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.

Review – St. Francis DVD

DVD Review: St. Francis (2002 – English version distributed by Ignatius Press).

I received this DVD as part of the Tiber River blogger-review program; when I realized that I absolutely could not stand the film, I e-mailed our longsuffering review-program director for guidance. He pointed out that his army of bloggers is hired to post honest reviews, not marketing copy. Well I hate posting bad reviews, but I’ve got my orders, so here goes:

First of all, you should know that the film is really very beautiful. Lovely medieval sets, sweeping vistas of Italian countryside, fun being had in the costuming department. I am not qualified to give you a historical-accuracy rating on those details, but certainly as a lay-viewer I felt happily immersed in turn-of-13^th century Assisi. So I really wanted to like this film.

I tracked along with the director’s artistic-license version of St. Francis’s early life until we got to the battle between Assisi and Perugia. Which, in this version of events, is not merely a battle between two cities, with Francis as a would-be knight. Instead, we have a worker’s uprising in Assisi, with Francis as a proto-Marxist, encouraging his father’s employees to abandon the cloth-works and fight for freedom against their noble oppressors.

Mmn, I dunno.  The truth is I know very little about 12th and 13th century Italian city-states.

–> In researching some Francis-biographies to fact-check later scenes, I did find instances where a scene that played as melodrama in the film was in fact taken from the historical record. But I was unable to find anything corroborating the early-revolutionary take on the the Assisi-Perugia battle. If someone can point me the appropriate source, I would be most grateful.

But I let that go until Francis showed up in prison. Now again, I could be missing sources in my fact-checking. But the accounts I have read (from contemporary-to-him and contemporary-to-me biographies), tell of Francis being taken prisoner in Perugia, where he spends a year until his father ransoms him. During which time there are some stories of him cheerfully encouraging the other captured knights, and befriending one particularly surly knight. It’s all very . . . Inquisition-Deficient.

So our director’s version was not what I was expecting: A fellow prisoner going to his death for heresy covertly passes Francis his contraband bible. Francis exclaims: “It’s in the vernacular!” Amazed by the possibility of reading the scriptures himself, he becomes a new man – and is eventually tortured and left for dead because he is caught reading the forbidden bible to another prisoner.

Did this happen in real life? Because I’m seeing nothing in any biography I read, including the Ignatius Press study guide that came with the film. Awaiting evidence to support these claims (I’m ready to be corrected!) this is why I’m giving the film a low orthodoxy-rating. There’s a necessary amount of could-have-happened pretending that goes with any dramatization of a historical figure; but these accusations, if fictional as I think they are, cross the line into slander. Not to mention gratuitous sadistic-voyeurism.

(There are not lingering torture scenes. We hear brief sound effects, see the set where the torture is going to take place — and see discarded bodies tossed into a pile. Francis’s father comes and claims his son’s body from that pile.)

From there we get one more set of just plain weird fake-biography. Francis comes home and succumbs to the long illness well-known to history. Now in the written versions of the saint’s life, we see a young man who struggles to work out his vocation for a time after his recovery. He attempts to become a knight again, but is turned away; he gives alms, but continues to live in the world and cavort with his friends, albeit more soberly than before. His charitable fundraising is halting and at times immature. It is a process. (And yes: there are records of temper-tantrums as part of that process.)

In the film, Francis wakes up from his illness, sneaks downstairs, and in one manic episode breaks into his father’s strong-chest and proceeds to throw money and treasures into the streets. It is a violent, mindless rage, made all the worse when the recipients pile-on the tossed-out gold in a melee of their own. Conversion-as-psychosis.

(Later one of his companions will convert with the same money-tossing-tantrum process, fist-fighting beggars inclusive.)

After that, the movie is mostly just sort of dumb. Members of the nobility and the church hierarchy are played obtuse, arrogant, and one-dimensional. Francis preaches a gospel devoid of any real mention of Jesus Christ. And there is almost zero action.

→ Now that last complaint is a question of taste. I like action. The real life of St. Francis is loaded with action. Our director prefers long dramatic scenes of moodiness. Lots of pained looks, the occasional gaze-of-wonder, and characters who eventually get to say “Now I understand!”. The part where Francis travels the world and builds up a religious order is summarized in a minute-long voice-over in between the early-life dramatic angst and the end-of-life dramatic angst.

