Recipes & Religion: Feast on both food and faith

"Sacred Feasts

From a Monastery Kitchen,"

by Brother Victor-Antoine

d'Avila-Latourrette

In the grocery produce area, without looking at the signage, can you spot the leeks?

Although I'd heard of leeks, I'd never known what a leek was -- or even what a leek looked like -- until a recipe in "Sacred Feasts From a Monastery kitchen" called for them.

Our neighborhood supermarket had a small stack of the onion-family root veggie -- imagine a tall onion about half the height of a softball bat.

They helped to make the most delicious soup, if I do say so myself.

Leeks from the garden of Our lady of the Resurrection Monastery in upstate New York find their way into a number of the dishes that Brother Victor-Antoine d'Avila-Latourrette shares in his latest collection of recipes and reflections.

With the feasts of the church and the saints' days as his structure, Brother Victor-Antoine cooks his way through the calendar, walking us through his rationale for preparing specific dishes. Easter and Christmas get the attention they deserve, of course but not forgotten are the small feasts that require the serving of St. Bernadette's Creamy Rice Pudding, for example, St. James Egg and Avocado Salad and St. Nicholas Bread.

Reviewing books for a blog on www.TheCatholicSpirit.com has never led me to cooking before. But how do you review a cookbook without testing a few recipes?

Soup for a saint

The St. Joseph Leek, Potato and Squash Soup intrigued me. For the monks, the March 19 Feast of St. Joseph is cause for a more festive meal than usual fare, coming during Lent as it does, and Brother Victor-Antoine pulled a number of veggies from the monastery cellar to fashion a soup he named in honor of the saint of the day.

That's why I had to buy the leeks.

The recipe also called for onion, garlic, potatoes, and acorn squash, but truth be told I skipped the squash; never could warm up to the taste.

Thanks to watching my mom and wife, I make a pretty decent vegetable beef soup when the spirit moves me, but I've never made a soup in which you put the cooked ingredients into a food processor or blender to puree.

The result was an amazingly flavorful, tasty soup.

My wife suggested "doctoring" it with a bit of chicken bouillon, and that made it just about perfect.

Simple-to-follow recipes

I figured I'd better try a dessert recipe, too, and thanks to the prolific apple tree in our yard I didn't have to shop for the filling for the "Apple Dumplings German Style" that Brother Victor-Antoine prepared for late October.

If I acknowledge that I downed five of the six apple-filled pastries, will that be evidence enough of how good they were? And why we just joined a gym?

The recipe was so simple even a journalist couldn't screw it up.

That's the case with most of the dishes in this 208-page hardcover work from Liguori Publications.

Some ingredients may be new to less-veteran cooks, but the step-by-step directions are thorough, clear and specific, often taking the time to explain the required technique known to good chefs but not by us some-time cooks.

You should know that the monastery diet is primarily vegetarian. Just a few of the dishes offer adding meat as an option. The monks east out of their garden and buy locally grown produce from the farms nearby. And hearty soups are a mainstay of the monastery diet.

But the French background and training of Brother Victor-Antoine pope out in hi use of wine in many of the dishes he's gathered for the feasts of the church year.

More than a cookbook

What makes "Sacred Feasts" valuable is that as good a chef as Brother is, he's also a wonderful teacher about both Catholic traditions and Catholic beliefs.

Remember ever observing Candlemas?

Today the Feb. 2 feast is called the Presentation of the Lord, but Brother takes advantage of the day's former title to wax prosaic (pun intended!) on the central place of candles in the liturgy, reminding how the candle symbolizes Christ's presence in our midst.

Throughout "Sacred Feasts" there are these little catechizing moments, simple words of wisdom to remember and to share, reflections on the faith to nourish the conversation around our own dinner tables.

He explains that we fast during Lent primarily to enable us to better contemplate the suffering of Christs and actually participate and share in that immense sacrifice Jesus made to atone for our sin, but also to help us remember the pain and need of others, especially the poor and suffering.

Reading cooks will find out why we bless our food before meals, learn to see the maturation of the fruit and vegetables as seasonal blessings from the Lord, and absorb the legacy of the saints in the church calendar.

Lovely woodcuts of monastery life and interesting quotes in the book's margins spice up the pages, too.

Together with flavorful recipes, sprinkles of faith formation and Catholic identity building, "Sacred Feasts From a Monastery Kitchen" is a filing package, so much more than a cookbook. -- bz

Talk around the dinner table? It's in the cards!

"The Meal Box,"

by Bret Nicholaus and Tom McGrath

So you want to have more meaningful conversations around the dinner table, something to counter the gobble-up-and-scatter tendency in too many of our homes?

You need "The Meal Box."

You love your faith and you want your children to love it and to grow up with the values you cherish, but you could use some tips on ways to do that without seeming like you're always preaching?

"The Meal Box" is there for you.

A product of Loyola Press, "The Meal Box" is being plugged as "fun questions and family faith tips to get mealtime conversations cookin'." It's all that and more.

Young and old can join in

Packaged like a deck of playing cards, it's a plastic box with 54 cards, each containing a question that will get just about any age-group talking at suppertime.

Here are a few examples:

• When it comes to things that make you really happy, what five things would you rank at the very top?


• Suppose you were told that you could have one wish come true -- but the wish you make would have to be for someone else, not for yourself. What would you wish for, and for whom would you wish it?


• If you could have 100 of anything right now, what would you choose?

"Food for Family Thought" -- the parenting/faith formation aids -- comes on the flip side of each card. For the three examples above, the alternate side of the cards suggest:

• When asked what it would take to get to heaven, Jesus said, "Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, and clothe the naked." That's what parents do each day. It's a paradox that our greatest happiness comes when we freely give of ourselves. Think about that the next time you're fixing supper or folding laundry.


• Empathy is a fundamental building block for all moral growth. Make it a family value to frequently consider how your behavior and choices affect others. When your child talks about other children's experiences, gently ask, "And how do you think he/she felt about that?" This will nurture your child's capacity for compassion.


• One task of parents is to help their children develop the skills of discernment -- that is, to make wise choices. This is better taught through example and be establishing limits than by coercion and criticism.

The opposite of 'bowling alone'

"The Meal Box" questions are such a painless way for parents to connect with their children, to enrich family-time, and to counteract the tendency for family members to do their own thing and go off into their own little worlds.

The younger ones may even forget about whose turn it is to play Wii. Teens may pull the iPod earphones out for a few minutes to chime in with their thoughts.

And, if you're empty nesters like my wife and I, you may find "The Meal Box" questions adding an engaging new feature into your day. Think about talking over dinner about "What is one seemingly impossible goal that you would like to see the world achieve during your lifetime?"

You may even skip watching "Wheel of Fortune" some nights to ponder questions like that! - bz

For purchase information, go to www.loyolapress.com.

Wisconsin mom finds God everywhere -- and so will you

"When's God Gonna Show Up?"

by Marge Fenelon

Marge Fenelon will tell you she doesn't know when God is going to pop into every-day life, but she has a knack for finding the divine in just about every aspect of human existence.

