The Faithful Traveler and the Miraculous Medal Shrine

Two of my favorite books are Catholic Shrines of Western Europe and Catholic Shrines of Central and Eastern Europe, both of which are subtitled "A Pilgrim's Travel Guide. I have often wished for as comprehensive a guide to the United States. Lo and behold, here comes The Faithful Traveler to fill that need, beginning in Philadelphia.

I am not much for watching travel DVDs, unless they are those that Michael Palin has done with clever commentary and an interesting theme (such as traveling around the world in 80 days). However, Diana von Glahn sent me a review copy of this DVD so I dutifully sat down to watch it, expecting to sample a bit and skip around before quitting. Unexpectedly I liked it so much that I watched the entire thing, including extras, and then told Tom he will have to watch. (He is much less resistant to this sort of thing than I am.)

First of all, Diana's screen presence is charming. She is serious about the subject yet there is always the hint of an underlying merriment that is most inviting.

Secondly, I didn't expect this to be a partial Catholic history class with plenty of fascinating information about the origin of the Miraculous Medal as well as about the Philadelphia shrine. Additionally, in order to make sure that viewers understand the concepts well, there is are brief explanations of Catholic concepts along the way (such as why Catholics venerate Mary or that the medal is not superstitiously viewed "as a good luck charm"). This means that the DVDs can also be passed on to nonCatholics who might have questions or be interested in the shrine. A nice touch.

The music is contemporary Christian but is not some of the sappy, overly sentimental stuff that I shrink from hearing. It is either upbeat or heartfelt, but good.

My only critiques would be that the information on the extras page is not large enough to read easily and that the word "amazing" gets a bit overused. However, as a podcast who has found that her favorite "make a noise while thinking of what to say next" word is "and" I can understand this tendency.

The Faithful Traveler website is loaded with information, including a blog that has many pertinent facts that would be helpful when visiting a location. You can see samples of the dvd or order it here.

Worth a Thousand Words

American Crescent Cycle

From The Art of the Poster, 1880-1918, Lawrence University Digital Collection
Via Lines and Colors.

How to Make Your Child a Gay Activist

Let's say you, like many Christian parents, have a child with strong and lasting homosexual longings.

Someone--maybe not Jesus, but Someone--definitely enjoys it when people who are trying hard to love one another and act well toward one another end up deeply hurting themselves and each other instead. Someone loves it when Christians trying to bear witness instead cause confusion, disappointment, and pain to those they love; when Christians, trying to support family values, destroy their own families. Someone enjoys it when Christians, seeking to love and support their children, hurt those children deeply.

How do you help that "Someone"? How do you make it as hard as possible for your child to accept Christian chastity and humility, rather than seeking solace in gay pride?

Let's begin at the beginning....

Brilliant. From Eve Tushnet ... I'm not sure I got the link right but scroll around toward the top if I didn't.

Watch Out Beijing ...

... Engrish.com has their eye on Olympic signage. Can't wait to see what turns up.

Worth a Thousand Words

La Sainte Chappelle, Paris
Shown here with permission from Ian McKillip.

Click through on the link above to see more of his splendid art.

A Little Useless Information

It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information. -- Oscar Wilde

KEITH • Originally, someone named Keith was from a specific place, a town in Scotland on the Isla River. First used as a surname, it became popular as a first name in the 1800s.

The Word Origin Calendar

Proud Mom Moment

Hi Rose-

Congratulations! You have been admitted to the Pilot Program for this year. Your essays were impressive and communicated a strong passion for learning and filmmaking. ...

Nice to see that Rose's college recognizes how brilliant my child is!

This pilot program is one that admits only 24 students. They will work together on core film classes. The film school is trying to see if this will be a better way to guide freshmen through what now takes quite a few different classes.

Should be interesting!

Quick Book Review: No One Sees God

No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheists and Believers by Michael Novak goes on sale today. I cannot comment too much since I got my copy of the book last week ... and, as everyone around here knows we've been putting on a retreat lately.