So that wasn’t for me. But other people might find it beautiful and moving. Seriously. I’ve discovered most of my smart catholic friends prefer this stuff to my Hardy-Boys type taste. I’m under-artsy. So if you like literary drama, really you might find this film just your cup of tea.

And that’s my review. I watched it once with the English voice-over (not recommended) and made an attempt to view it again in the original Italian (strongly preferred), but didn’t have the patience for a second sitting. [Plus I didn’t want the kids seeing that torture scene again.] Given the egregious nature of the apparent historical errors, I was surprised Ignatius Press put their stamp on this film.

→ I made an honest attempt to check on the facts, but plainly admit I’m not an expert. I will happily retract this review and adjust my orthodoxy-rating if it turns out I overlooked some key historical evidence.  [So somebody please speak up and correct me!  I would really much rather this be a beautiful film that isn’t to my taste, but that I could still recommend to those who do like this style of cinema.]

-Jen.

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.

Follow-on to the review below:

If you are a catholic blogger who needs a steady supply of free, top-notch spiritual reading, I see that the The Catholic Company is still accepting new reviewers.  Highly recommended program, well-run and I have never, ever, had any difficulty picking a new book from the list of available titles.  There are usually a dozen or more options across a wide variety of mostly non-fiction genres.  You pick one out, they ship it to you, you post your review, you pick a new one out.  Very well-run.

–> My next pick (so look for a review one of these days) is Jimmy Aiken’s The Salvation Controversy, which promises to set me straight on my TULIP problems.   Well-timed.

Also look for a review here of the DVD Father of Mercy, my first blog-review for Tiber River.  Finished watching it (once in English voice-over, then with much relief again in the original Italian), just need to type up my thoughts.  (Hint: I don’t pick lousy product.)

So that should be posted soon, assuming no more exciting sub-plots here at home.  Been one of those weeks, hehe.  And also maybe a review of John Hathaway’s Prayer CD “Hide Me In Your Wounds: Daily Prayer with the Saints”, soon as I get through the whole thing.

In real life: We’re doing a math-n-craziness theme at school this summer.  New school year starts August 15th, and I’m planning to pretty much hit it running from the get-go.  Oh and we joined the YMCA.  Man I love that place.

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.

Catholic Writers Conference Live

Highly recommended.   Here’s the main site – top of the page is where you click to see the conference schedule and all that.  (See Karina Fabian’s site for yet more info.)   In case you weren’t sure, Mark Shea and Michelle Buckman are both stupendously enjoyable writers.    And this is pretty much the go-to event for hanging out with the superstars of the catholic world.   Attend the writers conference, and you get to go to the Catholic Marketing event free.  So it’s a combo deal.  Plus, the writers conference will be relatively small, which for individual attention and encouragement is much much better than some giant massive event.

If you are going to be in or near Valley Forge, PA August 4-6, plan to attend.

(Hey I thought I would add just to clarify: Sadly, I will be nowhere near VF, PA on the necessary dates.  Just in case anyone had been secretly hoping to see me there, thought I’d dash your hopes now rather than a week from now.  But all the other cool kids will be there, so go anyway.  :-)

Someone remind me to add Catholic Free Shipping to the sidebar.  And where to put it — humor?  General Catholic? Reputable Vendors?  Thanks to the Ironic Catholic for pointing out vocabulary entries such as this one:

“Mandatum”

What I thought it meant: A survey or questionnaire that by law one is required to truthfully complete, as the census.

When Father Rick saw the part in the mandatum inquiring how many children he had, he thought he ought to write down the two thousand people he  serves in his parish.

What it really means: The new commandment Jesus left with the Twelve Apostles at the Last Supper, to love one another as Jesus loved them (John 13:34-35); it also refers to the priests’ washing of his parishioners’ feet during Holy Thursday Mass.

If it were possible for every single one of his flock to be honored during the mandatum, Father Rick would have washed each foot with great humility.

