saints
First, What Are You Reading? Volume 19, March 2012
Q&A With Patricia Treece, Author of "God Will Provide"
As I mentioned in my mini-review of God Will Provide last month, I had hoped to post an interview with author Patricia Treece. I’m delighted to be able to share our conversation. Thanks, Patricia!
Q. Tell Catholic Post readers a little more about you and your work.
I’m a convert who fell in love with God’s friends the saints, particularly modern saints and holy people of our time who are on their way to official sainthood. Their lives, often so like our own, offer me mentoring, companionship, and prayer help. To share them with others – the whole human family – is my delight. I’m so grateful that God has given me a lively writing style and a talent for research from my training as ajJournalist and the several languages I studied in high school, college, post-grad., or independently with tutors. In turn, it is a grace and a lot of fun to give these gifts back to God by spending much of my time with the holy. You know people, in part, by the company they keep. God’s saints have helped me know and love God. My prayer is that my books help readers in the same way.
Q. I found God Will Provide an amazing book, “brimming with wisdom and grace.” How did you get the idea for it, and how long did it take you to complete the book?
Thank you for asking. I am so relieved you found “wisdom and grace” instead of an author just thinking she can tell others what to do in trouble! I certainly can’t but wisdom and grace are found in the saints and they get them from the Lord, who uses very ordinary people like me sometimes to pass them on.
During the dark winter days of 2008-09, I woke one Sunday morning and almost immediately grabbed something to write on. An outline complete with many of the examples which appear in the book poured out. I don’t wake in work mode on the Sabbath! But I felt – of course I knew I could be deluded! – God, out of love, was letting me be an instrument to help the many people struggling in the terrible economy. I felt this work was a Divine invitation to everyone to position himself or herself so that God could meet their needs, material, emotional, and spiritual. I brought the outline to an editor I was working with on another project. He found value and I set aside the other project and began work, hoping to have it out by Christmas 2009. Call it just the way things go and laugh or see in what happened the kind of roadblocks that come against projects that will do good (I believe both are true) but as 2010 neared its end I finally learned that the publisher actually had no money and the printer-ready book was not going to come out. A new publisher took it early in 2011 but wanted many changes so the twice-edited book was edited, to good purpose, twice again. Yet it made it out by mid-December 2011.
Q. I found myself so uplifted and spiritually nourished by every single page. What is your intention for the people who will read it?
You hit it, Nancy, right on the head. My prayer is that readers be uplifted and spiritually nourished. May the book fix in every reader faith – as the saints lives show – that God cares about your material and other troubles, God has power to help, and God loves you and wills to help you.
Q. You have such an interesting mix of saints and near-saints. How did you select the saints for the book?
Time and again in researching and studying saints’ lives, I have found instances of Divine Providence whether for their own material needs or those of the many they ministered to. I usually made notes about these and threw them in a file. I have also listened to the stories of people I know and experienced myself, that we non-saints, if our lives are pointed Godward, receive Divine Providence too. So when the outline for the book, I believe, was given me, many of these came to mind. In my file, I found others – way more than I could use. And sometimes an example fell into my lap just at the perfect moment. I could almost say I didn’t select the saints, they were sent to play their role.
Q. Don’t take this as a criticism, but to me all the stories are all delightfully mixed up in the book. I normally like books that are super-structured (8 Habits of Highly Effective …, etc.), but in God Will Provide, the way you wrote helped me just let all the saintly wisdom soak in. Was that your intention in writing?
I certainly hoped the saints’ wisdom, which is a gift from God, would soak in, but I can’t claim that I consciously structured the book to mix up the stories in just this way. Sometimes a story started in one chapter and, after editing – and I had a very good editor at Paraclete who stretched me to sharpen my focus – ended up in another. I guess I’ll just have to blame the Holy Spirit!
Q. Any more books or writing projects in your near future you would like to share with Catholic Post readers?
The book I set aside due to the need I felt to get God Will Provide out is my next project. Nothing Short of a Miracle: God’s Healing Power in His Saints some of your readers may remember when it came out in the late 1980s. I took it out of print to update it with the addition of healings from the 1990s forward as well as to let readers know what has happened to some of the children particularly who received great miracles when they were tykes or infants. At the moment with five new chapters and all the updates, I may have to cut a bit. Isn’t it wonderful to think that our God gives us ordinary people (if you think about it, few beatification and/or canonization miracles, for instance, go to any but the most ordinary folks) so many miracles that a book on just some of the recent ones through just modern saints can easily get too long!
Q. Is there anything else you wish I would have asked, or would like to share?
I would just like to thank you, Nancy, for relieving my mind that I did probably receive this book from the Lord to help people, rather than am kidding myself about that. And I thank you for mentioning it as possible reading for Lent. With the modern emphasis on doing something positive for Lent, I would be thrilled to think of people reading God Will Provide. Especially in these difficult times when it’s a temptation to turn away from God in disbelief or even get angry at Him in one’s struggles, I’d be so happy to think of some reader discovering or discovering anew that God loves and wants to provide for them.
Catholic Blog Day: The Prayer of St. Ephrem
I first read about Catholic Blog Day on Twitter several weeks back, and resolved to post today on the suggested theme of “Penance.” How convenient (and not a bit coincidental!), since it is Ash Wednesday.
I thought about all the things I could share about penance and Lent, and in fact quite a few funny discussions going on around our house with tweens and teens about “what I’m going to give up for Lent.”
Instead I’d like to share The Prayer of St. Ephrem (his name is spelled lots of ways; I’m just picking one). This is a prayer my husband suggested our family might pray together during Lent. Our pastor printed this in our bulletin, and my husband explained how Byzantine Catholics pray this all the time during Lent, as in every hour of the day!