However, I did take the time to read the introduction and first chapter, which are my test of whether I will keep the book around at all. (That's a defense mechanism designed to leave me any time at all to read book of my own choosing.) I was hooked by Novak's honest, respectful approach to how to discuss faith with atheists. It went to the top of my nonfiction stack and will be picked up very soon, after which I will do a proper review.

In the meantime, please read Steven Riddle's review. I trust him completely and this review simply whets my appetite to dive into Novak's book. Steven begins thus:

In a word--superb. A quick review of this book shows that it is the same tightly reasoned, compassionate, engaging call to conversation and, it is to be hoped, conversion from one believer to other believers and non-believers. Mr. Novak's theme in the book might well be summed up in this excerpt:

from No One Sees God
Michael Novak

In my own life, I have tried to keep the conversation up between the two sides of my own intellect. The line of belief and unbelief is not drawn between one person and another, normally, but rather down the inner souls of all of us. That is why the very question stirs so much passion. I have known people who declaim so passionately and argumentatively that they do not believe in God that I am drive to wonderment: Why are they so agitated, if, as they insist, God does not exist? Why then do they pay so much attention? Some of the greatest converts, in either direction, are those who wrestled strenuously for many year to maintain the other side

Now go read the rest of the review and then pick up the book.

Informative: The Vatican and Harry Potter

Mark Banks writes to let us know:

You may remember some months ago the Vatican’s official newspaper L’Osservatore Romano published an article on Harry Potter that received a lot of coverage both in the Catholic and Secular press. Well, with the generous help of an Italian friend I’ve managed to translate the original articles from Italian into English. The two essays that constitute the article make for interesting reading and I thought you might like to mention them and/or provide a commentary on them on HC and CMR. Clearly there’s a lot of interest in Harry Potter throughout all ages, but these essays might be of particular interest to parents still unsure how suitable the books (and films) are for their children.

Find the article here.

I am eagerly looking forward to printing this out and reading it. Much thanks to Mark for taking the initiative to make this translation available.

I would like to add that Soul Food Cinema is not only an attractive site, it is a venue for Catholics to air their opinions in essays about movies. Take a look at just how many good ideas Mark has posted that can serve as a springboard into a thoughtful essay. If you are at all interested in films and faith but don't want to have your own blog, I encourage you to take a look around and think about contributing.

Inspirational: "God gave me the opportunity to just talk, and I passed. It wasn't convenient to me at the time..."

I should say at this point that the lady was obviously homeless. She wore a sweater inside-out on a warm day and looked a bit dirty. About this time I noticed that some of her teeth were blackened.

"No, I'm not." I thought she meant to ask again whether or not I was a minister of some kind. "I'm just here on business for a couple of days. I'm from Dallas..."

"But how can I stay in touch with you?"

"I'm from Dallas. You can't really stay in touch with me." I admit I was getting a bit edgy at this point. We were approaching my hotel. The last thing I needed was a homeless woman, with what appeared to be some mental health issues, hanging around my hotel each evening waiting for a chat.

Mark's honesty touches a nerve in me ... and, I suspect, in some of you too. Go read it all.

Worth a Thousand Words

Hallelujah by Karin Jurick
Used with permission ... click through on the link to see more delightful art.

Signs and Mysteries

Mike Aquilina's newest book and I can tell you it is simply fantastic. How do I know this? I didn't work on the cover but I did lay out the inside of the book. Gorgeous illustrations from Lea Marie Ravotti and, as always, Mike Aquilina writes simply but brilliantly. I couldn't keep from reading part of it as I worked and can't wait to have my own copy to read all the way through. Here's part of the description.

Imagine the dangerous life of a First Century Christian. You've embraced your newfound faith in Christ but fear the risk of persecution or death at the hands of the pagans living around you. Then a trusted friend tells you about some of Jesus followers who secretly meet. He whispers into your ear, Look for a fish carved into the entranceway to the burial chambers beside the Via Tiburtina. You smile in gratitude.

