7 Reasons You Should Buy “Who is Jesus Christ?” by Eric Sammons

Who Is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew

By Eric Sammons (Our Sunday Visitor, 2010)

This is a top notch, can’t-go-wrong book .   I had a hard time writing a review because everything I had to say sounded so trite and trivial and fluffy, and this book is none of those.  I finally just decided to gush away in a nice neat top-7 list (no biblical allusions intended).  So here you go:

Jen’s Top 7 Reasons You Should Buy This Book

1. It is interesting! When I picked this book for my Catholic Company book review item, I thought it would be boring-but-good-for-you. I was so wrong. Not boring. Not at all. The book is packed with interesting perspectives on Jesus – how he was seen by his contemporaries, how Jesus fits into the Old Testament prophecies of a messiah, and how the Gospel impacts our lives today. Loaded with details, and never slow and belaboring. (But I was right about the good-for-you.)

2. It is not hard to read. Chapters are short, and within a chapter, ideas flow steadily from one to the next. I found I could pick up and put down at will, as long as I could get about three or four paragraphs read before the next interruption. My test readers (normal people) said they had no difficulty with the reading level, but that it is full of information, so you do need to pay attention. No big technical theology words. Well-written.

3.  It is very well organized. Eric Sammons is like a tour guide for ideas. He takes you all over the place, connecting history, prophecies, new testament passages, church fathers, catholic doctrine, and personal spirituality, and at the end of the chapter you get the sense your trip took you to exactly the right places. It all fit perfectly together, and you aren’t one bit worn out.

4.  It tackles the tough topics. Suffering. Unpopular doctrines. Common apologetic attacks. All the difficulties people have with the catholic faith show up sooner or later. But this isn’t a book about “difficulties with the faith” – it’s a book about Jesus. Just like getting to know your best friend naturally uncovers many puzzling questions (“why does she act that way?” “why is he is asking this of me?”), getting to know Jesus means getting to understand why the universe is how it is.  Very encouraging and helpful for those who are struggling with the faith and want substantial, honest answers.

5.  Did I mention it’s good for you? Each chapter ends with two or three reflection questions that act like prompts for self-examination. Simple stuff you really probably already know, but every now and then you need a little kick in the rear to help you refocus. Emphasis on “the little way” of St. Therese, so very appropriate for us mere mortals.  This would make an excellent book for Advent or Lent, or for a couple or study-group to read together and then use the reflection-questions to generate discussion.

6.  This book is made for ordinary catholics. You do need to have a general knowledge of the scriptures and of the catholic faith, but of the kind you would naturally have gained just by sitting in Mass for a few years. (Preferably: paying attention. At least mostly.) If you are new to studying the faith, the book is loaded with intro’s. You’ll get a feel for the bible, meet the church fathers, and see how the catholic faith really works and why it makes sense.

7.  Smart people will not find it too “easy”. Think of it like the skilled-chef rule of eating — the more you know about cooking, the more you appreciate a well-cooked meal.  Eric Sammons isn’t afraid to delve deep and wander wide in his building of theological and historical connections, and in doing so he’s put together a book full of  solid meaty catholic-y goodness.   Yes, you may well be hungry for more when you put down this book.  But not because you ate poorly — because you ate so well.

Summary: I give it an unqualified “Buy” recommend.

PS: The cover art is really cool.

***

Edited to add:

Chris Cash, long-suffering blog-herder at The Catholic Company, reminds me to remind you: Also be sure to check out their great selection of baptism gifts.

I’ll also point out that The Catholic Company is still accepting new reviewers, and they have a long list of great books to review right now.

***

Full disclosure: I’ve never even met Eric Sammons. Though I think he might be a member of the Catholic Writers’ Guild, maybe. But I say that because he is from Gaithersburg, and you might think this favorable review is all a big “People from Gaithersburg” plot. Not so. Indeed my first thought on reading his bio was, “Can anything good come from Gaithersburg?” Unfair. I knew many good, sincere, devout persons (of various faiths) during my years in the metro area. I wasn’t one of them, of course. But now I know better, and I assure you I would recommend this book even if Eric were from North Potomac.