Fenelon's brief, two- and three-page stories come from the things that happen in her home, in the ophthalmologist's office, as the van starts making a funny noise, you-name-it. They're often funny, mostly poignant slices of the life of a 21st-century wife and mom, and they're not unlike the incidents in your home and mine.

What Fenelon does, though, is find God lurking in the corner, creeping into mind, finding a way to influence her thinking and her actions in all those every-day moments.

Great conversation starter

Fenelon suggests you don't read this book from cover to cover but one scoop at a time -- a story a week. There is a lesson in each chapter/story, and each is worth savoring, processing, reflecting on. And those book follows the church year chronologically, with a special back section on feast days.

Each story ends with two elements to help readers get to that reflective end: They are questions -- "What does Scripture say?" and "What does my heart say?" -- that teach (the Scripture piece) and force readers to internalize the lesson.

I can see how a formal faith-sharing group could use a chapter as an easy way to get a discussion started, especially a moms' group.

But I also can see spouses sharing this book -- "Honey, you've got to read this and tell me what you think!" -- and finding their communication blossoming.

Fenelon writes a regular column for the Catholic Herald, the Milwaukee archdiocesan newspaper, and thanks go to Liguori for getting this 163-page paperback into circulation.

The best thing about "When's God Gonna Show Up?" is that reading Marge Fenelon's wonderful book, you're going to start finding God in your life, too. -- bz

Tales from Minnesota

"Pilgrims to the Northland,"

by Marvin R. O'Connell

The story of the how a Catholic archdiocese took root on the bluffs along the upper Mississippi River is chock full of stories -- stories about the people who planted those roots and those that nurtured them, stories that will enlightne you, force a chuckle out of you, perhaps even shock you.

Marvin O'Connell tells as many as he could fit into 615 pages of this early history of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Take this lovely anecdote:

When a German-speaking Benedictine priest served the fledgling Bohemian parish of St. Wenceslaus in New Prague back in 1859, a unique way to overcome the language barrier was devised so that the Czech-speaking parishioners could confess their sins via an interpreter. Father O'Connell writes:

"The priest faced the penitent, and both of them were separated from the interpreter by a thin wall. The priest enunciated in turn the Ten Commandments in German, which the interpreter translated loudly into Bohemian. The penitent either nodded -- meaning he had transgressed in that regard -- or shook his head in denial. Thus secrecy was observed and embarrassment avoided, and sacramental absolution could be duly administered."

No mere ecclesial history

There is a minimum of the kind of statistical growth numerology that populates too many accounts of church history. Instead, Father O'Connell puts the history of the Catholic Church in the United States -- and of U.S. Catholics -- into its national and international perspectives, always with human touches.

So valuable are the introductory pages to each chapter that explain what was going on in the nation -- or in the world -- at a particular juncture in time between 1840 and 1962, where O'Connell ends this work. As much as he can the priest of the archdiocese and University of Notre Dame professor emeritus helps readers understand what shaped the church that straddles the Mississippi today, and especially what -- and who -- was responsible for making that happen.

Of course bishops and archbishops play major roles, with the iconic John Ireland taking over the stage by force of length of service from the community's earliest days through the early 20th century, and by force of personality. It was Archbishop Ireland's presence on the national stage as the spearhead of Americanization -- that movement that promoted the concept that this new land of freedom was the best place for the Catholic faith to flourish, and that freedom and faith were the best of partners.

Not everyone agreed, including some in high places in the church both in the United States and at the Vatican.

O'Connell covers the controversy with balance, framing well the crucial questions that made the controversy so volatile. As European immigrants arrived, he asks,

"Did they, once landed in New York or Philadelphia, discard their language, their traditions, their folkways, in short their nationality? And did the Catholics among them, faced by a culture created and dominated for two and a half centuries by Protestant Anglo-Saxons an Scotch-Irish, discard their faith? These were the crucial questions confronting the American bishops in the 1880s. and they intertwined to form another: to what degree did the preservation of the immigrants' faith depend upon maintaining the habits and customs of the old country?"

Ireland was of the mind that immigrants had to untie the apron strings to the old country and become American in order to be respected and take their rightful place in order that their faith influence American culture.

Heroes among the priests

The challenges that had to be overcome by the area's episcopal leaders fills pages, to be sure, but O'Connell spends just as much if not more time on some of his priest heroes, people from the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese who have influenced both the world and the church. He lovingly gives credit, too, to the women religious -- the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in particular -- for their selfless service to the People of God not just in the Twin Cities but across Minnesota and the Dakotas, as the Diocese of St. Paul was originally defined.

Generous oil man Ignatius A. O'Shaughnessy is granted his due in this history, too.

But two priests capture many pages, and deservedly so, because they influenced so many others, both clergy and lay.

There is the passionate teacher and advocate for social justice, Monsignor John A. Ryan, who grew up on a farm in rural Vermillion Township and became an adviser to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Labeled "The Right Reverend New Dealer," Ryan was the architect and advocate of social justice principles that are now woven into the texture of American life: the minimum wage, a progressive income tax, the eight-hour work day, unemployment insurance, etc.

The early adopters of the Liturgical Movement, Benedictine Dom Virgil Michel, the St. Paul Seminary's Father William Busch get well deserved notice, but historical ink tells us more about Father John Bussard, a founder of the Leaflet Missal and Catholic Digest, which in 1936 enjoyed a circulation of a million copies a month.

Bussard -- in 1938 mind you -- convinced Archbishop John Gregory Murray -- to have the altar in the lower crypt of the new Nativity of Our Lord Church in St. Paul to be free standing, so that at Mass the priest faced the congregation and the worshipers could see and follow his actions at the altar and pray with him from their vernacular missals.

Father Bussard had argued, "The one thing necessary is to unite the faithful closely with Christ. Can that ever be done by a priest who stands with his back to them and reads Sacred Scripture to a wall?"

O'Connell faithfully reports the successes and the failures of archbishops Grace, Dowling, Murray, Brady and Byrne, but it is Paul Bussard and John A. Ryan who he calls "the two most influential Minnesota Catholics" during the middle third of the 20th century.

"Their influence spread far beyond the confines of their native state. Their approach to events and their manner of dealing with challenges, no less than the theaters in which they played out their roles, were very different. But a 'golden thread of Catholic thought' did bind them together to a degree Bussard's crusade for liturgical renewal -- its insistence on the unity and participation of the whole worship community -- possessed an unmistakable collective component, which Ryan's tireless drive for social and racial justice derived directly from his conviction that Jesus had called for a communal solution to the problems of the ages."

The war that changed everything

Archbishop Murray's opposition to the Nazis is part of the history, including his invitation to his priests to volunteer to be chaplains during World War II. The archbishop promised that any curate (associate pastor) who volunteered to be a chaplain would be named a pastor after the "inevitable triumph" (Murray's words). He kept his word.

