What do you think?
Rate this book
Catching Fire, Becoming Flame: A Guide for Spiritual Transformation
A new, revised and expanded edition of beloved spiritual director Albert Haase, OFM’s bestselling guide to a vibrant, fulfilling spiritual life!
Ever wonder how some people become enthusiastic and on fire about their relationship with God? In thirty-eight power-packed, concise chapters, Albert Haase gives you the tools and kindling to prepare for the spark of God in your life – and then shows you how to fan it into flame until you are set ablaze. This book glows with time-tested wisdom as an experienced spiritual director shares the secrets of the saints. Feel cold? Or maybe just smoldering? With supplemental reading suggestions and reflection questions, this eminently practical book functions like a personal, spiritual retreat.
Catching Fire, Becoming Flame — 10th Anniversary Edition: A Guide for Spiritual Transformation: Catching Fire, Becoming Flame is designed to be a handy resource for expanding your knowledge and practice of ancient and contemporary spiritual practices. It will fuel your creativity and appreciation for myriad ways to fall in love with God—which, in the end, is what being on fire is all about.
Ever wonder how some people become enthusiastic and on fire about their relationship with God? In thirty-eight power-packed, concise chapters, Albert Haase gives you the tools and kindling to prepare for the spark of God in your life – and then shows you how to fan it into flame until you are set ablaze. This book glows with time-tested wisdom as an experienced spiritual director shares the secrets of the saints. Feel cold? Or maybe just smoldering? With supplemental reading suggestions and reflection questions, this eminently practical book functions like a personal, spiritual retreat.
Catching Fire, Becoming Flame — 10th Anniversary Edition: A Guide for Spiritual Transformation: Catching Fire, Becoming Flame is designed to be a handy resource for expanding your knowledge and practice of ancient and contemporary spiritual practices. It will fuel your creativity and appreciation for myriad ways to fall in love with God—which, in the end, is what being on fire is all about.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
16 people are currently reading
74 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
January 1, 2024
This book gave some great tips on how to get closer to God in your daily life, and it was super helpful. I definitely recommend it.
April 8, 2020
Initial Questions:
I've gone through seasons of spiritual numbness and wondered, “What's going on here? Am I missing something?” What does Haase's book have to say about nurturing the spiritual life? What is the “end-goal” of spiritual life for Haase and how does he say a person journeys in that direction?
…
*Catching Fire, Becoming Flame" is a helpful, accessible book that addresses the question of how to intentionally lay down your life for spiritual renovation. His chapters are short, the end of chapter questions go right to the heart.
The “problem” Haase address is the lack of awareness of how to engage life with God. Often we hear about forgiveness and the possibility of life with God, but we're often left wondering how to step into it. Haase's book is a collection of steps that one could take to practice paying attention to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit does renovation work on our souls (in the Spirit's own good time).
The book progresses in an increasing path of attentiveness and intentionality. It starts with a basic invitation into life with God - the kind of life you work to pay attention to in order to pour into the relationship. Toward the end, the practices and questions Haase writes are along the level of a very deep relationship. I compare this to how a couple who has been married for 30 years might talk and share life as compared to kids on their third date.
The most impactful phrase I felt Haase offered was, “Without a sense of mission, godly enthusiasm fizzles into bogus piety.” (p.7) The goal, I appreciated, is to get caught up in life with God through the imitation of Christ. Instead of a “make me feel excited about my personal relationship with Jesus,” Haase directs the soul toward mission, toward being “little Christ's” for the world around us - always assured of God's presence and love.
Catching Fire, Becoming Flame, is an excellent book for small groups, spiritual friendships, and even personal prayer and journaling. Haase provides a lot to think about and appreciate. It's also the kind of book you don't pick up and anticipate putting fully into practice all at once; it's more of a handbook of available ideas to enter into when needed and desired.
I've gone through seasons of spiritual numbness and wondered, “What's going on here? Am I missing something?” What does Haase's book have to say about nurturing the spiritual life? What is the “end-goal” of spiritual life for Haase and how does he say a person journeys in that direction?
