An Open Book – May #anopenbook
Today I join Carolyn Astfalk and Catholic Mom for An Open Book. Here’s what I’ve been reading and working on for the past month.
The Fire of Your Love by Erin Lewis (Chalice 3)
Synopsis: Dallas Malone knows what God wants of him—but the eight-year path to the Catholic priesthood is a daunting one. Faced with self-doubts over a past criminal conviction, the unknowns of his fatherless history, and hostility from Daniel, a holier-than-thou seminary classmate who knows his secrets, Dallas wonders if he’s really cut out for this life. But his calling burns deep within him, and he must push himself to stay the course and forgive old, deep-cutting hurts. Will Daniel dredge up Dallas’s history and ruin his reputation along with all he’s tried to build for his future? Or will Dallas conquer the ghosts of his past to offer up his entire life in the service of Christ?
My review: New book from FQP! This is my favorite so far of the Chalice series. This volume describes Dallas’ time in the seminary and the good — and challenging — things that take place during those years. Highly recommend.
Conversations for the Modern Catholic Woman by Marnee Weisbrod and Jody Pitcher.
Synopsis: Marnee Weisbrod and Jody Pitcher are mental health counselors with combined backgrounds of theology, nursing, and ministry work. Together with twenty-one other Catholic women from around the country, they explore a series of relevant life themes and their accompanying challenges. This book takes an honest and vulnerable look at what it’s like to navigate womanhood today while keeping the faith.
My review: I thoroughly enjoyed this beautiful book written by two Catholic mental health counselors in a conversational tone. Recommend.
Determination: A Mother of Five Conquers College by Victoria Marie Lees
Synopsis: When a high school counselor tells her learning-disabled, first-born child, Marie, she’s not smart enough for college, Victoria is thrown back in time to when her father said the same thing—to her. Determined to prove them both wrong, Victoria begins college to help her five children. With raw honesty and humor, Determination: A Mother of Five Conquers College chronicles Victoria’s relentless pursuit of education, from community college to an Ivy League scholarship. As she juggles coursework, parenting, and self-doubt, she fights not only for her own success but also for Marie’s future.
My review: This was an entertaining, balanced, and honest memoir of a housewife who returned to college in her thirties while her five children were growing up. I admire the author’s “determination” in finishing this challenging journey. I enjoyed this book immensely, and it’s very well written. Highly recommend.
Three to Get Married by Fulton Sheen
Synopsis: “Willed by God in the very act of creation, marriage and the family are interiorly ordained to fulfillment in Christ…” Thirty years before these words appeared in Pope St. John Paul II’s Familiaris consortio, Fulton J. Sheen offered to the Church and the world Three to Get Married: a profound yet accessible articulation of this selfsame Christian vision of love and marriage. “Love is trinity; sex is duality,” Bishop Sheen avers: love and marriage elevate sexuality into a life-giving, life-affirming covenant, because love and marriage are ordained by God to just that purpose. “The ultimate reason why it takes three to make love is that God is Love, and His Love is Triune.” Marriage brings this mystery to light brilliantly: lover, beloved, and love are present in the relationships between husband and wife and God and between children, mother, and father—and in these capacities the human person and human society attain their full flourishing.
A milestone in Christian philosophy and pastoral counsel, Three to Get Married is a clarion call to the truth, goodness and beauty of human love within the elevated status of Christian marriage and family, in which God serves as the sure and sustaining force of that unity which no man shall put asunder.
My review: This is one of my favorite books on marriage and I reread it from time to time. There are so many excellent quotes included about marriage. Highly recommend.
Murder in the 33rd Degree: The Gagnon Investigation into Vatican Freemasonry
by Charles Theodore Murr
Synopsis: Was Pope John Paul I murdered? If so, by whom, and to what end? Was the Catholic liturgy sabotaged to strip it of truth, power and beauty? If so, by whom, and to what end? Was an international plot underfoot to destroy the Vatican’s financial stability? If so, by whom, and to what end?
There was one man who knew the answers to these and many other questions plaguing the post-Conciliar Church. In 1975, then Archbishop Edouard Gagnon was personally commissioned by Pope Paul VI to investigate the Vatican’s Roman Curia. This thorough investigation concluded in 1978, the “year of the three Popes.”
In Murder In The 33rd Degree, author Charles T. Murr, a close and lifelong friend of Cardinal Gagnon, gives his firsthand account of what transpired during that papal investigation. Murder In The 33rd Degree answers many questions that many people have been asking for half a century.
My review: This was a fascinating read about the 1975 investigation of Archbishop Gagnon into the higher-level Vatican cardinals who were practicing Freemasonry. One of the cardinals, in fact, was in charge of choosing bishops for a lengthy period of time. A page-turner. Highly recommend.
The New Fire by Robert Margetts
Synopsis: “I came to cast fire upon the earth; where that it were already kindled.” Luke 12:49
Would Christendom be reunited if we began to dialogue together over our belief differences in the Holy Spirit? What is really needed is a common conversion experience to the Holy Spirit. Catholics and non-Catholics and Orthodox need a common conversion experience. We need a shared conversion experience. We need a common Pentecost. A new Pentecost! A New Fire! An embracing of the New Covenant together. A great revival. This all seems impossible. However, it is possible if the Lord brings us to a remnant.
My review: This is a beautiful book about embracing our Catholic faith. Highly recommend!
