Marian Eucharistic Conference Recap

This is an annual retreat for us--it's a small conference that has grown but not too much. I'm estimating about 300 people... What I like best is the quality of the speakers who come and help us grow deeper into our faith. There are always lots of wonderful books to purchase and I still haven't read all the ones from previous years. And then there are others that I read over and over. So this year, I was so excited that we could offer our books to the attendees. There aren't very many children at this conference, but when the organizer discovered I was a children's writer, she suggested that I invest in a table, because she would like to have children's books to offer to the attendees as well. So here we are and the best part was that we were right next to a priest from Peru, who had brought these exquisite religious paintings--all hand painted, each one unique. He had Our Lady of Guadalupe taped to the side of his table and my eyes were drawn continually to her serene expression. I knew we had to purchase one of these to grace our home so I asked Michael to take some time to go through them. We both loved the Holy Trinity with the Holy Family best (and within our budget) so it shall be properly framed and displayed. I loved St. Philomena (what is it about teenage saints that gives my heart courage?) and Madonna of the Grapes by Pierre Mignard (I have a little triptych in my office  that I picked up from the sacramental box at church shortly after I joined the Seven Sister Apostolate--I thought it was such a lovely wink to me from Mary herself, given she's one of the patronesses of the apostolate under this very title). 

I really enjoyed talking with the people who stopped by our table and learning about their children and grandchildren. So fun to be able to recommend books for them. Many Seven Sisters were excited to see Tina's book, One Hour for My Priest--it almost sold out. It's a hidden apostolate so we don't always know who's involved but what a blessing to learn so many Seven Sisters are praying for their priests. The book is a wonderful resource. We were also able to attend many of the lectures and hear Mass and go for Adoration because there's only one track and typically there aren't too many people milling about during them. So win-win. I'm excited to return next year and hope we'll have even more offerings. I'm so happy that all of us in our critique group have several more readers of our stories. 

Tidbits from the conference speakers. You can learn more from their excellent books and talks online:
Fr. Larry Richards is such an energetic priest. He speaks the hard truths that we don't always want to hear. I love how he runs his parish--he makes the people take three classes on: Jesus is Lord; worship; service. If you want to be an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion, then you'd better have extraordinary devotion to the Holy Eucharist, meaning spending time with Him in Adoration.
How are you? Blessed. Who's the first who said it? Mary in her Magnificat. We have one purpose in life--to do God's holy will. He speaks but we don't listen. Be still and silent. Sit with the Scriptures with an open heart. We need the Heart of Jesus. Offer your poor heart to Him and He'll give you His Heart. Learn to love from Him. 
Fr. Larry told us a story about a American and a Japanese in a POW camp. The Japanese man was very sick, so the American would share everything he had with him, be it food or a blanket. When he realized that the man might die, he thought, I've shared everything except Jesus, my Savior. So he told the dying man about Him, and the dying man said, "If Jesus is anything like you, I can't wait to meet Him." 

Fr. Chris Alar is passionate about Divine Mercy. And Mary as the mother of Mercy. He quoted Fr. Don Calloway: "If you could make your mother, wouldn't you make her perfect?" Mary is the guide to Jesus. In Genesis, who crushes the head of the serpent? Mary. Who does Satan fear more? God or Mary? He then told us a story about wrestling in high school. He lost to a Japanese national champion. Yet, both his father and his coach said, "good job." But when he was in 4th grade, he drew a girl, who was confident. He was terrified--to lose to a girl would be complete humiliation. Likewise, Satan knows God is God. But to lose to a 15-yr-old Jewish girl is absolute humiliation. It wounds his pride.  

There are four Marian Dogmas: her Immaculate Conception, her Assumption, her Perpetual Virginity, her Maternity--she is the mother of King Jesus. She is our advocate. Protestants have a difficult time with Mary. And because our barbershop chorus is practicing Christmas songs for a concert, I'm reminded why we have songs like Mary Did You Know? It's a lovely lullaby that invites us to ponder like Mary, but the second half of the first verse is flat out wrong [I propose a revision to make it theologically sound because words matter]: 

Did you know

That your baby boy has come to make you new? [make us new]
This child that you've delivered
Will soon deliver you [has done delivered you]

See, she was already delivered from all stain of original sin by the foreseen merits of Christ's Sacrifice on the Cross. She is the Immaculate Conception. Her DNA has no sin. Not a single molecule of her being is under sway of Satan. She is 100% opposed to him. She lives completely in the Divine Will. But I digress. 