It was the aftermath of World War II that changed Catholic status in the United States, O'Connell opines.

The G.I. Bill of Rights destroyed the traditional American class system. Young Catholics who before the war never dreamed of going to college or owning their own homes took advantage of the G.I.Bill to earn college degrees and enter the professions and management ranks, "and so participated fully in the expanding economy as they moved their big, bustling families into secure new homes." O'Connell's analysis?"

"In short, Catholics achieved what John Ireland had striven so hard for: they became part of the great American middle class. And in 1960 one of their own was elected president of the United States."

Unfortunately a review can touch only a fraction of the topics and tales Father O'Connell shares, and that's how it should be. Buy the book.

At $70, this University of Notre Dame Press tome is pricey, but it's great reading. O'Connell has a marvelous literary style with clever segues and a timely sense of humor. For example, at the installation Mass for Coadjutor Archbishop Murray, there were 5,000 worshipers ("nine of whom fainted during the lengthy ceremony"), O'Connell inserts.

Some of the history is admittedly not what a public relations person might put forward, but then O'Connell's task was history, not PR, and the author doesn't shy from the seamy side of Catholic history. There were some disreputable characters in this neck of the woods over the course of the years.

The very best anecdotes are from priests he interviewed who shared the stories of their own encounters in the seminary, parish or chancery office that add in sight and color as to what Catholic life was really like.

Finally, Father O'Connell's personal memories inserted into many footnotes add humanity to this scholarly work. Don't pass them by. -- bz

Why Catholic managers shouldn't fear unions

“Catholic Administrators and Labor Unions,”
by William Droel and Ed Marciniak

Labor unions should be seen as making employees partners with management in carrying out the mission of Catholic institutions and ministries.
That’s the teaching of a little, 49-page, pocket- or purse-size booklet produced this year by the Chicago-based National Center for the Laity.
It’s a tract, really, that takes its foundation from an essay the late Ed Marciniak wrote in 1983.
Marciniak was a towering figure in the labor movement and Catholic lay movement in Chicago for more than 40 years, and Bill Droel – Marciniak’s colleague at the National Center for the Laity – has updated his work, adding recent references, particularly thoughts of Pope John Paul II.

Filled with facts
Catholic teachings with regard to labor begin with the dignity of every person and see collective bargaining as upholding and even furthering that dignity. This booklet makes the point over and over that union activity should be regarded as a necessary societal experience, not one to be feared or deplored.
Rather than management seeing labor organizing as a sign of failure on its part, the fact that employees want a union can be accepted as a development in the skills and the commitment of employees.
Church-related institutions are advised to model good labor relations by participating in good-faith bargaining; as the authors put it, “Preaching the gospel necessitates living the gospel.”
Workers cannot be exploited just because they choose to work for the church or a Catholic entity, a point the booklet makes clear:
“There is simply no basis in Catholic teaching for workers or employers to conclude that collective bargaining is excluded from the church, no matter how dedicated and holy are those workers or employers.”
Where unionizing and contract bargaining is sometimes perceived as an adversarial relationship, the authors say union activity can hold Catholic employers to high standards for transparency and thoughtfulness. In contentious issues, a contract allows policy – not personalities – to prevail.

Mutual benefits
What happens as well is creation of a partnership style of management – labor together with management – where a “respectful connectedness” is allowed to blossom. When union members and management partner, a mutual responsibility for the mission is created.
The booklet reminds:
“A union, in Catholic doctrine, is more than an economic agent to negotiate wages. It is supposed to be a community of persons who . . . claim responsibility, grow in the exercise of freedom and contribute to a spirituality of work.”
And it works to the benefit of all.
“A fair amount of evidence links humane management with profitability,” the booklet notes, “or, in the case of non-profits, other measures of excellence.”
Where some might fear the forming of a union as something that will drive the company or institution out of business, good managers instinctively understand that, especially in rough times, a company needs as many interested participants as possible, particularly from its employees. It is a mistake as well to conclude that managers are more invested in the institution than the employees, the authors warn.
Catholic doctrine demands that persons conform to the will of God by nurturing others. We sustain and spread faith in God through participation in family life and social groups, and doing so is not an option. “Catholics are obliged to join intermediate groups because they are essential to a relational (Trinitarian) expression of Christianity,” Droel and Marciniak note.
Voluntary groups are prized by Catholicism as a best harbor for freedom and human development, the thinking that brought John Paul II to say, “Unions are indispensable in society.”

Caveats expressed
Here are just a few take-aways for Catholic managers from a text full of take-aways:
· A labor tactic may be legal but not morally justified.
· Taking advantage of loopholes in the law will generate a hostile work environment.
· Getting reputable and competent advice for negotiating with a union is recommended, but bringing a union-busting firm on board will tarnish – perhaps permanently – a Catholic entity’s Catholic identity in the minds of all fair-minded people.
· Managers need to see unions as a vehicle rather than an obstacle.

While the intended audience for this work is Catholic managers, I would think the teaching about labor and management applies to every workplace, Catholic or secular.
In a reference appropriate for 2009, the booklet notes that while Catholic doctrine does not say every workplace must have a union, it does say that employees must be allowed to decide if they want to have a union.
“A Catholic (an employee, an administrator or a stakeholder) with an informed conscience can say, ‘This union is not right for this workplace,’ The same person cannot say, ‘Unions are bad.’ That some Catholics say, ‘Unions are bad or outdated,’ carries the same moral credibility as a Catholic who says, ‘Abortion is a matter of opinion or of individual choice.’”-- bz

“Catholic Administrators and Labor Unions” is available for $3.25. Check www.catholiclabor.org/NCL.htm for details.

Pinch-hitting for your dad, Catholic writer shares what your father wanted you to know about living

"A Guy's Guide to the Good Life: Virtues for Men,"

by Robert P. Lockwood

You could read "A Guy's Guide to the Good Life" just for the volume and variety of quotations worth remembering, but Bob Lockwood's sometimes hilarious, always thought-provoking guys tour through prudence, fortitude, temperance, justice, faith, hope and charity digs so much deeper than that.

Lockwood's brief, 140-page Servant Books paperback might accurately be described as something your father would have written if your father had written down all the things he wanted to you to know and remember.

It's a genuine service Lockwood performs, given that many fathers aren't/weren't the gifted writer this long-time columnist for Catholic publications is, and given that so many men tell anecdotally about how little their father ever verbally communicated -- with them or anyone else.

Lockwood pinch hits for dad, passing on soothing-yet-challenging drops of wisdom through stories, most with a Catholic angle, many with a sports angle, often accompanied by a cold beer.

And Lockwood is anything if not a truly gifted storyteller.

A Catholic writer who quotes Meatloaf?

Along the way he quotes men whose words are worth recalling, mixing Charles Dickens, St. Paul, John Lennon, Benedict XVI, Dante (perhaps more than one might care) and John Paul II, among the names you'd recognize. Pop music plays in the background, with lyrics by the Beatles, Skeeter Davis, and Meatloaf helping make his point. Lockwood even manages to channel Cat Stevens.