 

Mater et Magistra Magazine – Fall Issue Free

The fall issue of the catholic homeschooling magizine Mater et Magistra is now out in electronic format, and you can get a copy free Here.

Worth a look, eh?

(It was worth a look even when it wasn’t free, I would note.  You can see my review of my first issue here.)

Tell your friends!

Another Good Book: Operation Mincemeat

If you have seen the film The Man Who Never Was, you can now get the rest of story via  Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre (Harmony Books / Crown Publishing, 2010).   Detailed accounts of all sides — the English counter-intelligence group, the corpse, the submariner, the Spanish & Germans who variously either nearly derailed the mission or who swallowed it whole.   Also details of the subsequent invasion of the Sicily, or why mincemeat mattered.  Plus photos, including images of all the original documents.  And “where are they now” follow-ups on all the major players.

Very fun look inside a great spy story.   Did I mention Ian Fleming is in there?  (Yes, that Ian Fleming.  Though he doesn’t do a whole lot.)  Most memorable passage:

The all-night negotiations went well, but at one point the visitors were forced to hide in a dusty cellar to avoid an impromptu visit from the gendarmes.  Courtney suffered a coughing fit, which threatened to give them away.  General Clark passed the choking commando some chewing gum.

“Your American gum has so little taste,” whispered Courtney, once the spasm subsided.

“Yes”, said Clark.  “I’ve already used it.”

For grown-ups, both for content and reading level.

PS: Watch the movie first.  Or you’ll get lost drowning in the detail.  So to speak.

***

Finished reading Eric Sammon’s new book Who is Jesus Christ ages ago, and can give it an unqualified recommendation.  Had a few test-readers evaluate it for reading-level.  My ten-year-old, who can read anything at all so long as it is about guns, told me it was “Not hard to read, but not very entertaining.”  Don’t listen to him.  Parish Secretary, who is a normal catholic person who is pretty happy diving into Scott Hahn (as am I), says: Easy to read, but you have to go slowly because there is so much detail.  Official review coming soon.

More good books – medieval history

Two library finds:

Life on a Medieval Barony by William Stearns Davis (Harper & Brothers, 1923).  Suprisingly good information — I’ve seen far, far worse in more modern works.  Non-fiction, but uses a fictional barony in northern France circa 1220 to ground the descriptions of medieval life in a cast of characters.   Much of the narrative material is pulled from period sources, ie the telling of our baron’s hunt is actually borrowed from a medieval hunting account.  Makes for a very dashing baron — bit larger than life, as will happen with hunting stories.

–>  The narrative style packs in a lot more detail than you could get away with otherwise and still keep readers awake and even flipping pages to find out what  happens next.

Given the amount of information (400 pages)  and the references to mature topics, I’d say this fits better for teens and above.    Would make a good parent-teen book to read together, as it raises all kinds of theological and moral issues for discussion fodder, and using someone else’s era maybe helps take a step back and see things more clearly?

Fine as an introduction to medieval life for a teen or adult reader, but enough good details to be worth a look for any amateur medievalist.  A knowledge of catholicism in general would be helpful, since there is a quite a lot of describing medieval religious practices.

 

My second lucky find was an audio lecture series,  Heaven or Heresy: A History of the Inquisition by Thomas F. Madden.   If you are catholic, sooner or later someone’s gonna bring up the inquisition.  This set of does a good job of distinguishing the facts (sometimes sordid, sometimes not) from the legend. Gives you enough detail that you could reasonably hope to explain not just the differences between the different inquisitions (Spanish versus Roman verus medieval Papal verus medieval local, etc etc), but also how, say, the Spanish inquisition changed over time.

SuperHusband has listened to some of his other lectures in the series, and found them informative and balanced.    (Recall: SuperHusband = SuperProtestant.  Not a guy who would go in for catholic propaganda.)    I found this to be the same way.  If you are Torquemada, well, your reputation isn’t helped.

Pre-requisites: It is expected that you are familiar with the basics of the catholic faith, including vocabulary like “Dominican” “mendicant” “encyclical” “anti-pope” etc.  Madden generally offers a brief definition of these types of words, but you’ll be on much firmer ground if you aren’t hearing them for the first time.  You’ll also want a general idea of the outline of European history from the time of Christ forward.

