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Eleazar’s Commonplace Book, or Shine Like Lights {Finding Your Fiat talk notes}

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I am still processing the wonderful Finding Your Fiat Conference I attended last weekend here in central Illinois.  So many great memories and take-aways. Before I get to my promised talk notes, here are a few highlights of “Finding Your Fiat” from me:

*Friday night gathering: a mini-concert and then Karaoke with Marie Miller. I didn’t actually do Karaoke but I loved getting to sing and dance along. So many ladies ( Bonnie and Nell and so many others) did really funny and great songs. Now I want to somehow do karaoke with the family or friends. Is there an app or inexpensive way to get started with this?

*Saturday’s program: so many awesome women, so many adorable babies, praise and worship with Marie Miller, and more.  The coloring pages provided by Katie Bogner, were lovely and relaxing as we began the day.  Katie also hand-stamped sweet charms with the word “Fiat” on them.   I wrote down tons of quotes from Colleen Mitchell and Meg Hunter-Kilmer and Jenna Guizar.  I wish I could have heard the talks by Annie Tillberg and Laura Fanucci, but I was listening to a different talk during the former and giving my talk during the latter.  I was super grateful that Mary Lenaburg agreed to come up towards the end of my talk and share some of her wisdom about finding time for life-giving pursuits even while processing grief and life changes.

So without further ado, here are notes from my talk, entitled:

Eleazar’s Commonplace Book, or Shine Like Lights

“Finding Your Fiat”

Intercession of

Venerable Matt Talbot

Venerable Father Solanus Casey

Prayer:

“Shine like lights in the world,
as you hold on to the word of life.” —Philippians 2:15-16

entire quote:

“So then, my beloved obedient as you have always been, not only when I am present all the more now when I am absent, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For God is the one who, for his good purpose, works in you both to dear and to work.

Do everything without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among who you shine like lights in the world, as you hold on to the word of life, so that my boast for the day of Christ may be that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.”

definitions:

Eleazar:

Hebrew scribe, 90 years old, martyred in Maccabees persecution

“But making a high resolve, worthy of his years and the dignity of his old age and the gray hairs that he had reached with distinction and his excellent life even from childhood, and moreover according to the holy God-given law, he declared himself quickly, telling them to send him to Hades.

“Such pretense is not worthy of our time of life,” he said, “for many of the young might suppose that Eleazar in his ninetieth year had gone over to an alien religion, and through my pretense, for the sake of living a brief moment longer, they would be led astray because of me, while I defile and disgrace my old age. Even if for the present I would avoid the punishment of mortals, yet whether I live or die I will not escape the hands of the Almighty.  Therefore, by bravely giving up my life now, I will show myself worthy of my old age and leave to the young a noble example of how to die a good death willingly and nobly for the revered and holy laws.”  –2 Maccabees 6:23-28

(worth reading the whole chapter and 2 Maccabees 7, the martyrdom of mother and seven sons, and she died after all her sons).

Commonplace book:

a notebook/scrapbook combination, a way for a learned person, scholar, or writer to keep random bits of information in one place.

have existed in that name since the 17th century, but even beforehand in works like the Notebooks of Leonardo DaVinci.

Here is a link to a facsimile of John Milton’s Commonplace Book

Here is a link to John Locke’s A New Method of Making Commonplace Books.

So, Eleazar’s Commonplace Book: random quotes and pieces of books from one who wants to be “worthy of her years and gray hair”  to help you consider ways to “shine like lights” throughout life, and be able to persevere (“hold on to the word of life” and not “run in vain”).

Making Books–

Here is the hot dog booklet, and a link to the website with various other small book projects.

BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART, FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD

St. Gregory of Nyssa on the Beatitudes

“Bodily health is a good thing, but what is truly blessed is not only to know how to keep one’s health but actually to be healthy. If someone praises health but then goes and eats food that makes him ill, what is the use to him, in his illness, of all his praise of health?
“We need to look at the text we are considering in just the same way. It does not say that it is blessed to know something about the Lord God, but that it is blessed to have God within oneself. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
I do not think that this is simply intended to promise a direct vision of God if one purifies one’s soul. On the other hand, perhaps the magnificence of this saying is hinting at the same thing that is said more clearly to another audience: The kingdom of God is within you. That is, we are to understand that when we have purged our souls of every illusion and every disordered affection, we will see our own beauty as an image of the divine nature.”