It all works, though, to base his -- well, it's teaching, when you come right down to it -- in a real world, a world in which Lockwood has lived some 60 years and thinks what he's learned in that time is worth sharing for our benefit.

If there's a goal, it is to make guys ask that crucial question: "What the hell am I doing with my life?"

Lockwood is a creative phrase maker who has penned quotes of his own worth pondering, including a definition of his topic that seems to stick: "The virtues are how we are meant to live. They are what we admire in others and hope to find in ourselves."

Throughout he pesters guys with the thought we can be more -- that a virtuous life isn't too difficult to achieve.

Have an appetizer

Here are just a few tasters of Lockwood on the seven virtues:

"Prudence means living in the truth, not as a self-righteous jerk but as a guy who wants to look at himself in the mirror every morning without fearing that he's sold out."

"Fortitude borders on obstinacy, a willingness to hold steadfast to our principles when life is telling us not to bother."

"Sometimes our priorities can get a little out of whack. There's where temperance comes in."

"Justice doesn't always come searching for us in the way we like."

"Faith is a pilgrimage, never an endpoint."

"Hope is not mere wishing but the serene and full confidence that God will never abandon us."

"We think of charity as giving out a little spare change."

Now for full disclosure: I've known Bob Lockwood for better than 30 years now, watched him fight the personal and professional battles guys fight, and consider the wisdom he shares as valuable -- and as fun to read and as thought provoking -- as listening to his gravelly voice tell a story, with a cold beer, of course, and with a ball game on the tube. -- bz

How Protestants -- and Nixon -- tried to keep JFK out of the White House

"The Making of a Catholic President:

Kennedy vs. Nixon 1960"

by Shaun A. Casey

Protestants and Republicans failed, but they did their damnedest to try to keep a Catholic from becoming president of the United States.

This incredibly detailed account proves -- with the hard evidence of preserved letters and memoirs -- that under the guise of fighting to preserve the principle of separation of church and state, large Protestant denominations and influential Protestant leaders teamed with the Republican Party and its nominee in the 1960 election -- Richard M. Nixon -- to feed anti-Catholic prejudice among the large Protestant voting majority.

Famous names like the Rev. Billy Graham and Norman Vincent Peale are uncovered as joining in, nay, leading the charge, in order to keep the Catholic Kennedy from the White House.

Casey's research shows how Protestant ministers and church leaders used their pulpits and their printing presses to blatantly state that no Catholic could ever be trusted to uphold the U.S. Constitution as president.

The anti-Catholic bias came out via the preaching sermons that attacked JFK, airing radio and television programs that did the same, running lengthy articles against Kennedy in Protestant magazines like Christian Century and Christianity and Crisis, and printing and distributing hundreds of thousands of pamphlets in an attempt to sway the election Nixon's way. Leading the chorus of anti-Catholicism was the Republican National Committee.

Nixon involvement uncovered

If only the American public had known about the duplicitous ways of Richard Nixon during the 1960 presidential campaign, the country may never have heard of a bungled burglary at the Watergate complex because Nixon's credibility would never have allowed him to even run for the presidency later, no less be elected or approve of criminal activity to try to win re-election.

While publicly vowing not to raise the issue of a candidate's faith, Nixon surreptitiously had former Missouri congressman O.K. Armstrong working the anti-Catholic bias angle across the country with Protestant church leaders and especially the anti-Catholic group Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Armstrong recruited organizations like Citizens for Religious Freedom, the National Association of Evangelicals, the Assemblies of God and the National Council of Churches to use speeches and printed material to show how a Catholic president would undermine the country.

Armstrong worked under the guidance of Albert Hermann of the Republican National Committee, who was the organizer of anti-Catholic forces for Nixon.

Bias clouded issues

Casey points out that the issues of the day in 1960 were public funding for Catholic schools, the appointment of a U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, a supposed threat to separation of church and state, and especially the fear that the Vatican would direct a Catholic president in how to govern the country. What comes through the historical evidence is first the fear by Protestant elites that the United States would no longer be a "Protestant nation," and second that both Protestants and Republican leaders feared Catholic voting power.

Interestingly, President Dwight Eisenhower had won the majority of Catholics in both the 1952 and 1956 elections.

In going after the anti-Catholic vote, Nixon took up a suggestion from Rev. Billy Graham, who wrote in a letter to the then vice president, "when the chips are down I think the religious issue would be very strong and might conceivable work in your behalf." Graham in fact shared his mailing list with the anti-Kennedy efforts.

Nixon, however, had a problem of his own: Civil rights. In order to gain Protestant votes, he had to win a large percentage of conservative white southern voters, so he could not be seen as progressive on race and have any chance at the southern vote. In hindsight, that foretold the Republicans' "Southern Strategy" that took electoral voters from the formerly Democratic "Solid South" camp for election after election in the later part of the 20th Century.

Kennedy and his faith

"The Making of a Catholic President" shows how the Kennedy camp came to realize the serious threat that JFK faced from anti-Catholic bigotry and how he and his strategists determined to confront the issue directly.

Kennedy sought out and listened to Protestant leaders and then addressed their fears.

Over and over during the primaries and the general election campaign JFK voiced his opposition to tax dollars for Catholic education, his opposition to an ambassador to the Vatican, and his commitment to the constitution of the country over the dogma of his faith.

He entered the West Virgina primary, winning the votes of that overwhelmingly Protestant populace, then into the lions' den of the Houston Ministerial Association, where he gave a speech and answered questions from that hostile Protestant audience.

That event may be the most often recalled remarks by Kennedy about the impact of his religion on his actions in office.

"Whenever an issue may come before me as President . . . I will make my decision . . . in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be in the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressure or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise."

Kennedy's statement echoed a quote that appeared in a Look magazine feature on him Feb. 16, 1959: "Whatever one's religion in his private life may be, for the officeholder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution in all parts -- including the First Amendment and the strict separation of church and state."

At the time, Kennedy was chided by writers in Catholic magazines like the Jesuit's America and lay-run Commonweal "for yielding too much ground to the Protestant worriers," as author Casey put it.

What is more interesting, and which deserves similar book-length treatment, are thoughts Casey brings up in his epilogue.

For further reflection

JFK carried 83% of the Catholic vote in 1960, 34% of the white Protestant vote, and 50% of the regular-attending black churchgoers, but won the electoral votes of hugely Protestant Texas, perhaps in part thanks to running mate Lyndon Johnson.

But Casey asks: "What was the nature of Kennedy's Catholicism?"

The answer according to one priest who knew him well was that he was a conventional Catholic of his day who understood the structures and traditions that were the church of 1950s Boston.(That priest was a certain Father John Wright, a confidant of then-Senator Kennedy who offered extremely valuable advice about how to handle the issue of his faith. The priest later became the Bishop of Pittsburgh and a John Cardinal Wright.)