…
*Catching Fire, Becoming Flame" is a helpful, accessible book that addresses the question of how to intentionally lay down your life for spiritual renovation. His chapters are short, the end of chapter questions go right to the heart.
The “problem” Haase address is the lack of awareness of how to engage life with God. Often we hear about forgiveness and the possibility of life with God, but we're often left wondering how to step into it. Haase's book is a collection of steps that one could take to practice paying attention to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit does renovation work on our souls (in the Spirit's own good time).
The book progresses in an increasing path of attentiveness and intentionality. It starts with a basic invitation into life with God - the kind of life you work to pay attention to in order to pour into the relationship. Toward the end, the practices and questions Haase writes are along the level of a very deep relationship. I compare this to how a couple who has been married for 30 years might talk and share life as compared to kids on their third date.
The most impactful phrase I felt Haase offered was, “Without a sense of mission, godly enthusiasm fizzles into bogus piety.” (p.7) The goal, I appreciated, is to get caught up in life with God through the imitation of Christ. Instead of a “make me feel excited about my personal relationship with Jesus,” Haase directs the soul toward mission, toward being “little Christ's” for the world around us - always assured of God's presence and love.
Catching Fire, Becoming Flame, is an excellent book for small groups, spiritual friendships, and even personal prayer and journaling. Haase provides a lot to think about and appreciate. It's also the kind of book you don't pick up and anticipate putting fully into practice all at once; it's more of a handbook of available ideas to enter into when needed and desired.
August 20, 2023
Summary: If God is the fire and spark who sets our lives aflame, how do we prepare the kindling for the transforming and empowering work of God?
The premise of this rich study in spiritual transformation is that “it starts with God throwing a divine spark on the tinder of the heart.” The rest of book explores the nature of that spark from God, how we may prepare the kindling, how through prayer we catch fire, the practices of discernment that fan the flames in our lives, and the ongoing commitments that over the course of our lives cause the flame to burn even brighter until we become “all flame.”
Albert Haase, OFM has been a guide to many along the path of spiritual transformation, even as he has traveled this road himself. In a work with short chapters, simply written, Haase offers brief lessons describing the process by which God sets our lives aflame with his love.
The work is divided into five parts. It begins with the initiative of God, his spark in our lives, working through his Spirit, forming us in the image of Christ, a lifetime process. It starts as God awakens desire in us. We go through three stages: purgation, in which the CPR of community, prayer, and repentance orients our lives toward God, arranging the kindling; illumination, in which we realize God is closer than we ever imagined and surrender to the presence of God; and union, in which God’s desires become ours. We recognize our weaknesses and sins and bring them to God. Likewise, we grow in awareness of bad habits, understand their triggers, and learn to short circuit those triggers. We see the evidence of progress not merely in obeying commands but in the kindling in our lives of growing love for God and others.
In the second part, Haase discusses the spiritual concepts that provide excellent kindling for God’s spark. He begins with our images of God and how they may hinder or help his spark to catch. We consider the nature of prayer and praying as we can and from where we are, and progressing from words to silence. We learn the importance of a grateful heart and obstacles to gratitude. He explores the divine milieu in which we encounter God in word and sacrament, in creation and “thin” places. The false self and its energy centers are distinguished from the true self that rests in Christ. Haase concludes this section with the experience of suffering and our responses of crying out and surrender.
Part three explores with greater focus how we are set afire through various practices of prayer including the examen, meditation and contemplation, the Jesus prayer, lectio divina, imaginative prayer, wonder-ing with creation, praying the stations of the cross, and praying the Lord’s prayer. He offers very practical instructions for each, a discussion of the heart issues involved in the practice, and with the Lord’s prayer, explications of each phrase.
Discerning the desires of God to further fan the flames is the focus of part four. He begins with the discernment of good and evil spirits in our experiences of consolation and desolation (although I wonder if one can always make this correlation). He speaks of the place of our past, present, potential and our passions in discerning God’s will. He discusses the experiences of dryness, darkness, and depression and what we might make of these. He describes spiritual direction and the qualities of good directees and directors, including the idea that a director may be helpful for a season and then someone else may better serve. He encourages self-care of mind, body, heart, and spirit saying “blessed are the balanced.” He urges the value of a rule of life, offering an example.