The second reading of that Sunday was from Hebrews and Fr. Alar preached on the priesthood. It is so terribly misunderstood. What is the purpose of the priest? To offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. You cannot have worship without sacrifice because the penalty for sin is death. Either you die or someone else dies on your behalf. Mass is the re-presenting the sacrifice. Jesus presents Himself to the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit. We are at Calvary. We enter sacred time. We must be present to receive the grace (when I lie in bed with my kitties and listen to Mass, I am not receiving the graces I would if I were present at Mass). Everything comes from the Father and everything returns to Him. There are three acts of Love and Mercy: God the Father creates; God the Son redeems; God the Holy Spirit sanctifies us so we can return to the Holy Trinity.

There were more lectures. Fr. Bartholomew, a Maronite priest, spoke about the early apostolic churches, their timeline, how they spread to the East and the West. I've been told by a couple of Eastern Rite Catholics how much I would enjoy experiencing their liturgies but we've not managed to go to one. Perhaps when we're praying/singing only one Sunday Mass, we might get the opportunity.

Dr. Ray Guarendi, a psychologist, encouraged us to be strong parents and grandparents, steering our kids in righteousness. It's not easy when the culture tells them the opposite, normalizing sin and making it sound like fun. I used to love listening to his show on Catholic radio on my way to pick up the kids from school and I found his books on discipline and family life especially useful. I was so pleased to meet him and let him know what a difference his books made when we went through a rough patch with our kids.  

Fr. Chris Smith, pastor of Prince of Peace, also spoke about building a Christian culture. It begins with us, at home. As always, we ended our retreat by hearing a beautiful High Mass at Prince of Peace for the Feast of Christ our King. What joy to sing: Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat!!! Come, Lord Jesus!!!

On Holy Week and Triduum and Solar Eclipse

Some day I will have grandchildren, so I had to get my own copy of: My Book of the Church's Year! I know, excuses, excuses to buy books, especially children's books :) But Peter Kwawniewski echoes how I feel about giving children (and adults) the best books. Consider how we spend Lent with three practices: prayer, fasting, almsgiving. How beautifully Enid Chadwick shows that these are our weapons against the devil, the flesh, and the world respectively. She creates space to ponder the Mysteries of the Faith with all the details in her artwork.

This was perhaps the best Lent ever, bar our first when we were in RCIA; my niece is being received into the Church this Easter Vigil. Her marriage, too, is being convalidated. She will receive the Body and Blood of our Lord. So much to celebrate! Glory, glory to God! 

This Eastertide is special for another reason--signs from heaven. Fr. Ripperger has a wonderful reflection on the upcoming solar eclipse on April 8th, the fact that its path takes it through the towns of Jonah and Nineveh. If this isn't a call to repent and turn to the Lord, I don't know what would be clearer. I especially liked that at the end, Fr. Ripperger reminds us how God created. He calls upon the waters to bring forth the fish and the earth to bring forth plants and animals. But when He creates man, He says, "Let US create man in our Image." He points out that if you take a fish out of water, it dies; if you take a plant out of the earth, it dies; and so it follows that if you separate man from God, he suffers a spiritual death. Anyway, Fr. Ripperger packs a lot in 11 minutes. For a more detailed description of all the cosmological things going on, see: Guest post: Laramie Hirsch on the April 8 solar eclipse – Nurse Claire Says. Granted, I have a fascination with numbers and names and coincidences but I've come to believe that there are no coincidences, simply signs from God. We should do as He commands in the Garden of Gethsemane: Watch and Pray! A Blessed and Happy Easter to you! 

Check out these cool maps! I like the patterns they make, the letter A, which is the beginning of the alphabet (aleph; I'm reading a fascinating book Alphabetical: How Every Letter Tells a Story by Michael Rosen), or the X's where a place experiences two solar eclipses. Just don't ask me to explain the difference between annular and total solar eclipses :) 

Holy Week Reading

Apparently, blogging is dead. I will miss Blogging for Books as it moves to other platforms, which I'm loath to join. In any case, I am grateful to Blogging for Books to have snagged a last book: a copy of Scott Hahn's The Fourth Cup: Unveiling the Mystery of the Last Supper and the Cross. He digs deep into our Jewish roots of the Passover and applies them to the Paschal Mystery. Our redemption has been thought of from the "very foundations of time." I raced through this book even though deadlines are pressing me from all sides. As always, Dr. Hahn makes history and Scripture accessible for the layman and does so in a highly entertaining manner. Here's a sampling of his sub-heads: Pasch, Presence, and Future; Sealed with a Curse; Seder Rite Words; The Roast is History; Ready, Willing, Abel; Cups and Downs; Faith Up to the FAQS; Marquette Value. He keeps this up, folks. But it's in no way shallow. There's a LOT of theology in this book and it's presented in the order that Dr. Hahn himself studied on his own, based on a little question: What exactly is finished when Jesus says those words from the Cross? Read this book to understand the most central belief of our faith: Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. 

