Christ in Living Camouflage

HUNTING FOR GOD, FISHING FOR THE LORD:

encountering the sacred in the great outdoors

by Fr. Joseph Classen

OSV, 2006

224 pages, $12.95

To order: (800) 348-2440

catalog.osv.com

Often, when my wife and I reach a mountain summit after a good three- or four-hour climb, I’m so elated over the accomplishment — and so awestruck by the view — that I want to start singing that line from the Latin Sanctus: Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua! “Heaven and earth are full of your glory!”

Father Joseph Classen would understand.

While not primarily a hiker or mountain climber, this young priest of the Archdiocese of St. Louis spends a lot of time in the wilderness and appreciates its beauty as the work of the Creator. Here he takes us along on his expeditions in the various hunting and fishing seasons of the year: stalking deer with a bow and arrow, casting his line into trout streams and chasing elusive wild turkey. The trips are leavened with self-effacing humor as he lets us see how God uses nature to check his pride.

Father Classen assures us that what he does — even ending the life of a beautiful deer — is humane. Hunters, he points out, are a vital part of the “stewardship” of creation. A certain percentage of a particular animal group must be “harvested” each year for the species as a whole to survive.

Then, too, hunting puts healthful meat on the table. Doing so by one’s own efforts, he writes, brings one to understand the reality that “something must die in order for something else to live.”

Each chapter starts with a hunting story and ends in a theological discourse. The lessons he learns for life from animal behavior, from disappointments in not catching “the big one” and from near brushes with death amidst nature’s capriciousness are important for everyday living. Meanwhile, important messages emerge about sanctity and salvation.

“Throughout the centuries, many spiritual writers have spoken of the importance of silence, of being still,” he writes. “God asks us to ‘be still’ because he wants us to let go of all that stress, frustration and aggravation. He wants us to spend time with him, just being with him and listening to him. In a nutshell, this is ultimately what prayer is: It is humbly being in God’s presence and communicating with him.”

At times, I felt I was sitting down at sunset over a couple of beers with Father Classen at the hunting lodge, listening to his tales from the woods and allowing the conversation to lead to higher things.

His writing is not on a high literary level, and he’s fond of homespun similes that can be quaint but can also veer into clichés and odd metaphors. He tells us that the words “bowhunting season” send “shivers of excitement racing up and down my spine like a rat hurriedly scampering away from the light.”

But this is a humble book. It’s not intended to be an instant spiritual classic but, rather, a light-reading catechism for hunters and fishermen. Along with lures, hooks and an extra spool of line, there’s now theology in our tackle box too.

We go home from that hunting lodge well-fed — not only by the venison or bass we share but also by the appreciation of nature Father Classen brings us and the new understanding of God as the author of nature and of our lives.

John Burger is the

Register’s news editor.