.  It is a quiet talk with a wise elder willing to give the gift of wide learning, deep thought, and long experience.