The final part of this work speaks of the dynamic commitments by which we “become all flame.” He commends the self-reflective work of the examination of conscience–different from the daily examen. He speaks of the practice of forgiving ourselves and others. He discusses how we might experience inner healing from past hurtful events in our lives in the presence of Christ. Haase explores how we go about resisting various types of temptation, eight of which he identifies from scripture. He teaches us about surrender and abandonment to God and revealing all to God through journalling. Another chapter encourages the regular practice of retreats and the different types of retreats one might take. There are chapters on sabbath, hospitality, living in the present moment, and soul training.
Following his metaphor of fire and flame, he concludes with an encouragement:
“Catching fire and becoming flame require more than the spark of the Spirit and our well-chosen kindling. They also demand an ongoing perseverance and a long-term patience forged from the awareness that God fervently desires to see us blaze with godly enthusiasm. That enthusiasm flares up as we willingly surrender to the communal process of being transformed by the Spirit of God sent to lovingly respond to the unmet need or required duty of the present moment.”
Albert Haase, OFM has described for us the process by which God set our lives aflame with his holy love. He’s encouraged us the wonderful news that God is present and wants to do this in our lives, the God takes the initiative. He offers the wonderful analogy of our spiritual practices as “arranging the kindlng” as one does in preparing to set a fire and instructed us how we may keep on burning, ever brighter and more purely. This is a book to carry with one for a lifetime. Have it handy in times of review and reflection for the questions it poses. Take it on retreat. Discuss it in community and with a director. While not scripture, it is founded in the initiative of God, soaked with biblical reflection, and reflects centuries of wisdom. I’m glad to have this companion on the journey.
________________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.
The premise of this rich study in spiritual transformation is that “it starts with God throwing a divine spark on the tinder of the heart.” The rest of book explores the nature of that spark from God, how we may prepare the kindling, how through prayer we catch fire, the practices of discernment that fan the flames in our lives, and the ongoing commitments that over the course of our lives cause the flame to burn even brighter until we become “all flame.”
Albert Haase, OFM has been a guide to many along the path of spiritual transformation, even as he has traveled this road himself. In a work with short chapters, simply written, Haase offers brief lessons describing the process by which God sets our lives aflame with his love.
The work is divided into five parts. It begins with the initiative of God, his spark in our lives, working through his Spirit, forming us in the image of Christ, a lifetime process. It starts as God awakens desire in us. We go through three stages: purgation, in which the CPR of community, prayer, and repentance orients our lives toward God, arranging the kindling; illumination, in which we realize God is closer than we ever imagined and surrender to the presence of God; and union, in which God’s desires become ours. We recognize our weaknesses and sins and bring them to God. Likewise, we grow in awareness of bad habits, understand their triggers, and learn to short circuit those triggers. We see the evidence of progress not merely in obeying commands but in the kindling in our lives of growing love for God and others.
In the second part, Haase discusses the spiritual concepts that provide excellent kindling for God’s spark. He begins with our images of God and how they may hinder or help his spark to catch. We consider the nature of prayer and praying as we can and from where we are, and progressing from words to silence. We learn the importance of a grateful heart and obstacles to gratitude. He explores the divine milieu in which we encounter God in word and sacrament, in creation and “thin” places. The false self and its energy centers are distinguished from the true self that rests in Christ. Haase concludes this section with the experience of suffering and our responses of crying out and surrender.
Part three explores with greater focus how we are set afire through various practices of prayer including the examen, meditation and contemplation, the Jesus prayer, lectio divina, imaginative prayer, wonder-ing with creation, praying the stations of the cross, and praying the Lord’s prayer. He offers very practical instructions for each, a discussion of the heart issues involved in the practice, and with the Lord’s prayer, explications of each phrase.