I’d give this one a ‘buy’ recommend if your budget allows.  Though I wish the man would write a book on the topic.

 

New Review Book – Who is Jesus Christ? by Eric Sammons

My new Catholic Company review book arrived yesterday, and I’m tearing through it.  Super good.  It’s Who is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew by Eric Sammons.

–> Whose blog, The Divine Life, is the one I click on in my feed reader second, right after Dr. Boli.   So I guess I should have known that I would like the book, but somehow with the title and Eric’s smartness and all that, I thought it would be too difficult for me, or sort of dry, or something like that.   I thought this  because I am pretty stupid that way.

Not boring at all.  Not one bit.  Eminently readable, no big words so far (I’m on p. 74), and the chapters are short, too.   Just plain enjoyable.  But jam-packed solid good.  You know I have no patience for touchy-feely watery blathery stuff.

So that’s my mid-book pre-review, which I had to post because SuperHusband is getting sick of me saying “wow, this is such a good book”, so I thought I’d plague the internet instead.  Full official review coming soon.   Meanwhile, I think you can safely ask Saint-a-Claus to get you this one for All Saint’s Day.

Two New Michelle Buckman Books – Recommended

This summer I got to pre-read two new novels by Michelle Buckman as part of the Catholic Writers Guild’s “Seal of Approval” program.  (Both books passed).

They are now in print:  Rachel’s Contrition and The Death Panels.  Two totally different stories, but both are fun, readable, and thoughtful.  And challenging.

–> By “challenging” I do not mean “artsy prose that borders on incomprehensible” and “long passages inserted as a test of your perseverance as a reader”.  MB’s writing is fast-paced, page-turner stuff.  What intellectual-types read when they have the flu, and the rest of us read without having to make up excuses for why we’re allowed to enjoy ourselves once in a while.

But FYI, Rachel’s Contrition leans to contemporary women’s lit (but it’s good!  it is!), and is the more literary of the two.   The Death Panels is a dystopian pro-life thriller.  Lotta fun, but you’ve got to get into the whole dystopia genre, which will require varying amounts of suspension of disbelief depending on which way your politics run.

Don’t say you weren’t warned: Adult topics.  (Fine for mature teens.) –>  If you hear the term “catholic fiction” and imagine some kind of horrid saccharine drivel, you have been hearing wrong.    These books actually are, wait for it . . . . inspiring.  But in a demanding, I-have-seen-the-dark-side-of-my-own-soul way.  No excerpt from one of these two will ever be reprinted in any chicken-soup themed collection.

Good stuff.  Recommended.

Book Review: The Salvation Controversy by James Akin

The Salvation Controversy

by James Akin

Catholic Answers 2001

 

So I used to have this bad habit of making jokes about double predestination (gross violation of my own combox rules, you might notice) . . .  until the other week when a pair of friends called me on it using the highly effective Stony Silence method.  Point taken.  And that was the week that The Salvation Controversy turned up on the Catholic Company’s list of blogger-review product choices.   What with the promised Tiptoe Through The TULIP, how could I say no?

Verdict: Excellent book – highly recommended.  But only if you are the intended audience.  (Otherwise you might be kind of lost and bored – it’s a soteriology book.  And yeah, I had to look up that word too.)  So here’s a synopsis of what is in the book and who is the audience, to help you decide if this is for you.

***

Contents: The book is about everything that has to do with what Catholics believe about salvation, and how that stacks up to common protestant views of salvation.  (“Soteriology” is the branch of theology devoted to the doctrine of salvation.  Per the glossary in the back of the book, verbatim.)

The first several chapters lay the groundwork, looking at what the Bible says (and hence, what Catholics believe) about the when’s and how’s of salvation.  Key concept: the word “salvation” refers to more than just a single instant when your eternal fate is sealed.   So when debating “salvation” it is important to make sure you know what kind of salvation you are debating.