QUESTION: How is the Kingdom of God Within You?

BE A DECIDER

From City of Saints: A Pilgrimage to John Paul II’s Kraków by George Weigel.

“He was a moral reference point for his friends and did not hesitate to be a challenging counselor and confessor. But the pastoral stress … was always on personal responsibility. He was not the decider for his friends; they must be their own deciders, he insisted, if they were to be true to the moral dignity built into them as human persons and as Christians. “

later in the book:

“(Fr. Wojtyla was), according to one of his friends and penitents, uninterested in the ‘mass production of Christians’ in a confessional assembly line, but deeply committed to accompanying a fellow believer in his or her quest for the truth, including the truth of failure and the truth about making wise decisions. Yet Wojtyla, the confessor who gently prodded good decisions, never imposed decisions. ‘You must decide’ was his signature phrase in spiritual direction. One couldn’t opt out of the drama of life in the gap. One had to decide–and, with the grace of God and the support of the Church, wise and true decisions could be made.”

QUESTION: How can you be a decider? How can you be a good decider, filled with personal responsibility?

WIN HAPPINESS

 Rilla of Ingleside by Lucy Maud Montgomery (writer of the Anne of Green Gables books).  I dearly love all of the Anne books, and this is the last in the series about her family, and about Anne & Gilbert’s youngest child, darling, charming and growing-up Rilla (named after Marilla). Rilla of Ingleside is such a good book as a coming-of-age story, but also great historical fiction about WWI written close to the time. Noble and heartbreaking without being completely depressing, as a lot of fiction about WWI is, and rightfully so, since it’s the first modern war.

At one point, Rilla is bemoaning in a conversation with her brother Walter how the war is changing their whole community and family. Her brother Walter says:

“Now we won’t be sober any more. We’ll look beyond the years—to the time when the war will be over and Jem and Jerry and I will come marching home and we’ll all be happy again.”

“We won’t be—happy—in the same way,” said Rilla.

“No, not in the same way. Nobody whom this war has touched will ever be happy again in quite the same way. But it will be a better happiness, I think, little sister—a happiness we’ve earned. We were very happy before the war, weren’t we? With a home like Ingleside, and a father and mother like ours we couldn’t help being happy. But that happiness was a gift from life and love; it wasn’t really ours—life could take it back at any time. It can never take away the happiness we win for ourselves in the way of duty.”

QUESTION: What kind of happiness have you won in the way of duty?

MUSTER YOUR WITS


Emily of Deep Valley by Maud Hart Lovelace

Set in early 20th century Minnesota, Emily of Deep Valley by Maud Hart Lovelace, author of the iconic Betsy-Tacy books, is a coming-of-age story about a high school graduate, Emily, who can’t go away to college like her cousin and friends since she is taking care of the elderly grandfather who raised her. At first, she wallows in pity.

“Depression settled down upon her, and although she tried to brush it away it thickened like a fog. “Why, the kids will be home for Thanksgiving! That will be here in no time. I mustn’t get this way,” she thought. But she felt lonely and deserted and futile. “A mood like this has to be fought. It’s like an enemy with a gun,” she told herself. But she couldn’t seem to find a gun with which to fight.

Later, she learns to “muster her wits” and she starts a reading group, and goes out to dances, and becomes active in helping Syrian immigrants.  She discovers a quote in Shakespeare: 

“Muster your wits: stand in your own defense.” She had no idea in what sense he had used it, but it seemed to be a message aimed directly at her. “Muster your wits: stand in your own defense,” she kept repeating to herself on the long walk home. After dinner she sat down in her rocker, looked out at the snow and proceeded to muster her wits. “I’m going to fill my winter and I’m going to fill it with something worth while,” she resolved.

QUESTION: How Can you Muster Your Wits? What are your Resources for Doing that?  (friends, faith, outside help) 

EMBRACE YOUR GOOFY HOBBIES

C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters is a series of imaginary letters from a senior demon “(Screwtape) to his nephew about ways to ensnare a young man in WWII-era England.  It’s a classic on the spiritual life and growth in holiness, both funny and spiritually insightful. All the terms and suggestions are backward (the Enemy is God).

