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Worth a Listen, Marathon Edition: Nick Cannon’s "Can I Live?"

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(Sharing great songs that are inspiring, uplifting and/or are otherwise “worth a listen”)

For those who only know Nick Cannon as the host of America’s Got Talent, did you know he had a career as a music artist and actor?  He probably still does for all I know, but I am not in the know about those things.  The first time I ever heard of Nick Cannon was when people were sharing several years back this video for  this song.

Now, for someone who has been active for several decades in the pro-life movement in one form or another, I was truly and utterly thrilled to see someone do this kind of song well.

That’s because (and maybe true for you, too) over the years I have been at many a pro-life banquet or other gathering with a heartfelt song that didn’t quite move hearts the way we all desire a song to do.  This song does, in my estimation, or at least it tells a compelling story.  And always tears me up a little bit, and seems appropriate to share during October, Respect Life month.

This helps me to segue into my big announcement that I am running my second marathon later this month.   How exactly does that segue?  Well, I will be running the marathon as part of the group LIFE Runners.

For those who know me, to actually announce I’m doing a big race in advance is not my style, but I wanted to get out the word about this great group. In fact, when I ran the marathon last year, I didn’t tell anyone about it (except my hubby) until afterwards.

To be honest, I really didn’t like running a marathon, so some may be asking (including my dear husband) why I want to do it again.  There are various reasons, but mostly just so that I can have a somewhat more positive experience, physically.  I finished, but it felt really, really hard, (unlike a half-marathon, which I consider a fun and do-able distance).  I was signed up to do the very same trail marathon I did last year.

But then I happened to hear a LIFE Runner (I think Dr. Pat Castle) on EWTN radio several weeks back talk about their weekend to run the St. Louis Rock ‘n Roll Marathon–there are already more than 300 LIFE Runners signed up to do this event (either the full or half-marathon).  When I realized it was so close, and the same weekend as my marathon, I had a long talk with my husband and we both thought it made good sense to switch over.

I am very excited to get to meet the other LIFE Runners, though a little intimidated because checking out the board, many are military people who are probably super-speedy runners, unlike myself.  I was wondering if I shouldn’t ask the LIFE Runners to change one of the Scripture verse mottos from “Race so as to win” to “Race so as to finish” which happens to be my motto when it comes to running long races.

Dr. Pat Castle, a board member of LIFE Runners, who heartily welcomed me when I joined the group, asked me to promote here that people can still join Life Runners and do one of the races on the weekend of October 20-21.  Visit LIFERunners.org for more information or to sign up.  It couldn’t be easier, and took me just a few minutes.  If you’re already planning to run a fall long race,

I’ll also be raising money for the pro-life charities pegged by the group, something I don’t normally do, since I consider running enjoyable and don’t like to ask people for money.

My LIFE Runners t-shirt arrived in the mail the other day, increasing my excitement level.  Now I need to ensure I can finish in the 7-hour time frame.  That shouldn’t be an issue, since I finished my first, not-pleasant marathon last year in just over 6 hours.  I’ve also done a lot more training this year than last for the marathon distance, so I hope for a better experience, even if my time does not improve greatly.

Just to bring it back to the music, I do have a marathon playlist for my iPod app, and “Can I Live?” is on it.

UPDATE: I have set up my fundraising page for one of the LIFE Runners beneficiaries, Good Shepherd Children and Family Services in St. Louis.

Are you doing anything special this month for Respect Life Month?  Anyone else doing the marathon or half-marathon as a LIFE Runner?  I’d love to connect!

First, What Are You Reading? Volume 26, The Little Flower Edition

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Here are my “Little Flower” answers to the four questions I ask on the first of each month:
first, what are you reading?
what do you like best about it?
what do you like least?
what’s next on your list to read?

As always, I hope you’ll consider your current reads on your blog and/or sharing here in the comments or on Facebook.  Happy reading!

First, what are you reading?

Well, if you haven’t figured out why this is called the “Little Flower” edition, it is because today is the feast of the Little Flower, St. Therese of Lisieux.  We love to celebrate this feast at our house, and soon I’ll be making rose-shaped scones in this pan for the scones lovers in our house, as I do every year on this feast.

I’ve actually been reading a ton, but unfortunately cannot seem to get my thoughts out about these many, many books.  So for now, to get my writing juices flowing, I am going to write about previously read books about or by St. Therese that would be really worthwhile to consider on this feast.

What do you like best about them?

There are two books for younger readers that feature St. Therese not so much as a character but as inspiration.  Olivia and the Little Way by Nancy Carabio  chronicles Olivia’s fifth grade year and her ups & downs, as she discovers the spirituality of the Little Flower.  Just a wonderful book.  Nancy wrote a sequel to it called Olivia’s Gift, which has a subtle pro-life and modesty theme that is excellent for older girls, and that we also loved at our house.

When Olivia’s Gift was first published, I got the chance to interview Nancy Carabio Belanger, and you can read that Q&A here.  Here is the link to the publisher of these great books.