Even is one disavows some of the alleged moral failings that have come to light about JFK in the years since his assassination, considering the current climate of pressure on Catholic candidates from some of the American hierarchy and other corners of the church, one has to wonder if today JFK would be able to pull 83% of the Catholic vote, or if the fact that we now have had a Catholic president would take the cachet off electing a Catholic for Catholic voters.

Still more to think about

Casey's epilogue offers cause for reflection for other, more important issues for today's Catholic.

In pointing out how JFK sought understanding from Protestants, not endorsement, Casey says:

"As religion has increasingly become connected to the political divide in this country, it has reinforced a gulf among faith communities such that members of the religious Right and the religious Left routinely demonize one another and, in doing so, ape the worst aspects of American political culture."

He adds two more thoughts:

First, the political independence of faith communities is good for both the faith communities and the nation. Second, endorsements of politicians by faith communities are usually misguided.

"The Making of a Catholic President" should be read by every Catholic -- and every Protestant -- eligible to vote. -- bz

What are people thinking? McNabb's short stories offer insight into others - and ourselves

"the body of this,"
by Andrew McNabb


Andrew McNabb penetrated the heads of dozens of characters, discovered their thoughts, and reports his findings in “the body of this.”

Often, it’s brilliant.

It’s writing filled both with humanity and a sense of place, descriptive in a way that refuses to ignore who and what we pass by everyday but fail to see.

Especially who.

The setting for most of the often very brief short stories in McNabb’s collection (published in paperback by Warren Machine Company) is Portland, Maine – and the old portion of Portland. The people whose minds McNabb has invaded are God’s people – church-going, Catholic people – and for the most part believable and real.

Meet some faith-filled folk

Take Terry, the central character of one short story who takes the approach to customer service that “could only, only be provided by loving your neighbor with all your might.”

Meet Lydia, the immigrant trying to dress well and fit in at high school.

There's Frank, the lonely senior citizen serving food to the needy in the church basement who feels misunderstood.

And that young couple who decorated the baby’s room in anticipation of their first child only to…no, you’d better read that one yourself.

Lots of winners, but not all

McNabb writes some pretty weird stuff, too. When someone can bring together both reality and a sense of imagination the way he can, a reader has to wonder why he stoops to vulgarity at times.

It’s offensive. And unnecessary.

I say unnecessary because the empathy McNabb has for what some might call the least of God’s people is truly eye-opening, a blessing for his readers.

His insight into America’s obsession with losing weight is gorgeously brought out in the little more than four pages of the tightly written “Habeas Corpus.”

And the first-person story about a lottery winner – “It’s What It Feels Like” – is a marvelously-told piece of work that’s more about marriage – and the sometimes one-sideness of marriage – than about winning millions.

Is it what it looks like?

Or is it what it feels like?

And how about us?

What are all those people thinking, the ones we live with, the ones we work with and study with and volunteer with – and love?

What's really on their minds?– bz

Sequel to novel on building of cathedral depicts life two centuries later

"World Without End,"

by Ken Follett

I loved "The Pillars of the Earth," Ken Follett's epic that delivered readers back to the 12th century to meet the people who built a great fictional English cathedral. It was a great story of achievement, of overcoming obstacles -- human and stone -- and of hope's triumph.

"World Without End" picks up the story two centuries later, delivering us to that same cathedral, now in need of repairs after two hundred years of storms.

And the characters that populate the medieval cathedral town are just as interesting and compelling in the sequel as were their ancestors in the original story, which is why this was at the top of the New York Times bestseller list.

It's a bawdy tale, I must warn you, and a gory one. Some sexual scenes are very, very explicit, and the violence is bloody, but not "chainsaw-massacre" stupid.

Remember, it's fiction

Catholics who read "World Without End" will have to keep in mind the fictional nature of this book, because elements of the Church of Rome play the black hat roles in many cases. Bishops, priests and nuns do things in the novel that we would hope bishops, priests and nuns don't do. I don't think modern-day readers can deny that incidents described in Follett's novel never happened in reality; some of the more contemporary sins by church people would be pretty good evidence that there is at least a possibility that 14th century clergy and religious were not immune from such sin.

For the most part, though, offenses of the moral kind are not held up to be celebrated; rather, the protagonists stand for what is good and right and moral despite displaying their humanity, sins and all.

It's a huge novel -- 1,014 pages in New American Library's paperback version -- and every bit a great read. -- bz

Minnesotan's work pitches baseball and faith

"The King's Game,"

by John Nemo

In the middle of a month when temps across the Midwest have bottomed out well below zero, a baseball novel can have a warming effect.

Minnesotan John Nemo -- who covers baseball as a professional journalist -- combines his knowledge of the national pastime with his deep spirituality to come up with a page-turner that will keep any fan on the edge of his seat.

"The King's Game" is more than just a sports story. People of faith will quickly pick up on the allegory woven through the compelling tale of the life of Cody King, a great pitcher. The events of King's life -- beginning a birth - would test anyone's belief in God.

Nemo adds a love element, a friendship element, and best of all a father-son relationship element, exploring all of these while all the while taking us through the seventh and deciding game of a fictional World Series.

As a baseball junkie myself, I notice one faux pas in the action on the diamond: In the third inning, the pitching coach goes out to settle down the opposing pitcher, and later in that same inning the manager trots out to the mound, too. Any fan knows that second visit to the mound means there has to be a pitching change, but that doesn't happen in the novel. The pitcher stays in the game. Ooops.

This appears to be a self-published book, so if you're interested in getting a copy, contact the author at john@johnnemobooks.com. -- bz

Take a Sistine Chapel tour without ever leaving home

"Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel,"

by Andrew Graham-Dixon


If you've ever taken a tour with a guide who wasn't connecting with his or her group, you come to appreciate really good tour guides, people who not only know their subject but engage you in the topic, bringing information, insight and even entertainment.


My wife and I had that excellent kind of guide -- Liz Lev -- with a group touring the Vatican Museums. Everything we saw became so much more meaningful thanks to a great guide who was able to help us see not just artistic value but intention and the works' place in history.

With "Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel," Andrew Graham-Dixon offers much of the same insight to his readers.


It's not quite halfway into his book that the London-based art critic begins an absolutely thorough interpretation of Michelangelo's famous paintings on the ceiling and wall of the Sistine Chapel.


But that's because he sets up his art instructing by first giving readers a rather complete picture of the artist and his world at the beginning of the 16th century.



Inside Michelangelo's world
No piece of the life of Michelangelo Buonarroti is left untouched, and I came to feel that the biographical section of this book was as helpful and important for understanding the Sistine Chapel as the interpretation of the world-renown paintings itself.


We learn of the artist's family background, his training, his benefactors -- and most importantly his faith.


Graham-Dixon's analysis is that Michelangelo felt the hand of God in his life:

"Before he was ever chosen by the Medici, or the pope, he had been chosen by God. . . . He felt that he had been given his gifts by God, and charged with serving the purposes of the divine will."