Comparatively, modern society is awash in those same Christian symbols that kept early Christians safely connected: they appear on churches, bumper stickers, mugs even mints and stuffed animals. Yet, we are often ignorant of the origins of these symbols having lost the urgency of our spiritual ancestors hostile environment.

Noted author Mike Aquilina conducts an intriguing tour of symbols that guided the first four centuries of the Church's existence. He explains how Christians borrowed pagan and Jewish symbols, giving them new, distinctly Christian meanings. Recover the voice and urgency of our spiritual ancestors symbolic language and discover the impact the symbols still have.

Black and white illustrations by Lea Ravotti of artifacts uncovered throughout the Middle East beautifully complement the text, showing the variety of contexts in which they were found and the range of skills displayed in their execution.

Now go to Mike's place to see the first review which has him very pleased indeed. There are other good ones at Amazon.

Read my comments and excerpts here:

• Incorporating History Into the Sacraments
• Christ is ... a Dolphin?
• What You Didn't Know About That Fish Symbol

One Little Glitch in the System and Blogs Become Spam

Much thanks to The Anchoress for my prayer request for our marriage enrichment retreat when Happy Catholic was marked as a spam blog on Friday. The retreat was a fantastic success and ten more couples have re-energized their marriages and have the tools to continue enriching their lives together. Thank you for the prayers!

I've seen a few conspiracy theories out there (thought of a few myself, to be truthful) and am happy to see that Blogger reports their recent rash of "spam blog" notices as a software glitch.

You Are Not Spam

You knew that already, and now we do too. We have now restored all accounts that were mistakenly marked as spam yesterday. (See: Spam Fridays)

We want to offer our sincerest apologies to affected bloggers and their readers. We’ve tracked down the problem to a bug in our data processing code that locked blogs even when our algorithms concluded they were not spam. We are adding additional monitoring and process checks to ensure that bugs of this magnitude are caught before they can affect your data. ...

Goin' Retreatin'

Tom and I are on the presentation team for our parish's Beyond Cana marriage enrichment retreat. It begins tomorrow morning and so I'm outta here.

While I'm gone, take a look over at The Anchoress's online August retreat which begins tomorrow. I think it is going to be great!

You can also see what I've marked to read ... here:

Mailbag ...

Jeff S. writes to let us know:

TIME magazine has an interesting profile of three priests in Northern Ireland attempting to balance their faith and clerical duties with a multi-million dollar recording contract with Sony BMG. Lots of interesting issues here. They sound like they only have good intentions.

Worth a Thousand Words

The Rabbits' Christmas Party -- The Departure
From BibliOdyssey where there are many other good things to be seen
by clicking through on the link above.

Light, shadow, summer, city ... creativity

Thanks for the link, Marcia!

Showing God's Grace Among Us, a review of Audrey

When you read the pages that follow you will see how Audrey was privileged to have that heightened sense of God's presence, and how that led her to do things "here and now" (learning her French verb tables, doing a sacrifice to console Jesus...) ... But the most winning thing about Audrey is that she doesn't lecture you. She just seems to invite you to sit down on that hospital bed beside her, she cuddles up to you like any little girl her age, and with the simplicity and depth of her actions she invites you and shows you how to love more sincerely, more simply, more completely. ...

I am sure you will enjoy reading about Audrey, and I am also sure that something in this book will change you.

Father Anthony Bannon, from the introduction to Audrey

I told Chris Cash from The Catholic Company "surprise me" when he wrote asking what book I'd like. He did. I inwardly groaned when I received Audrey -- True Story of a Child's Journey of Faith. One look at the title tells us that we are looking at a story about a "holy little one" who surely has died from some lingering illness or other. I was falling prey to the standard preconception (imagine that! my besetting sin, surely) about how holiness is shown. Never having a connection with St. Therese of Lisieux, her story nevertheless flashed through my mind and I resigned myself to reading a saintly, "too good for this world" story. However, I'd agreed to read and review the book so I picked it up and prepared to soldier on.