As far as books about St. Therese and her family, there are many. A lovely, small picture book biography for younger readers is St. Therese of Lisieux and the Little Way of Love by Marie Baudouin-Croix, translated from the French and published by the Daughters of St. Paul.   It should be readily available at most Daughters of St. Paul stores.  When I was searching for a link to this, I see that this author has a biography of Therese’s sister Leonie called Leonie Martin: A Difficult Life.  Leonie was the most troubled of all the sisters, and this book explores her psychological issues and how she overcame them.   That looks fascinating and I plan to try to track that one down to read it.

We have a volume on our shelf, The Little Flower: The Story of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus by popular mid-20th century Catholic author Mary Fabyan Windeatt, but I confess none of us have read that one.  I’d love to know if it is worthwhile.

What do you like least?

When I first read Story of a Soul, I did find it somewhat cloying.  As the Universalis  reflection for St. Therese today says, “The late 19th century was a highly sentimental period, and much of the literature about Thérèse has taken that quality and made it sweeter and sicklier still, to the point where you feel like brushing your teeth after reading every page.”

But the older I get, the more I find her words much more inspiring.  It’s hard to explain, but those who love The Little Flower will understand.  Just a little bit from today’s Office of Readings, which is a selection of Story of a Soul: “Certainly I have found my place in the Church, and you gave me that very place, my God. In the heart of the Church, my mother, I will be love.”

I have a friend who loves and gave to me as a gift, I Believe in Love: A Personal Retreat Based on the Teaching of St. Thérèse of Lisieux by Charles Arminjon.  I understand it is great, but must confess I have never finished it, though I have started it several times.  Maybe this month would be a good time to finish it.

What’s next on your list to read?

Really, the question here becomes, what are some recently read books to write about or neglect to write about?  Just for a very few, I’ve read the much-hyped novel The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker (meh); Cleaning House: A Mom’s 12-Month Experiment to Rid Her Home of Youth Entitlement by Kay Wills Wyma (really good ideas and reflection from this book); The Year of Learning Dangerously: Adventures in Homeschooling by Quinn Cummings (so hilarious and wonderful); Wealth Watchers by Alice Wood (interesting concept about applying Weight Watchers concepts to financial health) and so many more.  Maybe I will write about them soon, maybe not, but there is always reading going on here.

What are you reading this month? Do you have a favorite St. Therese book?  Share away!

Print is Alive and Well: My CPA Midwest Wrap-Up

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Last week, I had the great good fortune to attend the Catholic Press Association Midwest Regional Conference, hosted here in Peoria.  The editor of The Catholic Post, Tom Dermody, and his staff at The Catholic Post organized a terrific two-day meeting, and I for one came away with many great ideas and insights.

Regular readers of Reading Catholic will note that I usually refer to Tom as “my editor,” but I started to feel strange about that, as if being “my editor” is his only job, working on polishing my monthly column for the print edition of The Catholic Post and giving me advice about writing and other things.  But however much it may surprise you (she says jokingly), he is actually really busy, whether in putting out a newspaper every two weeks, or organizing regional conferences.

That’s one point of this post: to acknowledge and praise the work of print journalists in Catholic press, and share with my online comrades the amount of work that goes into print publications.  Back before there was an Internet, I worked in newspapers, magazines, and then in media relations during the high-tech days when we used to fax press releases to reporters.

Because I now work primarily online and love so much about it, I had forgotten the intense amount of effort goes into print publications, until I got the chance to be with those print journalists for several days.

My ultimate message for Catholic people active online?  Keep doing it, but at the same time be sure that you are supporting and reading print publications.  If you don’t already subscribe to your diocesan newspaper, please take a moment to do so.  Here’s where you can subscribe to The Catholic Post, for a start.

There are also many worthy national print publications.  Having those “strewn” around the house for kids and adults to find is a way to create a Catholic culture in your house.

One real-life example:  Several months ago, my 11-year-old was delighted to see Pysanky eggs featured on the cover of the beautifully-produced  CNEWA’s magazine One,  since we enjoy doing Pysanky during Lent.   I’m not sure how she would have seen that otherwise; even though the magazine is online, I wouldn’t necessarily have found it or linked it, and she’s not online like we grown-ups are.  Because we give to CNEWA, we get the magazine, and it’s “around” for people in our house to discover.

Now on to the CPA Midwest and some of my snaps from the two-day conference:

Here is Billy Atwell, director of Communications for the Diocese of Venice, Florida, and Penny Wiegert, editor of The Observer, newspaper of the diocese of Rockford, Illinois. Penny is a true force of Catholic media, being a past president of the national Catholic Press Association.  She was great to meet and hear from, as were so many others, from Chicago to downstate Illinois, to St. Louis, to Iowa to Indiana, Florida and Washington, D.C.
Here is Tom Dermody with Sonia Nelson, advertising manager of The Catholic Post.
The general session was “Communicating Across Today’s Generations” by Dominic Perri, a consultant to the USCCB and others.  I don’t have a non-blurry photo of Dominic, but his presentation was very informative about how different generations experience Church life.  What was most helpful in experiencing this firsthand was when Dominic broke us into generational groups each group we answered questions about what we wanted other generations to know about ours, what we wanted to know about other generations.