Using those God-given skills then, "Michelangelo did not just invent a new kind of art, but a new idea of what art could be," Graham-Dixon claims. "He put his own sensibility, his own intellect, his own need and desire to fathom the mysteries of Christian faith, centre stage."


A superior user's guide
The heart of the book, written in observance of the 500th anniversary of the start of the work by Michelangelo in 1508, is Graham-Dixon's interpretation of the Sistine Chapel ceiling itself. While not ignoring style, he focuses on what Michelangelo meant by what he painted, how the pictures' meanings unfold, the subtle ways through which the artist gave expressive life to this amazing group of interlinked compositions.


As a user's guide to the Sistine Chapel, this book is superb.


Graham-Dixon walks us through each section and each panel of each section, pointing out not only beauty and the technical skill but why each figure is painted the way it is.

What we learn is that Michelangelo was a student of Holy Scripture -- especially the Hebrew Books -- and that he aimed to paint "his own vision of what he believed to be the eternal truths of Christianity," the author states.


Readers will come to understand the geography of the chapel ceiling, how the famous depiction of creation -- with God's pointed finger reading out to touch the finger of Adam -- fits into the rest of the biblical history, with the great cast of characters including Eve, Noah, David and Goliath, Judith, Jeremiah, Jonah and on and on.


Graham-Dixon gives his excellent interpretive skills to helping readers grasp in much the same way Michelangelo's "The Last Judgement," painted 15 years after the ceiling. Taking up the entire wall behind the chapel's altar, it is a monumental fresco as rich with meaning as the ceiling above.


Sadly, details of this beautiful work are depicted only in black and white photos, which hardly do justice to this colorful masterpiece.


Bigger would be better
And, if there is any fault at all in "Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel," it is the small size of the pages -- six inches by nine inches. There are 32 full-color pages that bring the Sistine's ceiling right into our hands, but I couldn't help but think how much more delight to the eye would have been deivered in a larger format. Perhaps Skyhorse Publishing will be able to work that out in a later edition.


As it is, though, I compared the printing in this latest book with the same Sistine Chapel panels printed in a larger, coffeetable-sized book given to me as a gift several years ago.

The color work -- the brightness and the clarity -- in "Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel" is far superior.


If you plan to visit the Vatican, take this along to read on the plane ride. It's a fact-filled yet easy read with the beautiful prose that is the hallmark of a fine writer.-- bz

Most useful and used gift book you could buy this Christmas is about, of all things, the Rosary

"The Rosary: A Journey to the Beloved,"

by Gary Jansen

It's one of those small, easy-to-handle books, only 100 pages or so, and the pages are of the 5 inch by 7 inch variety, but "The Rosary" may be one of the most useful gifts you wrap this Christmas.

Gary Jansen, a book editor by trade, rediscovered the Rosary as a prayer of transformation, a prayer of peace and a prayer of hope, and his little book will help others do the same. As he explains about his own "dark night of the soul," "God had not abandoned me; I just hadn't been listening."

He wrote "The Rosary" as a short introduction on how to listen to God's words in day-to-day life and as a reminder that we are never alone.

There's some introductory pages that offer down-to-earth questions you may have asked yourself at one time or another, like: How long have Catholics been praying the Rosary? What's the point of repeating Hail Mary's over and over? What's behind the "mysteries" of the Rosary?

Jansen offers this simple way to look at the Rosary:

See the Rosary as sitting with Mary and paging through a scrapbook of Jesus' life; it will let you know Jesus on a whole new level, an emotional one, a loving one, and a familiar one.

But can we ever just sit and take the time to do the Rosary?

We 21st century people may have to re-learn how to reflect, not "just do it." Just the opposite of doing, Jansen encourages praying the Rosary as a way to sit with the stories in each of the four mysteries -- Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful and Glorious:

• See them as the high points in the life of Jesus;


• Think about their meaning;


• Become a character in the scene (for example, a waiter in the gospel story of the Wedding Feast at Cana), and ask yourself how you might have reacted, what you would be thinking were you there at the time, what you might have done in response.

Don't know thing one about the Rosary? There's an easy to use how-to section.

After you've read those introductory pages, though, you'll find Jansen's work useful time after time as you pray The Rosary. Just pick up at Page 39.

You'll see the opening prayers, and then a scripture passage and beautiful painting that goes with each of the 20 mysteries to help you focus on that aspect of Jesus' life story. None is more than one page, most very short, and the simplicity is perfect for helping target your attention.

Art buffs will appreciate the credits in the back that identify each of the paintings and their artists.

All will appreciate this Faith Words imprint (www.faithwords.com). -- bz

Don't fear reading memoir of life with the mentally challenged

"Walking on a Rolling Deck: Life on the Ark,"

by Kathleen C. Berken

Some people can flat out write.

Kathy Berken is one of those people.

You might be the kind of reader who shies away from stories about the mentally challenged, adults with Down’s syndrome, the cognitively disabled, because Berken’s book is a memoir of her time serving God’s children who fit those categories. If you do you’ll be missing a truly remarkable piece of literature.

“Walking on a Rolling Deck” has drama, empathy, irony, humor and insight into the human character of every one of us. Developed from her journal during nine years at The Arch, the L’Arche (rhymes with “marsh”) community in Clinton, Iowa, Berken's short book -- published by Liturgical Press in Collegeville, Minn. (http://www.litpress.org/) -- opens her life to us, and in doing so touches ours.

And, Lord, can she write.

Page after page she paints word pictures that will have those who love good writing going back to re-read and re-read again. Finding a link with Mother Teresa’s admitted dark night of the soul, Berken writes:
“The serpent of loneliness can and will slither up the tree of despair and hiss in your ear words of doubt that burrow deep into your soul.”

She describes her years there as both growth-filled and as scary. There’s wiping butts and brushing teeth, and heart-warming, sacred moments. A spiritual person, she seeks God in all she does, and sometimes she finds him. If Kathy Berken is anything, she’s honest. She writes not about a sugar-coated experience but about real life with real people.
She puts it this ways:
“Living in a L’Arche community isn’t always like taking a vacation with your lover God to an idyllic Caribbean beach. Some days it’s more like climbing to the top of Mount Everest with God as your Sherpa, with times of feeling that the Sherpa has wandered off.”

Apt maritime metaphor

Berken plays on the translation of L’Arche as an ark, and she uses that sea-going metaphor well to describe the reality of life in a home with four people who need help with many of life’s tasks, who have a variety of pathological issues, and who have the strength of an adult but the mental ability of a four-year-old. But she says it so much better than I:
“When I came her I had this fantastically idealistic notion that God sent me to live for a while on this ark, and I had an image in my head of people like me walking up the gangplank, meeting God at the top, and being given a clipboard with the day’s assignment on it. . . . That’s a wonderful fantasy – to be the cruise director with a loveboat smile pasted on my face – but I can’t live it because the ark I’m on is rolling and heaving and I’m sick to my stomach, not to mention sad and lonely. I feel like the galley slave, the grunt who swabs the deck, the second to last to go down with the ship.”

