Category: Saints

Incorruptible…or Just Incorrigible?

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Because sometimes you just need to laugh in the midst of it all.

I know I can use a laugh today. Maybe you could, too. So here’s the latest Little-Brotherism.

On Friday night, I was trying to convince him to be an altar-server for Saturday’s funeral. There wouldn’t be a coffin, I told him (in case that was spooking him about the whole thing) because Mary had been cremated.

Apparently he didn’t know what cremation is, so I had to explain that. The concept horrified him.

“When I die, I want to be all together, with my bones and everything,” he informed me. “And you know what I want? One of those glass coffins, you know, like the saints have…with the little air conditioners inside to keep them fresh.”

Someone’s been studying St. John Neumann at school, I see.

But I had to burst the kid’s bubble and let him know that those things don’t come with air conditioning.

In all seriousness, it’s good to know that he’s aiming high. He speaks very matter-of-factly about possibilities for sainthood. I can’t take credit for putting that idea into his head, but I’m certainly glad that it’s there.

Catholic Company Book Review: Holiness for Everyone

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It’s the eve of All Saints, so what better day to review a book about a saint?

Some of the most intriguing saints, I think, are the relatively-contemporary ones. While St. Josemaria Escriva has garnered more than his share of notoriety due to a famous work of fiction, there’s much less popular factual knowledge about this modern-day saint. Eric Sammons sets out to correct this imbalance with Holiness for Everyone: The Practical Spirituality of St. Josemaria Escriva.

The book is less a biography of the saint (although an early chapter in the book does cover those details) than an introduction to the saint’s writings and philosophy. In fact, this book is not meant as a stand-alone text, but as a companion to the primary sources–the saint’s actual writings–all of which are freely available online. Suggested readings, including web addresses, are included at the end of each chapter, along with meditations, suggestions for prayer, and concepts to contemplate.

I found this book challenging to read but not ridiculously academic. It’s not meant to be “downed” in one sitting, but instead to be a tool for reflection and prayer. St. Josemaria Escriva’s writings were intended the same way; many of them are in “nugget” form, so that a reader could take a single sentence as a gateway to action and meditation.

Chapters are organized by theme and include topics such as freedom, work, contemplation, evangelization and holiness, among others. The idea of “holiness for everyone” is not unfamiliar to me as a Secular Franciscan; after all, the idea of this life is to dedicate my particular state in life, and all that I do, toward living according to the Gospel in the spirit of St. Francis. St. Josemaria Escriva’s teachings reinforce the same ideas, though without the particularly Franciscan bent that I am used to seeing.

This book achieves its purpose: it’s an appetizer, not the main course. It introduces the teachings and writing of a contemporary saint and leaves the reader hungry to learn more. Holiness for Everyone is an excellent introduction to the spirituality of a saint who has been misrepresented by popular culture.

You can purchase this book here.

I wrote this review of Holiness for Everyone for theCatholic Company Blogger Review program, created by The Catholic Company. The Catholic Company is a great resource for tools to help you participate in the Year of Faith, including Year of Faith bible studies and exclusive Year of Faith personalized gifts. The Catholic Company also has all your Advent needs in stock, such as Advent calendars and Advent wreaths. A review copy of the book was provided to me. I did not receive other compensation for this review.

Tuesdays with Martha

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That’s SAINT Martha, not Martha Stewart.

The ladies at Suscipio have learned that Tuesday is the day traditionally associated with the devotion to St. Martha, patroness of stressed-out homemakers everywhere.

I’ve got a soft spot for her myself. And I think it’s neat that Tuesday is “her” day, because in my house, Tuesday always seems to be that tough day in Homemaking World. (On Monday, everyone is off to work and school and the house is quiet and I quietly putter around here getting all sorts of things done. On Tuesday…well, Tuesday is always another story with its special brand of crazy, especially during soccer season and even more especially when you have failed to plan ahead because you got caught up reading Catholic sci-fi…but I digress. Time to hide the Kindle until after dinner.)

Click on over to Suscipio if you, too, have a soft spot for St. Martha. Pray the novena for your intentions and for those of all the other women who seek strength, encouragement, and support.

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Tiber River Review: The Truth About Therese

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A saint who died when she was only about half my age? Who spent 1/3 of her life behind convent walls? How could such a saint possibly inspire anyone whose path in life had taken a very different turn?

While the title and subtitle of this book, The Truth about Therese: An Unflinching Look at Lisieux, the Little Flower, and the Little Way suggest a more “unauthorized biography” feel, that’s not what author Henri Gheon achieves in this short biography of St. Therese of Lisieux. Instead, he writes of the many difficulties she endured, even after she achieved her dream of becoming a Carmelite at a very young age.