Here’s a blurry photo of the baby boomers working on their answers.

Later that day I attended two great breakouts–one by Tammi Finch of a local web company, Web Tech Services on social media–I have tons of take-aways from that; and one by Bob Gilligan, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois, on “When Politics and Religion Intersect.” Bob’s talk was both very thorough but rather depressing (sorry, Bob!), since he explains so much of the way things are going from a legislative perspective.  Ultimately, there is hope, because there are good people in Springfield and Washington, D.C. who work for Catholic values and rights.

Before dinner, Monsignor Stanley Deptula, celebrated Mass for the attendees in the St. Thomas More chapel of St. Mary’s Cathedral for the convention-goers.

Monsignor Deptula shared that that day, September 20, was the anniversary of Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s ordained in this very cathedral–St. Mary’s Cathedral.

After the Mass and a walk through the cathedral, we boarded a Peoria Charter Coach bus, and Pat Kellogg, who is retired from the diocese, gave us a wonderful short tour of downtown Peoria and Grandview Drive on our way to a terrific dinner at a great local restaurant.  Here’s a kind of dark photo of Pat “touring” us:

The next day’s focus was on Archbishop Sheen, as Monsignor Deptula, executive director of the Sheen Foundation, gave a funny and incisive presentation on “Lessons from a Great Catholic Communicator” about the life of Sheen and the cause for his canonization.  Everyone took copious notes and asked many, many questions during his talk.  Afterwards, Bonnie Engstrom, a nationally prominent blogger in the Peoria diocese whose son’s healing is the “alleged miracle” put forth for Sheen’s beatification, spoke about her family’s experience.

I was tweeting from the conference (@ReadingCatholic on Twitter) because I had my laptop there and it was easy to do so while listening to the speakers.  In fact, tweeting an event is basically a form of taking notes, and is helpful in keeping me focused on what I’m hearing.  I tweeted for the first few minutes of Bonnie’s talk, but stopped.

I had read through Bonnie’s story before on her blog, but had never heard her speak in person about it in detail.  It was amazing, truly so.  I just had to close up my laptop and listen to and soak up all she had to say, and so did everyone else.  Wonderful.  The story of the alleged miracle told by Bonnie is remarkable and beautiful, and should be heard widely.  If you are in the market for a speaker for a Catholic event, please consider contacting Bonnie about it.  She had a room full of experienced journalists enthralled.

Afterwards, while we all snapped photos and talked with Bonnie in front of a photo of her son James Fulton, Tom Dermody (that would be my editor Tom Dermody) said the funniest line of the day, which I did tweet eventually:

“We have to use ‘alleged’ before miracle, but we don’t have to use alleged before ‘adorable.'”

Have you been to a conference lately?  What positive experiences and insights did you come away with?

The Quotable, Venerable Fulton Sheen: On Intellect

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Our intellects do not make the truth; they attain it; they discover it. 

Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Religion without God.

There are so many great quotes from Fulton Sheen that I am posting a selection here and there this month.   You can read some of the prior quotes here  and here , or you can search the “Fulton Sheen” label and all the quotes will come up.

I have some of my own quotes, but the wonderful and sadly out of print The Quotable Fulton Sheen (I reviewed it in my September column here) has a lot of great ones to share, as well.

Rosary Victory Project Update

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As I wrote about previously, several local families were inspired by one mom to spearhead an effort to get one million people to pray the Rosary on October 7, the feast of the Holy Rosary.

Michelle Rebello, a local mom, had the inspiration very recently, and she was able to pull together a number of young people, including her high school son who is web-savvy (he and several friends develop Apps), several other mom and young people who helped put together this video to explain and highlight the project:

Michelle reports that as of several days ago, there have been more than 20,000 people signed up to pray the rosary that day.  Now, that’s not one million (yet!) but a terrifically good number for a homegrown effort.  I’m impressed!

Please take a moment to go “be counted” on the Rosary Victory website.  According to Michelle, likes on the Facebook page are not counted towards the total, but that’s not really an issue as there are many more sign-ups on the website than on the Facebook page.

The Quotable, Venerable Fulton Sheen: On Revolution

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This is the choice before us: either try to revolutionize the world and break under it or revolutionize ourselves and remake the world.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Crossways.

There are so many great quotes from Fulton Sheen that I am posting a selection here and there this month.   You can read some of the prior quotes here  and here , or you can search the “Fulton Sheen” label and all the quotes will come up.

I have some of my own quotes, but the wonderful and sadly out of print The Quotable Fulton Sheen (I reviewed it in my September column here) has a lot of great ones to share, as well.