Berken writes conversationally, like your best friend telling you all about her day but in brief, well-edited chapters that are never more than a few pages.

You’ll love the poignant story about being served Christmas breakfast by one of the people whom she served everyday.

You wonder how she ever stayed nine years – and how she survived, to be frank – when she learned first that she had breast cancer and later when a core member (that’s what L’Arche calls the mentally challenged) turns violent.

Read “Walking on a Rolling Deck” to find out.

And to be inspired by a great story well told. -- bz

Peter Kreeft passes pearls of wisdom to next generation

"before i go,"
by Peter Kreeft


Oft-quoted in Catholic circles, Boston College prof Peter Kreeft has compiled 162 -- what, statements? pearls of wisdom? life's lessons? -- in a tiny-yet-thick Sheed & Ward book subtitled, "Letters to Our Children about What Really Matters."

I can say there area 162 of them -- whatever you want to call them -- because each is numbered.

Few are longer than one page. Most are just a paragraph or three or four.

And the book's concept is excellent. How many of us have had that thought that we'd like to get down on paper things we'd like our children to know?

Not 162 great thoughts

I usually love this kind of work, because I can pick it up and read for just the bit of time I might have at that moment and grab a great thought to wrestle with. There are a number of those great thoughts in "before i go," but there aren't 162.
And, after hitting a few too many trite ideas among those numbers, I came close to crossing out a few and doing a recount.

I mean, "Stop and smell the roses?" Bet that didn't take too long to come up with.

"Each day is a gift from God?" I think Sister Jude covered that pretty well in the first grade in 1957.

Tossing out the banal bunch and eliminating some of the really dumb statements would make Kreeft's work very valuable for personal reflection. The man has a knack for putting ideas in concise, memorable sentences. It's a real gift. Here are just a few examples:

"It's better to be happy than to be right."

"Be good, but be you."

"All life is liturgy. All words are creeds. All times are Sabbaths. All places are churches."

Advice worth sharing

And there is great advice, too.

Instead of complaining about how busy you are, simplify reasons for doing anything to three things: because it's morally good, because its a practical necessity, or because it makes you happy.

Take seven minutes each day to thank God for seven specific things.

"Forgive everyone. Forgive everything. Forgive always. Forgive everywhere."

Kreeft gives readers a really good explanation of grace, has a great message on how to respond when we fail -- and we all do and will -- and this wonderful take on the Beatitudes:

"If the poor are blessed, then let's stop envying the rich."

However...

The world isn't black and white

At times I found Kreeft to be polarizing and divisive. My world just isn't as black and white as Kreeft's, and I sure don't have all the answers, as Kreeft's writing implies he does.

Although he writes the self-righteous prose of an expert, he takes a cheap shot by demonizing "experts," for example. And in some of his thoughts he comes off as a prig, making unproven generalizations such as, "they don't teach the lives of the saints in religion classes anymore."

That's pure B.S., and just the kind of false statements that get repeated and repeated until zealots believe them to be true. That's one statement Kreeft should be ashamed of making.

I like the technique of making lists, to a point, but the list thing gets old after a while. Sometimes, too, others did it better years ago. Take his 10 points of "What is 'A Good Person?'" The Boy Scouts nailed that concept in their 12-point creed -- trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent-- a list that sounds suspiciously like Kreeft's 10 thoughts.

It boils down, though, to you gotta take the bad with the good.

You go from No. 105 where the bad Kreeft is saying something as dumb as God is a comedian because he invented dog farts, to the very next page where he suggests we practice everyday what you do and don't want so say and do on the last day of your life.

Dog farts? I expect better than that. But I forgive him. -- bz

It's okay, Catholics, we can laugh

"The Book of Catholic Jokes,"

by Deacon Tom Sheridan

Did you know that they had automobiles in Jesus' time?

Yes, the Bible says that the disciples were all of one Accord.

Yeah, you may have heard some of them before.

And yes, Tom Sheridan admits that some of these may have been jokes to which a Catholic angle has been added to make them churchy.

But Sheridan, who was a writer and editor for the Chicago Sun-Times before he was a deacon, has nicely selected jokes that folks with decent moral standards can tell in polite company, and Acta Publications has packaged them well as a handy little and inexpensive paperback.

Did you hear the one about the man who opened a dry-cleaning business next door to the convent? He knocked on the door and asked the Mother Superior if she had any dirty habits.

To be sure there are some clinkers in the bunch, and some moldy oldies. And I don't know why every priest in a joke has to have an Irish surname; hell0 -- you don't have to be Irish to be a priest, or to be funny.

With most of the quips you don't have to be an "insider," so to speak, although I'm not sure the jokes that take off on the differences between, say, the Franciscans and the Jesuits, aren't going to have some Catholics scratching their heads. But maybe not.

For the most part the collection is good stuff -- good enough to make you crack a smile even though you may have heard them before.

There's at least one great priest golf joke, a cute one about a rabbi and a priest, a funny Pope Benedict XVI joke and a clever atheist joke. And as someone who can rarely remember a joke, what a good resource; I'm sure "The Book of Catholic Jokes" will end up on a number of reference shelves in rectories. -- bz

One Sunday morning a priest saw a little boy staring intently at the large plaque on the church wall. The plaque was covered with names, and flags hung on either side of it.

"Father," asked the boy, "what's this?"

He replied, "It's a memorial to all the men and women who died in the service."

They stood together in silence for a moment. Finally, the boy asked with genuine concern: "Was it at the eight or the ten-thirty Mass?"

Good tools for passing on the faith

"Learning Centers for Advent and Lent,"
by Doris Murphy

Doris Murphy is doing her best to make it painless for families to grow in their Catholic faith.

From her experience as Director of Faith Formation at St. Bridget Parish in River Falls, Wis., Murphy has gathered easy projects that parents can work on with their children, projects that will help these "first teachers" of their young ones develop the foundation for a life enriched by the knowledge and traditions of Catholicism.

As she has for First Reconciliation, First Eucharist and the Whole Community in earlier books put out by Twenty-Third Publications, Murphy utilizes the learning center approach to enable parents to be those first teachers of the faith that they are called to be for the seasons of Advent and Lent, too. In the learning center methodology, the parish gathers needed material and instructions, then invites parents to use age-appropriate activities that have hands-on tasks, that invite talking with their children about their faith, all the time reinforcing material the children may be learning in their faith formation textbooks and classes.

It's handing on the faith through example, through family rituals and through conversation. As important as the projects' purposes are, maybe even more important is the time a parent spends with a child around something of a religious nature: It enables adults -- the most influential people in a child's life -- to both tell and show a child that their own faith is important to them and that it's a faith full of meaning and history, something to be greatly valued, remembered and cherished.

For Advent and Lent, Murphy's workbook of just over 100 pages offers fun, easy, purposeful ideas that any parish, any director of faith formation, any catechist or any parent will find helpful.