"Audrey" exposed me to a sort of holiness I'd never seen so well expressed as in this book. As recounted in a series of vignettes, we see how Audrey naturally expressed God's grace in her life from the time she was a small child. Her parents' repeated mystification at this in their faithful but normal family, her siblings' lack of a similar gift, and Audrey's own very human nature all serve to emphasize just what a gift of God this was. Gloria Conde's skill at unveiling Audrey's joie de vivre and growing faith are apparent as we, too, come to see and believe Audrey's self-sacrificial love for Jesus, her pouring out of herself in prayer for others even as she suffers physical pain.

Perhaps most telling of the fact that Audrey's faith is God's doing, is her mother's sudden realization that the most famous child saints she could think of had all suffered trials from illness. Following this presentiment came the painful diagnosis of leukemia. It is then when we see Audrey's faith blossom and how others in praying for Audrey are actually blessing themselves. I was especially touched by her small brother's satisfaction in being allowed to suffer for his sister when he is chosen as a bone marrow donor. His mother perfectly captures the feelings of a heroic boy tilting at dragons for Audrey's sake. As well, in the midst of pain and suffering, we are not allowed to forget Audrey's human side. The practical joke she plays on a nurse soon after being put into a sterile bubble makes us laugh and remember that Audrey is still a child with high spirits that cannot be quenched.

Told in an unsentimental style, Audrey's story contains great grace, courage, and faith. It is one that I highly recommend to others, especially if they, like me, cynically doubt a small child's holiness except as a reflection of others' sentimental projections. Audrey is the real deal. This morning I found myself asking for her intercession for a special intention as well as thoroughly enjoying thinking of her getting to know our two children in heaven. I will not soon forget her story ... or her prayer from shortly before she died.

For mothers who have lost a child, so that they will understand that this child of theirs is a small servant of Christ in heaven.

Father Bannon was right. This book has changed me. Thank you, Chris, for choosing better than you knew.

This review was written as part of The Catholic Company product reviewer program. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on Audrey - True Story of a Child's Journey of Faith.

Worth a Thousand Words

Peaches and Dragon (No. 2) by Duane Keiser
Shared by permission. Click through on the link above to see his other amazing art at his website.

You Can't Always Get What You Want ...

... the two big lessons I learned that day are lessons that God has been teaching me over and over and over again in this situation:

1. Just because you don't think a prayer was answered, doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't answered -- the answer may have been in a form you weren't expecting.
   
   
2. Answered prayers are easier to see when looking at the world around you through a lens of love.

A few months ago I had cried out to God for help. I was overwhelmed with all that I had to do as a mom of three children in diapers, and felt like I was quickly going to reach a breaking point if I didn't get help soon. It was shortly after that that a group of neighborhood pranksters started ringing my doorbell and running, causing me to get even closer to said breaking point. Not only was my prayer not answered, but now I had even more problems! I thought we were never given more than we could handle -- was God not listening to me?!

What I see now, of course, is that when I was looking out for the prayer to be answered, I was basically waiting for my phone to ring with someone announcing that I'd won a lifetime unlimited gift card to the best housekeeping service in town. In typical fashion, I wanted it all to work out in a way that would allow me to continue to be withdrawn and self-sufficient, my problems being solved while I remained within the safe and predictable confines of my home.

What I am beginning to get through my head (slowly!) is that God very often answers prayers in a way that brings us closer to our fellow human beings. ...

Jen is writing about that which I have learned ... and which I then forget and must learn again. God is full of surprises, he knows better than I do what I need, and I am pretty short sighted.

Go read all of Jen's post and be sure to click through to the related links. I have been thoroughly enjoying her experiences with the neighborhood girls. I was especially delighted when they were allowed to hang out with her after Jen had been declared "off limits" previously.