“The deepest likings and impulses of any man are the raw material, the starting-point, with which the Enemy has furnished him. To get him away from those is therefore always a point gained; even in things indifferent it is always desirable to substitute the standards of the World, or convention, or fashion, for a human’s own real likings and dislikings. I myself would carry this very far. I would make it a rule to eradicate from my patient any strong personal taste which is not actually a sin, even if it is something quite trivial such as a fondness for county cricket or collecting stamps or drinking cocoa. Such things, I grant you, have nothing of virtue in them; but there is a sort of innocence and humility and self-forgetfulness about them which I distrust. The man who truly and disinterestedly enjoys any one thing in the world, for its own sake, and without caring two-pence what other people say about it, is by that very fact forearmed against some of our subtlest modes of attack. You should always try to make the patient abandon the people or food or books he really likes in favour of the ‘best’ people, the ‘right’ food, the ‘important’ books. I have known a human defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions.”

QUESTION: What is Your Tripe & Onions?

AIR YOUR ROOMS

Rumer Godden’s Autobiography: A House with Four Rooms.

“There is an Indian proverb that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional, and a spiritual . Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person.” 

Question: How can you air out those four rooms each day, or even each week?  What can you do to be well-rounded?

RESOLUTION: How can you make time for something you “want” to do, not “have” to do?

My best example of a “want to”: The New York Times mini-crossword.

Some of mine:

Running

Daily Mass–more when kids were tiny, less when kids were busy

Adoration

Reading

QUESTION: What “want-tos” are you going to make intentional over the next few weeks? 

I would love to hear what want-tos are in your line-up the next few weeks.  If you attended “Finding Your Fiat,” I’d also love to hear your favorite parts and things you are pondering.

As a sharing of one of my “want-tos,” here is my completed New York Time mini-crossword for Wednesday (BTW, I didn’t do it in 35 seconds! I did it late last night, as I mentioned in my talk, and forgot to take a screen shot, so I did it again this morning. But many times I do get it in under a minute.):

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Chesterton Mystery Book a Charming Introduction to Catholic Literary Giant {Kidlit Corner}

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Today I’m introducing a new feature called “Kidlit Corner.” I’ve long wanted to be more intentional about introducing readers here and in The Catholic Post to good children’s literature (sometimes called “kidlit”), both old and new. So I’m just going to jump in and start.  I’m sure it will evolve over time, and perhaps have a name change. Stay tuned!

“Whatever is true whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” — Philippians 4:8

Keeping younger kids in chapter books, the shorter, interesting stories to help readers transition from easy readers to full-length novels, can be a challenge.  There are always the classic series like The Boxcar Children and The Magic Tree House series, which offer enjoyable and well-told mysteries for younger readers. 

But sadly, this category in recent years has also filled up with many “branded” or commercialized stories that promote the latest movie or television show, and are the equivalent of processed food.  Kids might be “reading” these books, but they are not especially nourishing.  It’s like chips for the mind.

Younger readers deserve hearty fare as they are beginning to love reading—books that are fun and relatively easy to read, but provide an interesting and worthy subject matter. Consider such books meat & potatoes, or healthy comfort food, for the emergent reader.

One great new offering in the chapter-book genre is The Chestertons and the Golden Key by Nancy Carpentier Brown, with Regina Doman, and lovely period-style illustrations by Ann Kissane Englelhart. 

The Chestertons and the Golden Key is a charming story about GK Chesterton and his wife, on vacation one summer, meeting and befriending a young family, and helping them solve a child-friendly mystery.

As I read the story, I thought it was mostly fiction.  It turns out the story is based on the real-life Nicholls family, whom the Chestertons did meet and befriend when they  visited Lyme Regis, England.  The afterward describes the actual story, and how Carpentier Brown’s research lead her to the Nicholls family and relatives who were still alive to tell her some stories.

You might also be interested in:

Previously, Nancy Carpentier Brown also has adapted for younger readers a good variety of Chesterton’s most famous Father Brown mystery stories. 

The Father Brown Reader: Stories from Chesterton, and The Father Brown Reader II: More Stories from Chesterton offer budding mystery lovers a chance to be introduced to one of the classic sleuths from the prolific Chesterton.

Carpentier Brown is also the author of the well-regarded adult biography of Frances Chesterton, The Woman Who Was Chesterton.  You can read my review of that book here.

The #YearofMercy : Ideas, Links, and Modest, Merciful Goals

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My column that appears in this weekend’s print edition of The Catholic Post, and here in just a few days, essentially involves me admitting I haven’t made any plans for the Year of Mercy.