It's a how-to book from the word go, full of practical projects and turn-key materials, and DREs might find these ideas are worth a try. If they work in River Falls, Wis., maybe they'll work for you. -- bz

'To forgive, divine'

"The Forgiveness Book,"
by Alice Camille & Paul Boudreau

and

"The Power of Forgiveness,"
by Kenneth Briggs

Two very different approaches tackling the same subject isn't unique. Two very different books tackling the same subject happens frequently.

But that authors tackle the same subject for the same reason -- that a book on forgiveness has never been more needed -- maybe that's a message that the subject is not just interesting but vital.

Just over 100 pages long -- counting the useful and worthwhile appendix -- "The Forgiveness Book" is an easy read that offers countless good reasons for making a "divine" response when others err.

Camille, an award-winning writer and Father Boudreau, an oft-published priest-columnist, come at the rationale for forgiveness from an admittedly Catholic perspective. This is a little book laced with down-to-earth reasoning that explains significant theology in simple, easily understood language.

Alternatives no bargain
They acknowledge that forgiveness is "an ugly job," but that "the alternative to forgiveness is far uglier: hardened hearts, broken relationships, memories full of shrapnel, and families or communities paralyzed and divided."

If we don't choose to forgive, we get trapped in the addictive pattern of condemnation, blaming, open hostility, self-righteousness, hidden resentment, cold anger, cynicism -- the list goes on and on -- and the one we do the most damage to is ourselves, because not to forgive "weighs us down, saps our energy, hurts our bodies and leaves us weary."

There is a platitude or two of advice here, but most helpful is a brief, seven-point list of what forgiveness is -- and what it is not. Importantly, the authors aren't afraid to address the concept of sin, and do so in the healthy express of "missing the mark" in what we ought to be aiming at in our actions, decisions and relationships.

They stress that forgiveness is a choice, and the Sacrament of Reconciliation gets high marks as a structure that makes that choice easier.

Camille and Boudreau summarize their work well:

"Forgiveness is not just a thing nice people do. It's not a tactic we might consider for personal improvement or to tidy up our spiritual lives. As the world we live in spirals toward greater feats of injustice, greed, violence and bigotry, the reasons to forgive mount astronomically. The cost of unforgiveness, too, becomes ever more apparent. . . . The human race must learn to forgive, to practice forgiveness, to choose it, to seek it, to value it, and to want it. That means each of us individually must do the same, because the whole world begins in the human heart."

From film to print
Kenneth Briggs' "The Power of Forgiveness" is based on a film by Martin Doblmeier and delves into the topic by looking at specific instances of forgiveness and analyzing them, then going several steps deeper.

The most recent, the murder spree that left five Amish schoolchildren dead and five wounded in a Pennsylvania classroom, is the opening to view forgiveness from the religious perspective. The most interesting portion of this was Briggs' parsing of the idea that the Amish' forgiveness of the madman murderer was "a spiritual reflex," something the Amish learn "by watching parents and neighbors forgive and by looking at the example of Jesus."

Several of the world's religions get a similar analysis.

A section on the sociological perspective wonders if those who forgive may be healthier than those who don't. Another chapter discusses how very difficult -- even impossible -- forgiveness can seem. There's brief mention of the death penalty debate and the film "Dead Man Walking," plus the complex grief of a mother of a New York City firefighter who died on 9/11, and even a few paragraphs that touch upon the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.

The most interesting quote from that latter part?

"Somehow a refusal to pardon guilty priests provides a balance to years of having forgiven them too much. . . . For most lawyers fighting for huge cash settlements, forgiveness is unthinkable, even laughable."

There's much more, but let me recommend this book by quoting from one quoted in it, author and lecturer Marianne Williamson:

"At a time when we see so much evil, we are called upon . . . to stand for the possibility of human redemption that turns even the hardest of hearts." -- bz

Can you live like a monk? To create a better world, maybe we all should!

"Finding the Monk Within: Great Monastic Values for Today,"
by Edward C. Sellner

We would live more fulfilling lives -- and our 21st-Century society would be a better off -- if we were to adopt the values lived by monks and monastic communities through the ages.

That's the message Ed Sellner delivers as he shares the wise ways of holy people who lived the ascetic life in various ways since the times of the early church. He summarizes it so well with his perceptive concept that every person today needs "to live simply, to pray often, and to choose well," but there's so much more that adds practical, concrete approaches that anyone can take up -- and not have to move to a monastery to do so.

Sellner, who teaches at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, has really done yeoman's work here in this HiddenSpring publication by Paulist Press. The 272-page book -- minus notes -- takes readers on a journey through the lives of a handful of monastic "celebrities," if you will.

Chapters include the likes of Athanasius of Alexandria, Antony of Egypt, Martin of Tours, Hilary of Poitiers, Augustine and Monica, Brigit of Kildare, Gregory the Great, Benedict and Scholastica, and Bernard of Clairvaux, among others. Sellner shows how the monastic tradition grew and developed from the Third Century in the Middle East to Europe in the Middle Ages as monastics learned from their elders and added charisms that were needed at their time in history.

The stories of these saintly folks aren't always compelling reading, but there are enough passages of interesting details in their lives that will keep a reader moving through the pages. The gift of this work, though, is that Sellner consistently brings the reader back to the values these ancient folks practiced and why those values are important for those of us currently on the planet.

Which holy figures teach what values?

• Athanasius: Sharing stories, "and that one does not have to be a monk in a monastery to live out monastic values today."
• Antony: Silence and solitude, and how they can foster discernment, the ability to begin to see differences between right and wrong.
• Hilary of Poitiers and Martin of Tours: faith, and its participative and communal dimension.
• Augustine and Monica: friendship.
• Jerome, Paula and Eustochium: the need for qualified spiritual mentors.
• John Cassian and Germanus: the value of disclosing our secrets, plus dedication to inner work.
• Brigit and other Irish monastics: compassion, and including lay people in monastic communities and women in decision-making and leadership positions.
• Gregory the Great: contemplation.
• Benedict and Scholastica: stability and love.
• Bernard of Clairvaux: learning to read the "book of experience," the book of our lives, as well as the book of our hearts.

Why would anyone wish to follow in the footsteps of the monastic headliners?

To both develop an interior life and to make a difference in the world, according to Sellner. To do so one needs to identify the values the monastics lived and incorporate them into their own deeper selves.

"These are not only monastic values," he writes, "but values of the soul -- and they apply to everyone, regardless of gender, occupation, material status, or place of residence."

Sellner puts it well in his conclusion:

"What our study of monasticism reveals is that to affirm and nurture the growth of the true inner self a 'new monk' must develop an asceticism of loving. This form of asceticism, so much need today, presumes that to love well a person needs discipline, the setting of limits, the investment of time and energy in relationships and work that reflect at least some of the values discussed here.

"Such an asceticism of living involves a commitment to growth in self-knowledge, self-discipline, and self-love, all based upon the profound conviction, so difficult at times to believe, that God created us for a purpose, that God loved us first. To discover this and make this a daily, lived experience, one must learn to listen to the heartbeat of God." -- bz