*****

Meanwhile, speaking of reputable Catholic vendors, my new Catholic Company review book is Sex Au Naturel by Patrick Coffin.  So far so good, though I’m afraid it is not nearly as racy as Dark Night of the Soul.  Or, say, the Bible.   On the other hand, it seems to fill a different need.  And plus, married ladies should be made to read something a little tamer every now and then.

In other catholic vendor news, I’m sorry to see that Requiem Press is closing.  Would some technically-knowledgeable person please beg Jim Curley to make the titles available via e-book going forward?  Sad to see good books going out of print.

Mater et Magistra (et other news first)

The big news first: I’m out of the hole! Yay.  I can do things like check my e-mail, or water the garden without getting out of breath.  Actually the mowed the lawn Monday, which involves more miracles than we need discuss here. (But, note to self: When in doubt, marry a man who can maintain heavy machinery.  One more reason we call him the SuperHusband.)  Was back to fighter practice yesterday after about a month off — won’t say I was 100%, but wow it sure cheers me up, getting out and trying to stab people for a little while.

***

Now for our topic: Mater et Magistra magazine. My first issue arrived right when the baby was up with croup — she and I went out in the early morning hours to fetch the newspaper, and look, I’d forgotten to check the mail!  New magazine!  Which said 3-year-old immediately claimed, and for the first few hours I was okay with that.  Until she hid it in her room someplace to keep it safe.

But we eventually cleared up that little misunderstanding, and wow, I had no idea.  This is a great magazine!  Written by actual homeschooling parents (as the better homeschool magazines are), the tone is very practical and honest.  When you read an article encouraging you to respond to God’s grace, or persevere through a struggle, it is written, you discover, by a person who openly admits to dirty laundry.

The articles in this issue ran the gamut — encouragement, general practical tips, specific study ideas, and lots of reviews.  The style is Catholic Lay Intellectual — this is the place where all the catholic nerd moms gather to compare notes.   So think of articles a little longer, a little deeper, than what you find about anywhere else in the publishing-for-parents industry.

The Catholicism seems to me to be just normal catholic Christianity — I didn’t detect a particular strain to one extreme or another, other than a sincere desire to follow God.  In my opinion, a non-catholic who was comfortable with Catholic-y stuff might also enjoy the magazine.

The format is small — half-size, like a Reader’s Digest — and very reflective-feeling.  Lots of words, smallish print, no hype, a few pictures, mostly traditional artwork.  Interior is all black-and-white or black-and-special-color-for-the-unit-study-insert.  (Curiously: the color scheme and general format remind me a bit of this blog . . . I suppose if you hate this place, you might hate looking at the magazine, too.)

This is a small, low-budget production.  But a really nice magazine.  If you like to read here, or places like Darwin Catholic, Eric Sammons, or anything by Amy Wellborn, and you homeschool, you will probably like Mater et Magistra.  Highly recommended.  Maybe ask someone to give you a subscription for Mother’s Day?

Blog Maintenance

Added a couple links:

The Lewis Crusade is written by John C. Hathaway, who can transform wading-pool duty at a parish picnic into an intellectual feast for the busy catholic brain.  Great guy who has a thing or two to say to you.

Uncommon Adornments & Phos Hilarion are the twin businesses of jewelry-maker Ann Rinderknecht Miko.  Very nice work, take a look.   (And if  John’s not available, she’s right up there in the entertaining-conversation department.)

Thanks to Julie at Happy Catholic for pointing readers to Unhappy Hipsters.  I actually like modern architecture, and have no particular bias against literary fiction, either — but it’s still pretty funny.  Adult humor in the proper sense of the word — parody it takes an adult to appreciate.

Just so you know, I’ve been sneaking in other links here and there and forgetting to tell you.  So if you are a feed-reader, you might want to click on the blog and peruse, one of these days when you are hard-up for reading material.

***

Speaking of reading material, I just finished Saint of the Day.  So expect a review soon.  (And yes, it did take me a mighty long time to finish it.  But hey, I read a year’s worth of saints in less than one year. How many years of saints have you read this winter?  Hmmn?  People smarter than me don’t answer that.)