Disclosure: I received this complimentary product (An Encounter) through Ascot Media. Affiliate Links will be used, thank you for your support of my blog, costs you nothing to do so.
Are you Catholic or simply looking for a devotional to help you through the Advent and Christmas season? Most Advent devotionals tend to focus only an Advent, in An Encounter, Father Emelu also helps the believer with the Christmas season. 64 readings to help you contemplate the meaning of the Advent and Christmas season.
An Encounter, the basics
Maurice Nkem Emelu has put together “An Encounter” a series of readings, based on the Catholic liturgical calender, for reading over advent an Christmas. Father Emelu is a Nigerian priest in the Catholic Diocese of Orlu and has a desire to help people mediate on God over the Christmas Season. An Encounter: a daily discovery in Divine Word is volume 1 in a seven volume series.
64 reflections meant to be read over 46 days. 216 pages. Divided into two parts (Advent and Christmas). Advent is further divided into four weeks.
Published by Bien based in Cleveland for North American release, and by Paulines Publications Africa. My review is for Ascot Media.
Looking deeper
I found the layout fairly straight-forward, I expected to see divisions by the week for the four weeks of Advent. I was initially a bit taken aback at three separate advent reading for each of the Sundays. Then I recalled that Catholic liturgy calendars are divided over three years. There is a reading for year a, b and c.
Each day starts out with a number of scripture readings. You can read them out of any translation you prefer.
Each reading (and I admittedly did not read them all) reads like a pastor sitting down to chat with you. Personal and friendly, and sometimes hard-hitting, reminding us of God’s truths.
Occasionally you will find readings that say “alternative”. I couldn’t find an explanation for the alternative reading header. But based on the multi-year reading, I’m thinking you could vary each year which reading to use.
Each devotional is followed by a time of reflection and prayer. Some reflections are filled with questions, others are basically just ruminations on the reading. All are there to help us think more deeply about what we read. What questions would you ask God? What change can you make in your life? Would God want you to consider a new thing?
Should this be part of your advent reading?
I have to admit, I’m not Catholic and within these readings there was a Roman Catholic flair. But one of the joys of reading a devotional with a variety of readings, is that you can read the scripture, glean from the devotional reading what you need, and discard anything that doesn’t fit. AND sometimes reading familiar scripture and reading anothers slant on it, spurs us on to dig deeper into God’s word.
Some of the Catholic slant comes from the fact that the Roman Catholic bible recognizes some books in their bible that Protestants do not. Their inclusion surprised me as I thought this book was geared to a broader market.
An Encounter is a close, reflective study on Christ and his coming to earth. Well worth the read
Maurice Nkem Emelu has also prepared a second volume focusing on Lent.
Since you noted that this has a Catholic bent to it, I would really disagree quite strongly with it, I imagine. Too much of the Catholic faith is human tradition and not based strongly on the Bible. Thank you for sharing about it, though.
In reading, I ignore the very Roman Catholic leanings of it, and I don’t read the catholic scriptures. I just don’t want to reject it out of hand without seeing the good in it as well. for anyone, catholic or protestant, a devotional needs to be read to learn, yet with a mind to reject the incorrect.