Reading Catholic

Reading Catholic and catholic

Nancy Piccione

Words Wednesday Poem: Mary’s Girlhood by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

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This is that blessed Mary, pre-elect
God’s Virgin. Gone is a great while, and she
Dwelt young in Nazareth of Galilee.
Unto God’s will she brought devout respect,
Profound simplicity of intellect,
And supreme patience. From her mother’s knee
Faithful and hopeful; wise in charity;
Strong in grave peace; in pity circumspect.

So held she through her girlhood; as it were
An angel-water’d lily, that near God
Grows and is quiet. Till, one dawn at home,
She woke in her white bed, and had no fear
At all,–yet wept till sunshine, and felt aw’d:
Because the fulness of the time was come. 


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Feel free to share any poems or “novel” quotes in the comments!

“Meet a Reader” Feature: Sister Catherine Cleary, OSB

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This week’s Catholic Post Book Page features a new article series called, “Meet a Reader”  Each month, we’ll highlight the reading of someone, almost always from within the Diocese of Peoria, who shares a love of books and reading.

Our inagural “Reader” is Sister Catherine Cleary, and I’ve had a delightful e-correspondence with her in preparing this month’s feature.  I look forward to meeting her someday soon!  Thanks, Sister Catherine, for sharing your selections and your love of books.

Who:  Sister Catherine Cleary, OSB
Spiritual director and retreat leader, Benet House Retreat Center
St. Mary Monastery, Rock Island
Why I Love Reading:
My love for reading developed as I was growing up with my nine sisters and brothers on a farm between Gridley and El Paso, Ill.  Both of my parents read a lot and read to us. Saturday afternoon was synonymous with a trip to catechism and to the library.  My father would often quote a line of poetry and challenge us to finish it and name both author and poem.  The line usually fit the circumstances of our lives at the time.
My childhood reading experience was excellent preparation for Benedictine life, since the Rule of Benedict directs us to read Scripture, to do Lectio Divina and encourages us to read and to study as part of our spiritual life.
I love reading because books can take me to another century, another country, and/or to new areas of interest. Words can transform my day, my thinking and my attitude from the ho- hum to a new level of beauty.
What I’m Reading Now:
­*Mildred Walker’s Winter Wheat tells the story of Ellen Webb, growing up on a desperately poor wheat ranch in Montana in the 1940s. One can see the ruggedness of the land, feel the cold and heat, taste the blowing dust and experience the joy and the pain of Ellen’s relationships.
*Three Cups of Tea, Cups of Tea highlights social entrepreneur Gregory Mortensen’s mission to promote peace by bringing education to children of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The writing is lively, but book’s chief value is showing how one person’s passion and sacrifice can make an enormous difference.
*Finally, Hemlock at Vespers by Peter Tremayne, is a collection of mystery short stories, and an enjoyable way to learn about the culture and history of 7th century Ireland.  Sister Fidelma, a qualified attorney, travels about the country solving cases, much to the dismay and surprise of the men of the Church, her own monastery, and the legal profession.
My Favorite Book:
It is difficult to pick one favorite book, but one is Thomas Merton’s Dialogues with Silence; here his writing echoes the conversations of his inner spirit, the world around him and his dialogue with God. What appeals to me most is Merton’s honesty, his sheer truthfulness about his inner self, his seeking his true self and his abandoning his false self.

Words Wednesday: Quote from "Till We Have Faces"

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I’m not giving anything away from the plot of C.S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces to quote from near the end.   After all, the novel is a retelling of a well-known Greek myth, and follows fairly closely the story, though with interesting and beautiful twists. This quote from when Orual finishes her story, is the passage from which the book derives its name:
“The complaint was the answer.  To have heard myself making it was to be answered.  Lightly men talk of saying what they mean.  Often when he was teaching me to write in Greek the Fox would say, ‘Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that’s the whole art and joy of words.’
A glib saying.  When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you’ll not talk about the joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer.  Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean?  How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?”
Any great quotes you’d like to share from books you are reading?

Teen Tuesday: A Good Resource for Tween and Teen Friendly Books

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This week, I want to share a gem of a blog that I discovered recently that is a great source for books and authors for tweens.

Treasure Chest for Tweens is by a Catholic mom, a former middle school teacher, who reads and reviews a range of books, from specifically Catholic fiction to popular fiction.

What I really like about Treasure Chest for Tweens are the “safety flags,” 3 flags for “read with abandon,” (for the age group specified), down to the “Da Vinci pile, ” (cute) for books not worth picking up.  She also points out books that are girl or boy friendly, and also books that are for older tweens or younger tweens.

Here is her review of The Penderwicks, long one of our family favorites.

Here’s also one review about a book by crime writer Andrew Klavan; I discovered this book and the sequel through Treasure Chest and they are just as good as promised.

For parents who don’t have time to read everything that their kids read (and isn’t that all of us? I’m sad to admit), and either want to encourage strong readers to read good healthy fiction, or encourage reluctant readers to discover great authors, Treasure Chest for Tweens is a great site.