My favorite chapter of this book was the first one, “My Initial Resistance to St. Therese,” because I have felt the same resistance. I was more captivated by this saint as a teenager; the older I have become, the more distant I have felt from her. But this book, especially in the later chapters, does much to bring out the spiritual battles that St. Therese fought throughout her life. While my battles are surely different, there is much that I can learn from St. Therese’s actions and attitudes about how to endure such spiritual warfare.
Through this book, I learned that St. Therese was more than a spoiled child, more than a goody-goody; I learned of her Little Way and how it can be put into practice. Most importantly, I learned that sainthood doesn’t come easy to anyone–but that’s no reason to stop striving for it.
The foreward by Philippe Maxence is short but not to be missed.
Perhaps because it was translated from the French, and surely because it was originally written in 1934, this book is not an easy read. Vocabulary, sentence structure and turn of phrase are challenging to the reader.

The fine print:  I wrote this review of The Truth About Therese for the free Catholic book review program, created by Aquinas and More Catholic Goods.
Aquinas and More is the largest on-line Catholic bookstore.
I receive free product samples as compensation for writing reviews for Tiber River. 

Explanation FAIL

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Little Brother and I attended Mass together this morning. He paid attention to the readings and even to Father’s homily, which linked the “Magnificat” from the Gospel to both the Visitation and the life of St. Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein).

That might seem like a stretch, but the gist of it was that “My being proclaims the greatness of the Lord” was central to the Blessed Mother’s life as well as to the martyrdom of St. Teresa.

After Mass was over, Little Brother asked me what the name of today’s feast was, again. He didn’t seem to be too familiar with the concept of the Assumption–especially after listening to a Gospel that told the story of the Visitation.

I told him that when most people die, only their soul goes to Heaven. But the Blessed Mother’s soul and body went to heaven upon her death.

It’s complicated. I can’t wrap my head around this mystery either.

Apparently neither can Little Brother, who then commented: “Mary could FLY? Wow, that’s COOL! I want to fly…”

Quite a Ride

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So I need a nickname for the gang of teenagers that hangs around my house.  The little guys are the Street Urchins.  The sixteen-year-olds?  What do I call them?

It’s been a rather difficult week in Teenage World.  Parenting teenagers definitely resembles a roller-coaster ride.  You’re strapped in for the duration (7 years, give or take time for those rocky pre- and post-adolescent stages).  There are the ups and downs, twists and turns, and occasional spins that turn you upside down.

In the past week, we have experienced

  • curfew battles
  • playing one parent off another
  • sulking
  • plenty of eye-rolling, stomping up the stairs and slamming of the bedroom door
  • The Silent Treatment
  • and an ill-fated trip to the mall.

They’ve got nothing to do and way too much time to do nothing in. The bunch of them went job-hunting–together–after swimming at my house yesterday.  I’m not sure that the best way to look for a job is to show up as a Six-Pack at the pizzeria or Edible Arrangements with wet hair, wearing short shorts and flip-flops.  I asked the kids if any potential employer had wondered if he was expected to hire the whole crew.  (They didn’t get why I thought that was funny, or even worth wondering about).

But we’ve also got a teenager who dissuades her younger brother from styling his hair like Eddie Munster, who “takes” me grocery shopping so she can do all the heavy lifting, pushing and loading that I can’t do, who takes 3 AM phone calls from friends in despair over a family member’s bad health and questioning the existence and benevolence of God.  While I’m not thrilled over a 3 AM phone call, I am so gratified to know that when her friends have crises like that, they turn to her.  That says a whole lot about my daughter, right there.

I’ve got to take the bad with the good here.  A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.  Ultimately, I think I’ve got a good kid, and maybe her friends are good kids too, but I don’t know them well enough to really determine that.

Today is the feast of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, patron of teenagers.  And they need his intercession and inspiration more than ever.  So today, I prayed for that bunch of teenagers (and they still need a nickname).  And I’m on my way to the supermarket, driven by my very own teenager, to stock the fridge with sodas so her friends will find something cold to drink when they show up later.

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Catching On

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I’m a sucker for those “spend a year doing a certain thing” kind of books.  In recent years, I’ve read Julie & Julia, one where a woman decides to take every shred of advice dished out by Oprah Winfrey for an entire year, and two cookbooks written by someone who used her slow cooker every day for a year–among others.

Kind of makes me wish that I had something I was willing to do for a whole year that was interesting enough to get a book deal out of it.

Heather King’s book Shirt of Flame describes a year spent reading and discovering the life of St. Therese of Lisieux.