(Said husband also happened to start his Lent on an Eastern/Byzantine Catholic schedule, which means he started two days ago. Meanwhile, I’m thoroughly Roman Catholic, and definitely had my Mardi Gras yesterday with an apple fritter and all the non-Lent things).
You can read a little more about The Prayer of St. Ephrem here. I don’t think we’ll necessarily be praying it every hour here, but I’m posting it in various rooms around the house, and I hope we will be able to consistently make it a part of our Lenten journey.
Prayer of Saint Ephrem
O Lord and Master of my life,
keep from me the spirit of uncaring and discouragement,
desire for power, and idle chatter.
Instead, give to me, your servant,
the spirit of wholeness and integrity of being,
humble-mindedness, the spirit of patience and love.
O Lord and King,
grant me the grace to be aware of my failings
and not to judge my brothers and sisters,
for You are blessed, now and ever and forever. Amen.
I’m not really sure what will be the fruit of the Prayer of St. Ephrem during Lent, but I consider it to be so much like our Catholic faith and prayers–just letting it all soak in. You pray the Rosary about a zillion times, and occasionally you have an insight about one of the mysteries or even the “Hail Mary” that expands your soul and faith in completely unexpected ways. There’s so much to explore in this simple prayer, and I hope and pray that this time of prayer, fasting and almsgiving will help us all grow spiritually.
If you care to share what your family is doing for Lent, you are more than welcome–comment away! What are your thoughts, too, about Catholic Blog Day, and did you participate?
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Catholic Blog Day is the idea of Jonathan Sullivan, a Catholic evangelist and new media expert in a nearby diocese. I think it’s such a great idea, and I’m glad to be a little part of this great experiment and idea. I hope there will be another “Catholic Blog Day” maybe in Easter Time this year, so we can all write about joy or reconciliation or mercy.
Meet a Reader: Shirley Plaag
“Meet a Reader” appears on the monthly book page of The Catholic Post, and it features someone within the diocese of Peoria who enjoys reading. Here are the four questions I ask “readers” to answer: how you (meaning Post readers) know me, why I love reading, what I’m reading now, and my favorite book. This month, I feature Shirley Plaag, a delightful young woman who is a fellow volunteer on the Behold Conference.
How you know me:
I was born and raised here in Peoria and have lived here just about my entire life, minus four years of college at Franciscan University of Steubenville and a year of mission work at St. Gianna’s Maternity Home in North Dakota. I am currently a member of St. Jude Parish in Peoria were I work with a wonderful group of 4th graders every Sunday. I most recently began teaching religion to another wonderful group of middle school students at St. Mary’s School in Kickapoo. Last, but not least, I sell books at Lagron-Miller Company alongside the lovely Gina McKenna. When I’m not working or reading, I love to cook and bake. Just ask my friends and family!
Why I love reading:
I love reading quite simply because it transforms my life. After studying four years of Theology and Catechetics, I have covered a lot of ground in spiritual reading. God speaks to me through the things that I read by challenging me and calling me to a deeper conversion. My favorite thing about reading- whether it be a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, the life of a great saint or the writings of the Holy Fathers- is that it is something that I can share with others to deepen their understanding or devotion as well as my own.
What I’m reading now:
I think that I may have a bookmark in at least 10 books at the moment! I just finished Mystery of Joseph by Fr. Philippe, founder of the Community of St. John. This beautiful book sheds a new light on the Gospel accounts where St. Joseph is present and gives an intimate look into the life of the Holy Family. Scott Hahn called this book “profound and deep” and I wholeheartedly agree. In the spirit of the coming feasts of Christmas, I am also reading the classic Charles Dickens’ novel A Christmas Carol and Come, Lord Jesus: Meditations on the Art of Waiting by Mother Mary Frances P.C.C. Recently, I have picked up Ablaze: Stories of Daring Teen Saints by Colleen Swaim to share with my students.
My favorite book:
Choosing a favorite book is a challenge. There are many that I am passionate about, but there are two that stand out among the stacks. The first is A Serve Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken. This is a poignantly written memoir about the journey of the author and his wife from “A Pagan Love,” a love that is turned in on one another to a selfless love of the living God, Jesus Christ. This true story is full of beauty, poetry, joy, despair and honesty about what it means to fully convert our lives to Christ. This message is clear: there is no middle ground and there is no turning back once we have encountered Him. [The following is my favorite excerpt from the book, written by the author before his conversion: “How did one find joy? In books it seemed to be found in love- a great love- though maybe for the saints there was joy in the love of God. He didn’t aspire to that, though; He didn’t even believe in God. Certainly not! So, if he wanted the heights of joy, he must have, if he could find it, a great love. But in the books again, great joy through love seemed always to go hand in hand with frightful pain. Still, he thought, looking out across the meadow, still, the joy would be worth the pain- if indeed, they went together. If there were a choice- and he suspected there was- a choice between, on the one hand, the heights and the depths, and on the other hand, some sort of safe, cautious middle way, he, for one, here and now chose the heights and depths.”]
The second is I Believe in Love: A Personal Retreat on the Teaching of St. Thérèse of Lisieux by Fr. Jean d’Elbée. This book has changed my life time and time again. It is one that I go back too when I need to relearn the “Little Way” of St. Thérèse. This book, written with a great deal of gentleness and love has brought me through many trials in life and reminded me that I am a joy for Jesus because “His delight is to be with the children of men” (Prov. 8:31).
I am also a big fan of anything written by C.S. Lewis, Peter Kreeft, and Archbishop Charles Chaput just to name a few. But, I digress. I can’t write about them all. I must join St. John the Beloved Disciple in saying “were every one of them to be written, I suppose the that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25).