Discerning the desires of God to further fan the flames is the focus of part four. He begins with the discernment of good and evil spirits in our experiences of consolation and desolation (although I wonder if one can always make this correlation). He speaks of the place of our past, present, potential and our passions in discerning God’s will. He discusses the experiences of dryness, darkness, and depression and what we might make of these. He describes spiritual direction and the qualities of good directees and directors, including the idea that a director may be helpful for a season and then someone else may better serve. He encourages self-care of mind, body, heart, and spirit saying “blessed are the balanced.” He urges the value of a rule of life, offering an example.
The final part of this work speaks of the dynamic commitments by which we “become all flame.” He commends the self-reflective work of the examination of conscience–different from the daily examen. He speaks of the practice of forgiving ourselves and others. He discusses how we might experience inner healing from past hurtful events in our lives in the presence of Christ. Haase explores how we go about resisting various types of temptation, eight of which he identifies from scripture. He teaches us about surrender and abandonment to God and revealing all to God through journalling. Another chapter encourages the regular practice of retreats and the different types of retreats one might take. There are chapters on sabbath, hospitality, living in the present moment, and soul training.
Following his metaphor of fire and flame, he concludes with an encouragement:
“Catching fire and becoming flame require more than the spark of the Spirit and our well-chosen kindling. They also demand an ongoing perseverance and a long-term patience forged from the awareness that God fervently desires to see us blaze with godly enthusiasm. That enthusiasm flares up as we willingly surrender to the communal process of being transformed by the Spirit of God sent to lovingly respond to the unmet need or required duty of the present moment.”
Albert Haase, OFM has described for us the process by which God set our lives aflame with his holy love. He’s encouraged us the wonderful news that God is present and wants to do this in our lives, the God takes the initiative. He offers the wonderful analogy of our spiritual practices as “arranging the kindlng” as one does in preparing to set a fire and instructed us how we may keep on burning, ever brighter and more purely. This is a book to carry with one for a lifetime. Have it handy in times of review and reflection for the questions it poses. Take it on retreat. Discuss it in community and with a director. While not scripture, it is founded in the initiative of God, soaked with biblical reflection, and reflects centuries of wisdom. I’m glad to have this companion on the journey.
________________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.
March 27, 2013
A really well done amalgamation of Franciscan, Jesuit and ancient Catholic spirituality. This book is great for anyone looking to deepen their spiritual life while at the same time, moving and operating in the modern world.
April 26, 2019
We were reading this as a small group discussion book and it's taken a full year - either the book is so full of potential talking points, or our group is just really easily digressed. A little of both. Father Albert is a Catholic theologian and spiritual counselor but his insights are great for stimulating discussion on topics more relevant to Protestants.
July 6, 2020
I didn’t treat this as a cover-to-cover read but as a nightly light review, which seemed to work. Thought provoking in spots, especially during COVID. At the same time, I’m not retaining much and couldn’t remember that I hadn’t recorded reading it. Seems like the kind of book worth returning to periodically, at least to see the sections I dog eared.
March 17, 2023
Whatever journey you are on … old or new Catholic or just revisiting the why of your religion…. This book brings great insight, guidance and understanding of the faith. A lot of Why this answers regarding our faith. And lots of opportunities to dive deeper with reflection questions and extra resources. Well done. A great book to resource time and again.
August 1, 2019
This is a solid overview of various Christian spiritual practices.
April 21, 2021
I really enjoyed this book. There were a lot of practical tips and advice on how to deepen your spiritual life.
February 28, 2024
Great book! Quick chapters. Very practical takeaways on the basics of the Christian faith. Lots of different prayer techniques and even went deep into a few things that seems so common yet I haven’t seen the full beauty of.
July 24, 2018
A nice overview of spiritual practices with many resources for further exploration. Each chapter is only about 5 pages long, so it isn't good for straight reading, but a very nice guide for reference.