Dr. Hahn also shares his own history of his conversion. He practically re-invents Catholic rites in his Presbyterian Church the more he studied the Church Fathers. The Bread of Life discourse (John 6) frightened him; he could no longer continue to be a pastor; he couldn't accept the position of Academic Dean even though this was what he'd dreamed about. He writes, "I was not yet ready to take up the cup with Catholics. But I was more than ready to read the Bible with them."
Hahn became a doctoral student at Marquette. "There comes a time when a critic must turn his criticism upon himself." He consulted the Baltimore Catechism about the nature of Mass. "If Catholics were right about the meaning of Mass, mere attendance was a potentially seismic event in the spiritual order. Was I ready for that? If the Catholics were wrong, of course, then their Mass was the greatest blasphemy possible--and I wanted no part of that. In thinking about the Mass, there was no safe middle ground." When he went to his first Mass he wept. "I realized it was really Jesus, and he was offering his own flesh to me as "living bread come down from heaven.""  

If you don't have time to read the book, do get the 1-hour lecture on this on Formed or from Lighthouse Media. You will not be disappointed.

ETA: a short article by Scott Hahn that explains the parallels between Passover and Easter.

I'm also enjoying Hahn's The First Society: the Sacrament of Matrimony and the Restoration of the Social Order. Again, he explains simply and clearly how if we get marriage right, society flourishes. He recalls a lecture in which a priest mused, "If Catholics would simply live the Sacrament of Matrimony for one generation, we would witness a transformation of society and have a Christian culture." Wow! It's both that easy and that difficult. It's a must read given how confused modern society is about marriage. Get your free copy from the St. Paul Center.

The Friday morning men's group is reading Flannery O'Connor so Michael is bringing lovely insights from Msgr. McInerney about the stories. I'm re-reading some of my favorites in light of them. One thing that struck us both is how we see ourselves in those stories. We are so aware of our sinful nature, yet where sin abounds, so does grace, and Flannery captures those moments so eloquently. By the way, if you are a writer, I highly recommend Mystery and Manners. It's a book I have to read periodically to get my head straightened out, given that I write for the educational market.

Great books are our best teachers. I am thankful for them. Happy Reading!!! Please share some of your besties. And have a very happy and holy week. God bless you.  
NB: Paul, Apostle of Christ is a fantastic movie! It's about the early Christians in Rome and centers around the last days of St. Paul. Much of what we know about him comes from St. Luke and vice versa. It was so lovely to see their bond of love. And the filmmakers bring to life Priscilla and Aquilla from Acts, how the Christian community loves each other, how they are martyred. We had a chance to see it last week at the Citadel Mall and it's playing there still. Don't miss it.


And please come see me at Mt. Pleasant Barnes & Noble on Sat. 11 am. I'd love to see you. 

Reading Lots of Books on FORMED

Our Catholic home library is growing, growing, growing and it's an embarrassment of riches, especially with the nonfiction. Our bookshelves are overflowing and we have piles of books everywhere and we just can't seem to stop. There's so much. Last Christmas Michael got a subscription to FORMED, a website that gives access to books, CDs, DVDs with great Catholic content. For $10/mo we can access all this. We easily spend twice as much so we're very happy. And they have audiobooks as well. I'm not the greatest fan of audiobooks because I often have to stop and ponder and there's something about being read to that prevents me from hitting the pause button, but Michael, with his cloudy eyes, enjoys them and has managed to listen to more books in the past six months than he could read. He's even listened to books that he's already read because they are that good.  

His favorites: He Leadeth Me by Fr. Walter Czisek; Be a Man by Fr. Larry Richards; Theology for Beginners by Frank Sheed, and so many more.

These are some of the books I enjoyed and I'm cross-posting these reviews to Amazon:

As soon as I saw Awakening by Claudia Cangilla McAdam I knew I had to have it. Many years ago, when I was judging the Magazine Merit Awards, I read an article set in Australia of an underground town and she brought it to life. Similarly, she brings Jerusalem during the Triduum to life through the eyes of Ronni, a typical Catholic-lite young girl who is transported back in time. I loved how cleverly the author inserts Ronni and the people she knows in the familiar stories of the Gospel. The book moves quickly through Ronni's healing (she's the girl Jesus heals when he says, "Talitha koum"), the Last Supper, and Crucifixion. She tries to stop it because she doesn't think Jesus should die but her plans are always thwarted. Not only that, she's in peril as well. And there's a nice bit of romance too. Although the message is a bit heavy-handed I didn't mind. This is a great book for any kid who is wondering whether there's anything worth dying for (our Lord and Savior certainly did). 