→ These chapters are essential.  Jimmy Akin is notoriously meticulous in how he examines a topic a builds arguments.  If you jump ahead to the the really gory stuff – indulgences, predestination, faith-versus-works – without reading the front chapters, you will be lost.  Maybe without realizing. Gotta read those laying-the-groundwork chapters.  (If you are a catechist, you should read those chapters just for an “Aha!” about what it is Catholic believe about salvation.)

After these preliminaries, there are chapters tackling all the hot topics:

-Penance

-Indulgences

-Predestination (per Calvinism)

-Faith versus Works

-The Joint Statement between Lutherans and Catholics on salvation

And then it ends there.  This is a handbook; no great thesis being pushed, just a thorough explanation of the issues at hand.  In addition to the glossary, there is an index to all the scriptural citations, and a topical index.

The Reading Level: Jimmy Akin writes very clearly, and in ordinary language.  Nothing at all like some horrid paper you had to read for an upper-level elective.  BUT, he uses big words where necessary.  I had to look up maybe four big words (I lost my list – I was keeping one for you) towards the beginning of the book, mostly ones I more or less knew what they meant, but wanted to make certain.  There’s a glossary at the back of the book to help you keep your vocabulary straight.

The arguments are not difficult, but they are very precise, and laid out very carefully.  Which means you need to pay attention and follow them step-by-step, both within and across chapters.  At times this requires patience.  Definitely not a three-quick-bullet-points approach to apologetics.

Pre-requisites: First, you need to have a basic understanding of the christian faith – that Jesus died to save us from our sins so we could live with Him forever in Heaven, all that. In no way is this an “introduction to Christianity” book.  Just not.

Secondly, you need to be familiar with at least the broad lines of debate between protestants and catholics.  Jimmy Akin is essentially walking into the midst of the argument, holding up his hands and saying, “Ho now guys, let’s get our terms straight, and then see how much we really disagree after all”.  If you haven’t been immersed in these topics already, I think you might get lost.

And finally, you will want to be knowledgeable of the Bible.  All arguments revolve around the study of scripture, and I expect you’d get exhausted if you had to go read all the citations for the first time.  You should be at that point where when you read, “It says in Romans 2:6 . . .”, you can at least nod and have a rough idea of what Romans is all about, even though how many of us go around thinking, ‘Oh yeah, 2:6 . . . oooh . . .”.  Maybe you need to go back and re-read, but the epistles should not be new material for you.  (The word “epistle” should not be new to you.)

→  FYI Catholic Answers and the Enjoy Institute are both excellent sources for entry-level materials if you are just wading into the world of apologetics for the first time.  Come back to this book later.

Would a Protestant Hate This Book? Mmn, I’m not sure.  I was tempted to ask some friends to test-read for me, but in the end I didn’t.  As apologists go – apologists are notoriously snarky and triumphant – Jimmy Akin is the picture of charity.  He does indulge in the periodic “Catholics are just using the words of scripture” observation, which is of course very encouraging for Catholics, but if you were a sensitive non-catholic, that could rub the wrong way.  (Unless you happened to agree with the catholic position on the particular point in question.)

To the best of my knowledge, Akin is very careful to state protestant beliefs accurately, and never to argue against a straw man.  If anyone finds otherwise, I would like to hear about it.  (Obviously in a short book he isn’t going to address every possible position on the various controversies. But my impression is that he builds fair arguments.)

→ Which makes sense, since one of his goals is to demonstrate that the catholic position is not necessarily an impossible leap for assorted protestants.  So if you are a non-catholic trying to figure out “Is my position on salvation consistent with catholic teaching?”, this is the manual to assist you. [Good news: the odds are in your favor.]

Conclusion: This boy is not leaving my shelf.  Immensely useful if you are ready to tackle the material.  Clear, concise, well-explained, and covering material that was new to me.  Due for a periodic re-read, because there’s no way I mastered everything on the first read-through.

(→  Luckily I lost my original copy for a while and had to buy a second, so I do have a loaner available for my handful of real-life friends who fit the target audience.)

Not a beginner book, but if you are looking for a very approachable take on advanced-intermediate, this one is superb.  I give it a firm ‘buy’ recommend if this is the topic you want to study.