My column does offer books that relate to it, but for me, writing that column prompted me to take a minute to “get with it” and make some plans and modest goals for living out this tremendous year. And it’s well-known that writing plans down makes them more likely to be achieved.  In addition, I will be glad to have a place to capture all of my thoughts, important links, and other notes.  So here goes:

The Divine Mercy Chaplet: I’m not sure if this is ironic or something else, but one of my first thoughts was when I heard about the Year of Mercy, was “I’m going to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet every single day of the year.”  That may seem like an ambitious plan, but really, I end up saying it more days that not.  Making it an explicit goal should help me be sure to do it every day, right?

Here’s the ironic/funny part: I’ve barely said it (maybe twice?) since the Year of Mercy started last week.   So I’m laughing at myself (in mercy? see how I did that?), and also resolving to find a regular time that I can pray the Chaplet.  I’ve loved this prayer for at least 18 years, I’m pretty sure since my oldest was a baby. Praying it as much as possible this year is doubtless a good idea.

As many people know, I am a big user of apps for prayers and novenas.  I find most of the Divine Mercy chaplet apps fairly annoying, including the “official” one. App developers, get rid of the sound effects, or give us the opportunity to in settings, already.  This is a very simple and effective one for iOs I’ve discovered recently.

 

Looking for Mercy:  Here is the Vatican document, called “Misericordiae Vultus,” which released on Divine Mercy Sunday (the Second Sunday of Easter) this year to announce and prepare for the Year of Mercy.  Just glancing at it, though, makes me want to read the entire thing, more slowly, to get a sense of what the year is meant to be for people and the Church.

Pope Francis’ Prayer for the Year of Mercy: Pope Francis composed a prayer for the Year of Mercy.  Our family will try to pray this prayer, perhaps in advance of saying night prayer.  I’ve already formatted it nicely in a document–perhaps I will try to put it in an edit. Another modest goal.

Pinterest Board: It occurred to me that a good way to capture articles and ideas for the Year of Mercy is to create a board on Pinterest. I’ve begun that  (and will pin much of what I’m gathering here), but what I really need to do is just keep coming back to the Year of Mercy board created by local blogger Katie Bogner.  Here is just one of her blog posts about celebrating the Year of Mercy, but her board includes resources from all over the Web.

Visiting Pilgrimage Churches and Chapels: The Diocese of Peoria website has a “mercy” page with Bishop Jenky’s Festival Letter, as well as a list and photos of all the churches and chapels designated as “pilgrimage” sites.  I thought it would be a great way to celebrate the year as a family to try to get to all those sites sometime during the year, and walk through the doors of mercy in all those locations. Wouldn’t it be great to get to Rome to go through the Jubilee Door in the Vatican?  In lieu of that, visiting the local sites ( or looking into ones places we travel this year) would be a great way to keep mercy in mind.

Living the Year of Mercy in the Family:  Marcia, another local blogger and dear friend, has compiled a list of ideas for living the Year of Mercy in the family. I love the idea here of “virtually” visiting the Divine Mercy Shrine in Poland, and many other ideas here.

Confession: Confession seems to me the most important sacrament this year. So perhaps working on not just going to Confession more often, but trying to make better confessions.  Related here would be trying to be more merciful and forgiving to others and myself.

I know I will come up with many more ways to celebrate and mark this Year of Mercy.   You’ll notice that I’m not listing a lot of books.  I read so much as it is, and I want to be sure to try things that can  involve more than just me, or allow me to reflect on the year. What I will do is create a shelf on my GoodReads for the Year of Mercy, and add books to it as time goes on. Suggestions welcome!

What are some of your ideas for the Year of Mercy? What do you have planned?

I will update this post with any other ideas I have, and I’d love to hear (and perhaps add!) yours.   If you’d like to be added as a collaborator on the “Year of Mercy” Pinterest board, please let me know, or send me a message on Pinterest.  I’d love for it to be a group board with lots of ideas.

Meet a Reader: Amy Lee

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Following is the monthly feature that appears in the print edition of The Catholic Post, featuring a Peoria diocesan reader.

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How you know me:

I’m a parishioner at St. Marys’ Cathedral in Peoria, IL. I was blessed to start attending and serving Mass there when I was a sophomore at Bradley University. It is through the Newman Center at Bradley and the Cathedral that I met my husband, Phillip Lee. We were married in 2013, and last year welcomed our daughter, Elizabeth. In addition to being a wife and mother, I also work as a full-time nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital in Galesburg, IL.