I recently reread this book with my woman's book group. What a difference. It is extremely inspiring to read with a group and is a reference that I will use now forever. It has the same inspiring qualities as Matthew Kelley's books, but much more spiritual. The first 2 sections were my favorites, but as the group read and watched the video series that accompanies the book, I saw those woman inspired by many different sections. Their faith blossomed in the most incredible ways. It was a priveledge to witness the changes this book brought in them and in me.
I recently reread this book with my woman's book group. What a difference. It is extremely inspiring to read with a group and is a reference that I will use now forever. It has the same inspiring qualities as Matthew Kelley's books, but much more spiritual. The first 2 sections were my favorites, but as the group read and watched the video series that accompanies the book, I saw those woman inspired by many different sections. Their faith blossomed in the most incredible ways. It was a priveledge to witness the changes this book brought in them and in me.
May 7, 2015
This is the most enjoyable book on the practice of spiritual disciplines that I have read and I've read a few. Father Albert Haase (OFM) handles the practices of the faith with a clear, light and yet compelling touch. He does not come across as a mere cheerleader for spiritual disciplines yet I came away from each brief chapter (6-8 pages) feeling as if I can and actually want to begin to live into each discipline. I don't think that's an easy task to accomplish. Father Haase is quite evangelical in terms of his zeal for the Lord. Happily, this book is as accessible for Protestants as it must be for Roman Catholics, another quality I appreciate.
June 4, 2015
An overview of spiritual practices that aim to help someone develop a deeper relationship with Christ and, indeed, to be transformed into one's best self, "a little Christ." Some chapters seemed to presume no exposure to any spiritual practices and others quite a bit of experience. Perhaps it was intended to be read over a long period of time, which would also explain the noticeable repetition.
Nonetheless, I got a lot from this book and I can't imagine that anyone who is serious about spiritual growth could read it without profit.
Nonetheless, I got a lot from this book and I can't imagine that anyone who is serious about spiritual growth could read it without profit.
July 10, 2016
This book is inspiring and meaningful to anyone searching to find God's passion in their hearts. You will be touched by Father Haas and better able to tap into real ways to find your light, shine it brighter into your communities, and maybe even set something ablaze! The short chapters and soul searching questions and additional resources at the end of each make it an idea book for sunday school classes, small groups, or discussion with a friend.
January 16, 2015
This was a decent introduction to spiritual transformation, but I felt like I had read similar books too often. Perhaps if I'd read it earlier in my life, I would've gotten more out of it. Nonetheless, I thought it made some good analogies and I enjoyed reading the extremely short chapter (5-10pgs max).
December 7, 2013
After hearing Father Albert in person over a five day Lenten mission I felt I just had to read this book. I certainly was not disappointed. He gives many ways that we can learn and grow in our spiritual life. It is a great book.
April 26, 2014
I love to shop when I'm on retreats and get swept away in the gift shop. For whatever reason, this didn't grab me after the purchase. Perhaps because the reference to us being little Christs? It rang "cutesy" to me.
June 20, 2014
This is a book about how to become more Christian, more Catholic to be more specific. It is written by a Franciscan Monk. I am sure it is not for everyone, but I found it very enlightening. I am sure that anyone could get something out of the book even though he/she is not Catholic.
November 19, 2015
This book was truly amazing. I read parts over and over again. I am in a book study at the church. The DVD is mind blowing to me. I have some struggles spiritually and now I feel like have a path and I will grow. I just cannot say enough about how much this book has meant to me.
April 14, 2013
Review pending.
June 2, 2014
An inspirational book about transforming yourself and fanning your inner flame for Christ. I enjoyed it as a Bible study.
March 26, 2014
A wonderful guide to becoming closer to Christ. Father Haas's approach is practical, yet gets straight to the heart of things. I also watched the accompanying DVD for this series.
March 27, 2016
A good survey of all the things a Catholic can do to be serious about his or her relationship with God.
August 21, 2016
An excellent book that is truly inspiring. The author builds upon the theme of "Catching Fire Becoming Flame" by down to earth, practical help with becoming more Christ-like.
January 17, 2017
Fr. Haase is a remarkable commentator on the spiritual life.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews