• Skip to main content

Reading Catholic

Reading Catholic and catholic

  • Home
  • About
  • A Literary Pilgrimage
  • Book Group

Saints

I Alone Have Escaped to Tell You

September 27, 2010 by Nancy Piccione

Today’s first reading is from Job 1, about all the misfortunes that happened to Job.  Servant after servant came to tell Job of losing everything, and their “line” is, “I alone have escaped to tell you.”  And Job responds with,

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,

naked I shall return.
The Lord gave, the Lord has taken back.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

I am reminded of several random thoughts here that I hope will be somewhat cohesive.

*the lector for daily Mass, coincidentally, happened to be the October featured “Meet a Reader” that will appear in this weekend’s edition of The Catholic Post.  You’ll just have to check back later this week to see who it is, but suffice to say she is an excellent lector.  I always think when she is the lector, “Word on Fire,” because she reads in a very deep way (for lack of a better word, not “drahmatic” but moving and heartfelt–it’s hard to let your mind wander during her reading).  You know you are hearing the Word of the Lord.    I had arrived a bit late for Mass (not that that ever happens to me! hmm), so the reading has just started, but I was instantly drawn into the narrative.

*Job, scripture tells us, “committed no sin nor offered any insult to God.”  I think that is more difficult than anything when bad things happen.  Who can say they never complain to God?  I know I am extremely prone to this, for small things and big things.

*A suggestion for your Ipod: (and it happens to be on my running playlist), Blessed Be Your Name is a great song by the CCM band Tree 63, a meditation of sorts on this passage from Job.


*I Alone Have Escaped to Tell You: My Life and Pastimes
is the title of the excellent memoir by Ralph McInerny, who died last year.  He was a personal hero of mine and I wrote about him several times in my blogging life, so I’ve mined one of those old posts to share:

I met him once many years ago, when my husband and I were first married. McInerny gave a speech at Bradley University, and one of the hosting professors invited us to the after-speech gathering at his house.  I brought along a super chocolate cake.  It was good, with a chocolate-sour cream ganache frosting–now where is that recipe?

McInerny praised it by saying it was the “most chocolatey chocolate cake” he had ever tasted.  My husband, the philosopher in the family (by trade, degree, and temperament), said this was the highest compliment given by a philosopher.  McInerny agreed, and we all had a good laugh.

Several years ago my husband presented a paper at a conference at Notre Dame. I tagged along with the two children we had at the time.  McInerny was one of the organizers, and even though I saw him walking around the conference, I was always too shy to re-introduce myself and tell him how much I admired him.  Usually I am pretty bold about introducing myself to people.  Now I wish I had.

How he discusses writing in I Alone Have Escaped to Tell You is brilliant.    He takes the craft of writing seriously but not too seriously.  He speaks of it being a discipline and work, and the luck/serendipity involved in his success.

He has referred to Anthony Trollope, one of my favorite authors, at least three times in the few chapters I have read. He and/or his family regularly spent several years, and weeks of others, in Europe. He is a faithful Catholic family man with a large family.  What’s not to love?

Share this:

  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • More
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

The Loser Letters {My column @TheCatholicPost}

July 8, 2010 by Nancy Piccione

Following is my book review column that will appear in this week’s print issue of The Catholic Post.

Never underestimate the potential and power of humor.  Those who can make us laugh can change hearts and minds. Unfortunately, too much modern humor is at the service of sarcasm or flippancy or denigrating the good.   We might laugh at what we see or read, but it isn’t necessarily ennobling or good for us.

That’s why it’s so refreshing to discover The Loser Letters, Mary Eberstadt’s darkly funny book of fictional letters from an “atheist convert” to the spokesmen of the New Atheism.

I first read The Loser Letters while ensconced on our back porch one Saturday, laughing out loud almost every page, startling neighbors and passersby, and shooing away children and husband when they came outside and tried to interrupt me.

Some weeks later, I was on a run, listening to a podcast news program that happened to feature spokesperson for an atheist group.  I confess here my usual reactions to these kind of interviews would have gone one of two unhelpful ways: either eye-rolling annoyance (not exactly charitable), or a profound sadness for the person and the state of the world—does anyone believe anything anymore?

But that day, I laughed, so hard I had to stop running.  And it wasn’t mocking laughter, but a laugh at our human foibles.  I felt for the person as I did for the fictional protagonist of The Loser Letters: a protective kindness and hope for the future.  Thank you, Mary Eberstadt.

The Loser Letters is written in the satirical style of The Screwtape Letters–imaginary letters from an elder demon to his demon-in-training on ways to tempt a human.  Screwtape is one of my favorite C.S. Lewis works, one I re-read every couple of years. I’ve eagerly read and enjoyed in recent years any number of books inspired by Screwtape, such as The Snakebite Letters by Peter Kreeft and The Wormwood File:  Emails from Hell by Jim Forest.  Still, Lewis is such a master of this mini-genre he created that those who have attempted a direct retelling haven’t been able to capture “it.”

What sets The Loser Letters apart is taking the genre and truly updating it for the 21st century.  The letters’ “author” is an unnamed 20something woman, an enthusiastic convert to atheism, who writes letters to leading atheist apologists like Christopher Hitchens and “alpha Atheist” Richard Dawkins to point out weak areas so they can correct them and get more converts.

The “Loser” is God, and believers become Loserholics and Loserphiles.  Atheists are Brights, and believers are Dulls. Understand the twisted logic?

Some of my favorite parts:

*the humor, which is dark, even edgy—necessarily so because of the context– but hilarious, and not mean.  That is a hard balance, but one skilled writer Eberstadt makes easy.

*the frequent reference to why all the leading atheist evangelists are male (why is that?), and why the effects of the sexual revolution actually support the “Loser” side:

“I’ll confess a terrible weakness here and say that even now, after I’ve evolved so far, I still want to reach for the Xanax just thinking about an Atheist like any of you dating my hypothetical daughter—as opposed to say, a nice, antiabortion, save-sex-for-marriage Christian.  I know it’s terribly unfit; but is that just me?”

*the mini-education in not only modern atheism and atheists, and their more outrageous statements, but also in famous converts away from Atheism to belief.

*the letter that points out how so much of the world’s art, architecture and beauty is because of religious belief:

“The obvious fact that we Atheists have yet to wrap our heads around is that most of the world’s greatest buildings, and I mean  ‘greatest’ aesthetically, not literally, have been dedicated in one way or another to Loser, by whatever name he’s called in any given spot.

“Don’t get me wrong, guys—I’m not saying Frank Gehry and Le Corbusier and downtown Pyongyang aren’t all that!  But still.”

*the human story.  The genius of Screwtape is that while the letters instruct in the spiritual life (in reverse, from the perspective of the demons), it is over all a story of one man and his struggles to live as a believer.  The Loser Letters, is the story of a young woman and what her journey to atheism really means.

The Loser Letters is by turns laugh-out-loud funny, touching and extremely well done.  This book is absolutely an instant classic, in so many ways, and should be required reading, especially for college-bound students and young adults.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • More
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

What is Your Favorite Mom-ism?

May 4, 2010 by Nancy Piccione

One of my favorite memories of my mother, who died in late 2008, is her voice pronouncing (sometimes ironically, sometimes not) one of her”mom-isms.”  My mom’s mom-isms were often malopropisms, though most of the time my mother meant them to be, unlike the character from Sheridan’s play, Mrs. Maloprop, who mangled maxims.

My mom’s most famous is, “We’ll jump off that bridge when we get there.”  That is the only form of that particular mom-ism I use, to the point where my younger daughter asked me some years ago, “Mom, why are we going to jump off a bridge?”

Well, I answered, that’s an interesting story.  You see, we’re not going to actually jump off a bridge, the expression is, “We’ll cross that bridge when we to it.”  But my mom always said it as “We’ll jump off that bridge when we get there,” as a kind of joke to help us not worry about a particular situation.

What is your favorite Mom-ism?

Share this:

  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • More
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Treasure in Clay: The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen

April 14, 2010 by Nancy Piccione

This is my review that appears in the April 18 issue of the The Catholic Post:

Don’t be alarmed if you feel tired after reading Treasure in Clay, the autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen, celebrated son of the Peoria diocese, and now under consideration for sainthood. I did, but not because the book is nearly 400 pages—it’s a fast, enjoyable read. It’s because the bishop was so busy and prolific in his vocation.

Fortunately for us, he was also an engaging writer. In particular, he’s the master of telling a great story. Treasure in Clay is full of those stories;, edifying, funny and illuminating, making it an inspiration for us to do more as Catholics.

In keeping with Bishop Sheen’s lists of threes, here are three main themes of Treasure in Clay.

Zeal

Sheen was raised on “an ethic of work.” He writes, “(T)he habit of work was one I never got over, and I thank God I never did.” No, he certainly didn’t.

He wrote more than 60 books, recorded countless hours of radio and television programming, traveled and preached and converted people worldwide, and never seemed to tire. It was all in pursuit of the goal of bringing souls to Christ.

Holy Hour

Bishop Sheen promised at the beginning of his priesthood that he would pray a Holy Hour each day in front of the Blessed Sacrament, and considered spreading this devotion his greatest achievement for Christ. It reminds me of Mother Teresa’s answer to a question, “Why don’t you spend less time in prayer and more time in active work helping the poor?” Mother responded that without much prayer, their good work would not be possible.

Bishop Sheen himself believed that his Holy Hour helped him to do much good for Christ and avoid losing his zeal for souls.

Clay

Bishop Sheen titled the book, Treasure in Clay from 2 Cor 4, “But we hold this treasure in earthen vessels, so the surpassing power may be of God and not from us.”

Sheen draws a parallel between the priesthood and the ancient oil lamps for worship.—Priests hold the light of Christ, yet are fragile; true not just of priests, but of all Christians.

Bishop Sheen, especially in later chapters, written toward the end of his life, freely admits his flaws. What’s beautiful to read through these pages is how God still used him as a powerful vessel for spreading the light of Christ.

Some, but by no means all, of memoirs written in recent years can be dreadful to read. The authors freely mix fact with fiction, and write in a kind of forced, sarcastic realism that requires unpleasant moments to be rehashed in vivid, if not necessarily accurate, detail. There’s none of that in Treasure in Clay, and so to modern readers Sheen’s enthusiasm and optimism can be almost disconcerting. Ultimately, it’s refreshing.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • More
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...
  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Page 17
  • Page 18
  • Page 19

Copyright © 2025 · Atmosphere Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

  • Home
  • About
  • A Literary Pilgrimage
  • Book Group
%d