DVD Review: Father of Mercy

Tiber River is the catholic media-review project sponsored by Aquinas and More Catholic Goods. After a few false starts, I finally got going as a reviewer this past week, with the DVD Father of Mercy. I chose it from the available review items because it seemed like a good fit for my eldest child’s study of just warfare this year. Not disappointed. Not at all.

What It Is: Father of Mercy (“The Children’s Angel” is the Italian title) is the made-into-a-movie telling of the story of Father Carlo Gnocchi, an Italian priest who served on the front lines as a chaplain in World War II, and afterwards undertook a massive work of mercy taking care of the many children injured and/or orphaned by the war. Fr Gnocchi was beatified in 2009, and the network of hospitals he founded is still in operation

The story is told in two parts. Part one begins during WWII, and tells of Fr. Gnocchi’s decision to leave his post as a high school teacher and university chaplain, and go to the front lines – first to the Albanian front, and later to the Russian front. Part II picks up during the Italian/German retreat from the Russian front, and tells the story of the vast works of mercy that Father Gnocchi undertook once back home. The two stories are told seamlessly in a single narrative, Part II literally beginning right there in the snow where Part I ended, with only a short intermission-style bit of music to tell you at the end of Part I to please go to bed and take it up again in the morning. (Total running time is 200 minutes.)

The DVD also includes a short study guide produced by Ignatius Press – excellent supplement, very helpful, provides both some historical background and a good breakdown of the moral issues presented in the film.

The story is somewhat fictionalized – timeframes are compressed or glossed over, and some real events are told via fictional characters (ie: Father Gnocchi did donate his corneas, but he donated them to others than the person depicted in the film). There is a love triangle among three youngsters thrown in for the purposes of building up of themes, and frankly in order to keep more of a plot going through the second half. (One of the supporting characters also helps ground us morally as the others are headed off to war in support of fascist Italy.)

What I Thought: Well, it was exactly what I had hoped. My boy watched the whole thing through in English, and hung around for a second viewing in Italian. (He tells me the light weapons were all authentic to the period, though he couldn’t verify the tanks.) We got to see a heroically-brave priest (and some heroically-brave soldiers), the honest horrors of war, and the waging of peace. More than I had hoped for: We get a film that is morally complex without being morally ambiguous. A mother and a catechist falls in love – yay! It’s a keeper! This is a movie you are perfectly happy for your youth to watch over and again. Even better: That study guide is VERY HELPFUL for those who need some assistance navigating the moral complexity.

But Was It A Perfect Film? No. Here are a few things you should know up front, so you don’t send me hate mail because I said it was a great movie and it turns out it triggered a pet peeve.

• I don’t usually mind voice-over, but . . . it sure seemed to me like the original Italian had much more depth and vivacity than the English voice-over. And there are a couple spots in Part II where children-extras sound like they’re being faked by adults. Subtitles were fine.

• I don’t do the “drama” genre much . . . so to me, the intensity of the playing pushed my suspension of disbelief, particularly in Part II. Part I held up fine because war, well, it really is that dramatically intense. But in Part II, I’m afraid I maxed out on the warm-hearted orphan scenes. (I would have preferred a good accounting-thriller for Part II. That’s a lot of hospitals the man founded – how come we only get to see the funding of the first one?? But perhaps my tastes are in the minority there.)

• The story-telling was not as neat as I’d have liked. Some of the supporting characters were a little thin, and at times character development and plot points felt abrupt. Part of it, I suspect, was the effort to squeeze such a rich story into limited minutes. [Note: My children complained about none of these things, and probably most people who are used to watching TV and stuff wouldn’t notice either.]

I would say above all, and this is not so much a problem as a fact: There is definitely a genre divide between Part I and Part II. Part I is an intense WWII film, and very honestly it is exactly the one I wanted. The portrayal of war rings true with what I have heard from combat veterans, and it is stunningly lovely to see difficult questions of faith dealt with in a war film, with no namby-pamby mushy platitudes for the conclusion. Part II is more soap-opera-meets-warm-hearted-family-drama. (I know many people who would hate Part I, love Part II. It’s a taste thing. Though I think there is actually more kissing in Part I, hehe.)