Why I love reading:

I love reading fiction mostly, and good books have become friends. When I read, I can instantly visit a new place, meet new people, experience different cultures, and even travel through time. My favorite books have the ability to inspire and challenge me to learn and grow into a better person. They have introduced me to characters that I admire and desire to emulate. When I read, my imagination can take over, and I can dream.

What I’m reading now:


I’m currently reading Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, aloud to my husband and daughter whenever I get the chance.




Other frequent contenders in the “board and baby book” category include: Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle, I Love You Through And Through by Bernadette Rossetti Shustak, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, and Five Little Monkeys Storybook Treasury by Eileen Christelow.


I am also (slowly) reading Fatima for Today: The Urgent Marian Message of Hope by Fr. Andrew Apostoli.

My Favorite Book:
This is a tough one to answer. If I have to choose one, I would have to say Little Women. I can’t even begin to remember how many times I’ve read it. I also love just about anything by Jane Austen, and Pride and Prejudice  in particular, is at the top of the list. I’m also a big Tolkien fan, and have been known to be addicted to the Star Wars universe.

First Communion Gift Ideas

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Looking for some First Holy Communion or other spring gifts for young people? Here are a couple of well-produced newer offerings:


The Joyful Mysteries: Illuminated by Sixty Works of Sacred Art (The Illuminated Rosary)
by Peanut Butter & Grace, a newer Catholic publisher specializing in books for children and families.

The Joyful Mysteries is the first in a planned series of all the mysteries of the rosary; The Sorrowful Mysteries: Illuminated by Sixty Works of Sacred Art is also published currently, with Luminous and Glorious set to appear later this year.

This book has a well-designed, larger size great for little hands, and children can follow along on each page as each bead is added on to a decade. The artwork is particularly varied and inspiring for all ages, with works from many centuries ago, to very recent modern depictions. All are beautiful and point one towards the beauty of each rosary mystery.

Your First Communion: Meeting Jesus, Your True Joy by Pope Francis is a series of short, but impressive, quotes of by the Holy Father, divided into sections such as “Holy Confession: Meeting Christ Who Loves Us Dearly.” and “Messages for Life.” The book is illustrated with charming full-color images of Jesus in ancient times, and with children and families today. I love when First Communion books have pages for memories, and this book offers several pages for writing a prayer and inserting other memories.

*This post is actually a small part of my April column that appears in this weekend’s print edition of The Catholic Post, but I feature it as a separate post since these books are unrelated to the main books I review.

*Peanut Butter & Grace has an Indiegogo campaign running right now to fund future books and reach more people.  It’s a worthy cause as the books are really well-produced–do check it out.

*I’ve written about some of our favorite first Communion and other sacramental books before here and here, and a few other places, but there’s a start.

 

{Lent Book Series} 2015: Books to Reset Lent

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At Mass on Sunday, I actually said to a friend, well, Easter is just a few weeks away!

Turns out it’s nearly five weeks away.  That is not my definition of “few,” so clearly, I am ready for Lent to be over.  As I shared,  I am missing chocolate something terrible.

(And, yes, I know I’m not supposed to give up chocolate but instead do great things.  I use “chocolate” as a shorthand for all my Lenten practices.  I do admit, however, to giving up actual chocolate every year because it’s hard). 

Are you feeling the same way?  Feeling like a failure already at your Lenten practices and promises? Need a boost or a mid-Lent re-set?

Me, too.

So, over the next few weeks, I and some other local writers will be sharing books to reset your Lent.

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This will end up being the 2015 edition of {Lent Book Series}.  If I can be totally honest, I had really planned for this to be a full-fledged book series, running all Lent long.  However, several things–mostly the busyness of life and my neglect of this space.  First, I got a late start in asking writers to join in.  A bunch responded. And then I  just dropped the ball;  life getting in the way, too.  And then Lent started and I still hadn’t begun.

So, operating on the principle of better late than never, and knowing that I and many others need a Lent “reset” after a few weeks, I reframed the series.  I hope you’ll find some of the ideas helpful in making your Lent fruitful.

Check back here on Friday, when I’ll share some of Pope Francis’ favorite books, and why they might make good reads on your Lenten journey.   Several times a week, I or others will be sharing good reads, and before you know it, we really will be just a few weeks from Easter.