I don’t always agree wholeheartedly with her reviews; I can think of a few authors she loves and I don’t, and even some content issues she doesn’t catch, but mostly they are literary quibbles than anything else.  I appreciate this great site, and I hope you have a chance to visit the site and search for some good books  there.

Do you have any favorite blogs or websites to discover new authors for your tweens or teens?

Sunday Review: Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis

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I love books that make me cry, and I love books that make me laugh. The Loser Letters, the new book by Mary Eberstadt, made me laugh out loud on almost every page; that’s why we’re reading it next month at the Catholic Post Book Group. Go get it now so you’ll be ready. You’ll thank me, I promise.

But Till We Have Faces is one of those that make me cry.

A lesser-known novel of C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces is a retelling of the Cupid and Psyche myth, told from the perspective of a sister of Psyche. I believe C.S. Lewis considered it his finest novel, and though our family is completely enamored of all things “Narnia,” (the books for which he is most famous these days) I have to agree.

I have read this book multiple times over the years, and I can’t recall a time it didn’t bring tears with it. I read it once as a newlywed while traveling with my husband on the Cape May-Lewes Ferry. I vividly remember being on the ferry, with the water all blue and shimmery around me, and there I was, crying profusely as I read, saying over and over to my husband, “This is so beautiful.” And he, poor husband, having grown up with only brothers, learned a little more about women that day.

Almost from the time I open up this book, my eyes start to well up.
There is something so powerful in Greek mythology, and Lewis taps into this. Lewis called mythology “good dreams” from a culture that understood the sacred but had no revelation from God.  Mythology is a way to represent the longing for love and the transcendent universal in all cultures, and can be a kind of prefiguring of the truth of Christ.
In the myth of Cupid & Psyche, Psyche’s older sisters and evil and jealous of Cupid’s love for her.  In the novel, Orual, an older sister, is the narrator, and she is not jealous of Cupid’s love, but possessive of Psyche and anything that would separate them, in particular any kind of faith.  When Psyche is not killed as Orual has thought by being offered to the gods, but instead claims to be married to Cupid, Orual  pleads with Psyche to abandon her love:
“Oh Psyche, … you’re so far away.  Do you even hear me?  I can’t reach you.  Oh, Psyche, Psyche! You loved me once….come back.  What have we to do with gods and wonder and all these cruel, dark things?  We’re women, aren’t we?  Mortals.  Oh, come back to the real world.  Leave all that alone. Come back where we were happy.”Lewis comes back to this theme again and again in this work; I can think of a character in The Great Divorce and The Screwtape Letters who are possessive in spiritually unhealthy ways. There are many other themes explored in Till We Have Faces, such as friendship, beauty, powerful women, the Greek search for truth and beauty leading inevitably to Who created them.

I’m only kidding a little bit here when I say I’m shocked (shocked!) to find that not everyone loves this novel as I do. Some years back I proposed this book as a parish book club read, and it was a big fat failure. I can’t remember one person among those faithful, lovely people, who loved it or even liked it. So clearly it’s not for everyone.

But if you do enjoy Greek mythology or are a fan of anything by C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces is a great read.

Family-Friendly Friday: If at First You Don’t Fricassee . . .

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Do you read together as a a family?

One of the great joys of reading books out loud as a family is the shorthand that develops.  A book everyone, or nearly everyone, in a family has read or the whole family has listened to aloud, is fodder for great family memories.

One of the most hilarious of these for our family relates  to Caddie Woodlawn, one of our favorite novels from one of our favorite authors, Carol Ryrie Brink.  Caddie Woodlawn is about a pioneer family in Wisconsin; I like to describe it as a funnier and more energetic version of the Little House books.

In the novel, Caddie’s little brother finds it difficult to memorize even his short little poem (“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again…(a poem you can find in Favorite Poems Old and New….)
for a school recitation. His older brother taunts him with “If at first you don’t fricassee, fry, fry a hen” until he freezes at the recitation and recites the “fry a hen” version instead of the original. The teacher is mad until Caddie and the guilty brother explain the situation, and all’s well that ends well.

Some years back, halfway through a long drive to visit my parents (sans husband, with children), I thought it an excellent time to rig up our portable DVD player to let the kids watch a movie. It was intensely frustrating to get the straps “just so” to make my little movie critics in the back reasonably happy with the set-up, and I have to admit I was doing it with more than the usual amount of “irritable monologue.”  If you’re a parent, you know what I mean by “irritable monologue.”

When it was all in place and movie was about to start, and I could continue driving the long hours onward east, my  oldest daughter said encouragingly, “See, Mom, you didn’t give up and you tried different things and you made it work!! Good for you!” Pause. Then, in her then sweet 9-year-old voice, “If at first you don’t fricassee, fry, fry a hen!”

Giggles all around.  We still like that expression.

What are your favorite book lines from a book your whole family has read or knows well?