And speaking of kissing, violence, graphic horrors of war, etc . . . the film is not rated. I give it a solid PG-13. Language is clean, kissing scenes are strictly kissing. (And not for nearly as many seconds as a certain 10-year-old-boys complained.) But the war violence is definitely there – scary, suspenseful, morally demanding. At times you get to see good guys do the wrong thing. And though the gore is very restrained, blood does spurt and wounds are shown; whole corpses (no piece parts) lay about in those places corpses are wont to lay, often with faces clearly visible. We see the lead-up to an unmedicated amputation, and there is a firing-squad scene where Fr. Gnocchi blocks our view right before we hear the shots fired.

Summary: I’m very glad I got this DVD – it was everything I had hoped and then some. Inspiring, well-told despite my quibbles (nicely produced, by the way), pleasure to watch both times through. I definitely felt pushed and moved – this is a story that stuck with me. My boy was inspired to go learn more, so it was an academic success as well. I give it a “buy” recommend if you want a solidly catholic movie that fits this era and these genres.

Book Review: Sex Au Naturel

Sex Au Naturel: What It Is and Why It’s Good For Your Marriage

By Patrick Coffin

Emmaus Road, 2010

Having already blushed my way through the opening lines of Dark Night of the Soul, of course I had to jump on any Catholic Company review book featuring a picture of Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss on the cover. Survival of the species might very well depend on it, you know.

Well, sorry, go ahead and put away the candles and silk sheets; turns out Patrick Coffin’s book isn’t quite about that.  What it is, however, is a pretty good one-stop overview of the Church’s teaching on birth control, in the context of contemporary culture.

Coffin opens with some background: How we got the encyclical Humanae Vitae, and why from the very beginning it was not universally embraced. He shares his own spiritual history by way of example, and also the reasoning that made him eventually accept the church’s doctrine.

From there the book moves into a comprehensive review of the major elements of NFP-apologetics.  There are chapters on:

• Church Tradition concerning the use of birth control
• Birth Control in the Bible
• The Sacrament of Marriage as a reflection of the Holy Trinity
• Natural Law arguments against contraception (including a nice explanation of what “Natural Law” actually is)
• Contraception myth-busting — one chapter covering a potpourri of topics, and a second addressing the question of population control
• How sterilization fits into church teaching – both for those considering the procedure, and those who have already been sterilized
• What, exactly, are the differences between contraception and Natural Family Planning?
• How do modern fertility treatments fit into church teaching?

An appendix provides a useful array of recommended resources for those who want to learn more, including contact information for the major NFP methods taught in North America.

The book is short (134 pages) and the tone is conversational.  Each chapter is compact and easily readable — at times to the point of being a mite choppy.  I think the book would be most helpful to a catholic reader who wants to quickly dive into the subject and get a good grasp on the major issues. Between the appendix and the many well-known authors quoted throughout the book (Kimberly Hahn, Janet Smith, Christopher West, etc.), for any given topic, Coffin’s book is a jumping-off point: You get the main ideas, and he gives you clues for where to look if you want to dig deeper.

I don’t, however, think the book would normally be helpful to a reader still struggling with the church’s teachings on sex.  In such a compact work covering so many topics, there isn’t space to develop arguments as thoroughly as such a reader would need. At times as I read I thought, “But what about____ objection?” or “But that wouldn’t makes sense to someone who has ____concern” or simply, “This argument needs to be developed more explicitly”.

I am hopeful that Sex Au Naturel will go into second and third editions. There are areas where I think a more thorough or carefully developed treatment would be helpful. But at its base this is a great first go-round at attempting to put a lot of material into a compact and readable form, accessible to ordinary catholics.   I firmly intend to keep it on my own shelves for future reference, and should also add this is a good title for the shelves of any parish library.

Utterly Immersed

It’s all good.  But regular life has been trumping internet lately.  Here’s a quick rundown, in the event that I manage to finish this post before something else presents itself:

Contagious Illness Unit Study at an end? I’m hopeful.  No one has developed an illness in over a week.   We even managed to go camping over the weekend – yay!  Pretty much been a record year as far as minor-but-disruptive afflictions go.  That’s been my number one reason for internet silence; not so much a case of too-ill-to-post, as that caring for whichever family member has the latest strain of plague sucks up just that extra bit of time and energy.  So we’ve held together the larger part of normal life, but some of the extras had to give way.  Gives me lots of fodder for the homeschooling book . . .

