Theology for Beginners by F. J. Sheed, 1957, published by Sheed & Ward. (there is a newer reprint)
From the hardback jacket:
Theology for Beginners begins with some of the reasons why the laity should bother with theology at all, showing it as food and light for the soul. Without it one might live an undernourished life in the half dark.
These key ideas are carefully examined Spirit, Mystery, God’s Infinity and man’s creation from nothing; then the Trinity, Man’s Fall, the Incarnation and Redemption, the Mystical Body and Our Lady as in First Member; lastly, Grace and the Sacraments, the Next Life and the End of the World.
Throughout the book there is an effort to remain comprehensible without sacrificing accuracy, the fruit of the author’s thirty-six years of teaching all these doctrines to street-corner crowds.
This book fills the gap between two of the author’s other books: A Map of Life is an introduction to the Faith as a whole. Theology for Beginners concentrates upon the Church’s dogmas, and, and it is hoped that some will find it a useful preparation for the more advanced study of Theology to be found in Theology and Sanity and the far greater books to which the reader will proceed.
The One-Minute Aquinas by Kevin Vost, 2014, Sophia Institute Press
From the back cover:
Pope St. Pius X said that “in just one year, a man can derive more profit from the words of St. Thomas Aquinas than from a lifetime studying the works of others.”
If you don’t have a year to study the more than 3,000 pages St. Thomas wrote, then turn to The One-Minute Aquinas, the fast-paced book that provides busy readers with simple, readable explanations of the truths that, for 750 years now have caused the works of St. Thomas to be sought out by kings and popes, scholars and saints, as well as ordinary souls like you – hungry to know God and to love him more and more.
In this book’s lucid pages, author Kevin Vost gives you small, digestible portions of St. Thomas’s life-giving wisdom that you can enjoy one minute at a time. Tables and graphics will help your grasp and remember St. Thomas’s key ideas with a minimum of time and effort.
Best of all, in The One-Minute Aquinas you’ll find quick, sure refutations of the countless relativistic, secular, and pseudoscientific ideas that are so influential in our culture today – and so shallow, contradictory, and wrong!
Pope John Paul II declared that “the Church has been justified in consistently proposing St. Thomas as a master of thought and a model of the right way to do theology.” Now The One-Minute Aquinas enables even those with limited time and only a modest education to benefit from the wisdom of this great saint.
Here, with minimal effort and among scores of other things, you’ll finally come to know and understand:
- Why God permits evil
- Heaven, what it is (and is not)
- Five simple proofs that Bod exists
- Why God became man
- Why Jesus let himself be tempted
- How you can grow quickly in virtue
- Why all souls need the sacraments
- Why Jesus let himself to be crucified
- The causes of lust
- The natural law and the Commandments
- The soul free will, sin, and damnation
- The angels, their ranks, and their powers
- How God governs (and refrains from governing)
- God’s power and its limits
- The Bible: why didn’t Jesus just write it himself?
- The surprising qualities of our resurrected bodies
Traditional Thomistic Catholic 