I’m only halfway through this book, and I am SO hooked.  And this is a saint to whom I don’t take easily.  A priest once described her in a homily as “immature, fussy, and a bit of a drama queen” and I’m inclined to agree.  I read her autobiography as a teenager, and I think it appealed to me more then than it does now that I’m fortymumble years old and most of my idealism has melted away amid the cares and worries and chores of taking care of my husband and family.

I don’t ordinarily recommend a book I haven’t even finished, but King’s chronicle of her own spiritual journey as well as Therese’s is an absolutely compelling read.  Each chapter ends with a prayer, and so far I’ve wanted to bookmark almost all of them.

Unfortunately, I can’t remember where I first heard about this book, so I can’t properly thank the person who told me about it.  I figured, instead, that I’d pay it forward by recommending it here.  Don’t miss this book.  It’s not big, it’s not complicated, and it really is worth it.

For All the Saints, For All the Moms

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In a month that begins with the celebration of All Saints, what better time to begin learning about the Saints of our Church?  And what better place to start than A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms by Lisa Hendey?

Subtitled “52 Companions for Your Heart, Mind, Body and Soul,” this book is packed full of encouragement, challenges, and reflections about saints who can be especially inspiring to moms.

As soon as I received this book, I immediately opened it to the table of contents to see who’s in there!  I had to check for my favorites, of course, and they were there in abundance:  Saints Francis and Clare of Assisi, Saint Martha of Bethany, Saint Anthony of Padua, and more.  But there were plenty of other saints with whom I’m much less familiar, such as Saint Sebastian, Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, and Saint Josephine Bakhita.

This book is bigger than I expected, with each chapter composed of a short biography of the saint, lessons from the saint’s life and/or writings, traditions of the saint’s feast day celebration, a quote from the saint, Scripture passages and reflections–one for each day for a week, activities for moms to complete on their own and with their children, a family prayer and thoughts to ponder.  That’s a lot of inspiration packed into just over 300 pages!

This is not a book that you have to begin at chapter 1 and work your way through.  You can choose to read and reflect on the life of a saint that relates to a particular challenge you’re having at the time.  That’s easy to do, because the table of contents shows not only the saint’s name, but a virtue for which the saint is well-known.

A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms isn’t going to lose its place on my bedside table anytime soon; it’s a devotional that will serve as inspiration for a long time to come.

I wrote this review of A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms for the Tiber River Blogger Review program, created by Aquinas and More Catholic Goods. For more information and to purchase, please visit Aquinas and More Catholic Goods.

Tiber River is the first Catholic book review site, started in 2000 to help you make informed decisions about Catholic book purchases.

A review copy of the book was provided to me. I did not receive other compensation for this review.

Who’s In There?

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Lisa Hendey of CatholicMom.com has a new book coming out soon!  Titled A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms, this book highlights “52 companions for your heart, mind, body and soul.”

But who’s among the 52?  I can think of lots of possibilities.  Not having seen this book before, I don’t know if Lisa Hendey chose to discuss only female saints, only saints who were moms, only modern saints…there are so many ways to go here.

I’m hoping, though, that she included a chapter on that go-to patroness of homemakers, St. Martha.  I’ve got a soft spot for St. Martha, and I imagine that many moms feel the same.  (I think Jesus did, too–or he wouldn’t have told her to get over it when her sister wasn’t helping with the dishes.)

This book will be published by Ave Maria Press on November 1 of this year.  I’m looking forward to it!

Real Person, Real Saint

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Today is the feast of Saint Martha, one of my very favorite saints.

It’s the saints like Martha that give me hope for ordinary people like me.  So many times we put the saints on a pedestal.  We think that they were always perfect, always praying, always doing the right thing.

People tend to do that with their heroes, saintly or otherwise.

But we never get the chance to put Saint Martha on a pedestal.  She starts right off by ratting out her sister to Jesus, their honored guest.  And Jesus gives it right back.  He lets her know that she is just way too stressed out and that she’s letting her anxiety get in the way of her hospitality.

I’ve had way too many “Martha moments,” and I’m not talking about Martha Stewart.  I’m talking about the Screaming Meemie Party Mom who often inhabits my house before we have company.  It isn’t pretty.  It isn’t fun, for me or anyone else.  I’m sure Saint Martha wasn’t having fun that day either, especially when she was embarrassed in front of all her guests as Jesus took her to task.

She redeemed herself later, though, when she confidently proclaimed her faith in Jesus and who He was.

Saint Martha reminds me that saints are, in fact, real people with real faults, real challenges, real attitudes and real faith.

Saint Martha is the patron of cooks, servants, homemakers, single women, laundry workers, innkeepers, dieticians and travelers.

Read an interview with Julie Davis, another Saint Martha fan, right here!

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