. . . On which I am making progress. Albeit more slowly than I imagined.  But it is a much richer work for all the real-life enrichment I’ve been handed.  And very fortunately I have amassed a small group of people I can’t bear to disappoint, so it will get written.  At this point I’ve got the bulk of an outline (quite detailed), one lousy opening chapter that needs to be scrapped, and one middle-area chapter that is getting full but still has a few more salient points to cover.  (Topic: Housekeeping.  And those who know me will assure you, when I say I am writing a book about realistic expectations while homeschooling, you can be entirely confident my housekeeping chapter will not set any unobtainable standards.)

Speaking of which, I am trying to clean out the house.  Just way too much stuff.  (All good – but more of it than we have house.)  I finally figured out that all the cool things my neat, clean, clutter-free friends give as hand-me-downs?  If I want a house like theirs, that stuff is the first to hit to the road.  Luckily, such friends understand the need.  The place does look better, but still needs a lot of work.

But I’m hopeful, because wow my yard is awesome. In addition to contagious illnesses, we’ve also been doing a gardening unit study this spring.  SuperHusband built us a privacy fence, effectively giving a real back yard to our corner lot that was previously 90% front yard.  I had been working on cleaning up that front yard anyway (mostly out of love for my neighbors, who have suffered long enough looking at our debris), and then after the fence went up we put in some blueberries and figs for landscaping in front of that, and meanwhile had been making headway on vegetable gardening and general civility in what is now the back yard.  It is all very cottage-y, in an I-like-tall-grass-and-trees-the-birds-plant kind of way, but we’re pretty happy with it.  And the front yard I’m trying to keep moderately civilized.  Don’t mind the woodpile.  (A real functioning woodpile — we will burn it next winter.)  So all that to say: if I can tame the yard, perhaps I can tame the house as well.

Latin Watch: Verb conjugation is killing us.  Same story in French.  Oh, we’ll get through.  But the pace has definitely slowed to a crawl.  Mr. Boy and I were checking his homework on Verbix today, and I clicked on the Kreyol  option just to have a look-see, and we observed that conjugating is much easier in that language. Mr. Boy immediately wanted to change his course of study.  I told him not ’till he has plane tickets to Haiti .  (Hint: We have no such plans.)  And plus he’d need to know French anyway, so no getting out of it.    But I will observe that the girls are absolutely loving learning ASL, which is, it should be noted, a non-conjugating language.  I begin to see a pattern.

Concerning my own education . . . I finished the Sex Book. (This one).  Good book, recommended for those who fit the target audience.  I will get a review up here shortly.  Summary: I’m glad I signed up for it, and it’s one I’ll be keeping on the shelf for my own reference.   An interesting counterpoint has been reading Love and Control by Cardinal Suenens (The Newman Press, 1961), a find from the parish library.   I’m about halfway through.  Timeless observations, if, again, a little more theoretical than a married lady might hope.  On the other hand, one doesn’t want one’s clerics getting too terribly practical concerning the details of the workings of someone else’s sacrament.

Also culled from the parish shelves:  The Rule of Saint Benedict. Wow, you should read it.  Surely it’s on the internet somewhere.  The translation I had was very readable, quick to digest, and makes a great combo-pack of spiritual and historical insights.  And as it happened, I also brought home St. Odo of Cluny (Sheed and Ward, 1958), which is a translation of the Life of St. Odo, written by his contemporary John of Salerno.  Total page-turner.  I kid not.  One fascinating vignette after another, constantly making you wonder what zany anecdote is coming next.   Lots of pillaging norsemen and monks who are fed up with eating fish.  Just finished the segment on the armed standoff between a house of slacker-monks and the party of civil and church authorities trying to force the foundation to accept Odo as their reforming leader.   Definitely need to read the rule of St. Benedict first in order to understand the action.

That’s enough news for now. I’ll check back with that book review. Happy June.