The Devil Hates Latin by Katherine Galgano was an action-packed book about an American family whose Catholic faith increases as they are unfairly attacked. The action begins in the US, moves to Rome and Scotland, and ends in the beautiful Italian countryside with an exorcism. There's also a good car chase. The author has a lot to say about the current times about the breakdown of the family to the point that young people don't even want to marry. I loved that the Chair of Peter was occupied by an African (why yes, I had hoped Cardinal Sarah or Cardinal Arinze would be elected last time). He invites an American Dominican exorcist to train priests in this ancient rite given the need for battling evil. And the bad guys, some of them priests, are really bad but the good ones exemplary. There was a fair bit of church bureaucracy that my eyes glazed over but all in all, I enjoyed the story of both the American family and the Italian family (with a nice romance). It was well plotted and would make a good movie, but I had a difficult time empathizing with many of the characters because the author head hops too much. And of course the devil hates Latin. It's the official language of the Church. 

I'm looking forward to reading a few more books that I've downloaded by Fr. Thomas Dubay, Scott Hahn, and Michael O'Brien. And this July I'll go to the Catholic Writing Conference held in Schaumburg, IL. The registration is ridiculously cheap, though not the hotel. The schedule is being finalized; take a look. If you're in the area and would like to meet, please contact me. 

Writing and the Spiritual Life

In my email box I receive some choice quotes from the Bible and from the saints on a particular topic daily for Nineveh 90. Fr. Heilman has been including a meditation and in the past few days they've been from the writings of Fr. John Hardon. I'd never heard of him but his meditations are so beautiful, I decided to look him up and what a treasure I find in his archives. I recently bought a book for Max: How I Stayed Catholic at Harvard by Aurora Griffin: 40 Tips for Faithful College Students and one of her tips includes daily spiritual reading and writing (mine usually includes the pets). She references an article online by Fr. John Hardon. I love how God makes me pay attention. There are no coincidences. So without further ado, some quotes from Fr. Hardon on Why Write?


We have in life to master our minds, to control our thoughts. Writing disciplines the mind.

Writing controls and enables us to master our thinking. With our thoughts in control, as we know, every thought leads to a desire. Every desire leads to an action. Every action leads to a habit. Every habit shapes our character. And our character determines our destiny. It all begins in the mind.

Cardinal Newman explains why more people do not write. The reason, he explains, is that “I have to read what I have written. I must look at myself as I really am.” Writing is a mirror of our minds. And what we see, we blink [at]. What fool wrote this? I must see the vagueness of my thinking, the inconsistencies of my logic, the triviality my life; and the experience is humiliating.

Writing cultivates the memory.

Writing provides us with a moral inventory. St. Ignatius Loyola stressed the importance of a daily review of our conduct and it put into written form.

...writing in the spiritual life is so important to cultivate the art of speaking.

Too often we speak without first thinking. But we cannot write without thinking.

...“why write?” For the practice of charity in sharing our souls.

Oh dear. So many quotations. I cut out a few. Do yourself a favor and read the article. God bless and happy writing!

FREE Traditional Catholic Books

GOLDMINE! I came across this on Rorate Caeli. What a tremendous resource of free, traditional Catholic books, both in English and Spanish. Although I have a preference for printed books, having an e-reader has made it easier to read some amazing Catholic books without breaking our budget.

I hope you will find many titles of interest.


http://www.traditionalcatholic.co/free-catholicbooks/

http://www.traditionalcatholic.co/free-catholic-books-ii/

I love the sidebar with all the blogger's favorite saints. Fancy, they are some of my friends too!!!

Right now I'm reading Story of a Soul by the Little Flower on my kindle and I could just weep from joy, how tenderly she writes about her family, her joys and sufferings, and her love for Jesus. Pray for us, St. Therese!

Catechesis Resources

Michael bought THEOLOGY FOR BEGINNERS a couple of years ago and I've only now picked it up. What a GEM. I recommend this to all Christians, whether or not they think they already know and understand the mysteries of our faith.

So imagine my surprise when Michael -- and by now you must realize he is very good at digging up stuff! -- found a wonderful website with this very charming woman giving catechesis that even a second-grader can understand but with such depth, you will not be disappointed. It's no surprise that Daphne McLeod was a student of Sheed's. 

Michael had been looking for a resource for our Sunday Lectio Divina for the traditional calendar. I'm so glad he likes poking around the interwebs! My St. Andrew Daily Missal is a lot like this but it's hard to read because the print is so teeny.  Still, I love it. No more throwing away or recycling the Word of God as I've been doing the past couple of years with the Magnificat. I have something I can use year after year.  

I have a writing assignment (my first Catholic one!) and was looking for some resources online and hit the jackpot! St. Thomas Aquinas' commentary on the Gospel of John. Holy smokes!

Anyhow, I hope you will give the book a try and the links a look-see and listen. You will not be disappointed. Remember, the first spiritual work of mercy is instructing the ignorant! I do thank these wonderful teachers.