Category Archives: book review

“A gift we all need” Fr. John Riccardo on Sex and the Spiritual Life

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New book from Ave Maria Press is the perfect gift for your favorite priest, deacon, or parish minister … or for anyone wanting to experience the joy of living a life of sexual integrity.

When I first asked Pat if she would tackle the subject of how sexuality informs and affects our spiritual growth, I never expected to find myself in Fr. John Riccardo’s office, listening to him tell the story of how he had been sexually abused as a young adult — and how that experience has informed his priesthood in beautiful and even miraculous ways. I never thought I would be moved to tears reading Eve Tushnet’s essay about the gift of spiritual friendship that she received from the gay community. And I was amazed to read about the gift that is celibacy both within the priesthood and religious life — not as a witness, but as a lived experience. Finally, and (for me) most importantly, I was deeply affected by the testimony of Tim and Karen Hogen, who spoke of the beautiful dance of intimacy that is married life, a dance that is experienced not only in the bedroom, but in the emotional and spiritual intimacy of daily life.

One of the reasons Fr. Riccardo and so many others who have endorsed the book recognize it for the gift that it is, is because it is such a rare and beautiful thing to find mature Catholic men and women who are willing to subject themselves to the scrutiny and criticism of the “uptight upright” about such an intimate part of their lives. (I particularly commend Tim and Karen Hogan for sharing their story as a married couple, which is one to which so many of us can relate). I am so grateful to each of them, for taking up the challenge … and I want to suggest to you to pick up a copy of this book — actually, two of them: One for you, and one for your priest or DRE, for whom this book will soon become a dog-eared treasure.

Thank you, Pat, for giving us such a beautiful testimony of truth, beauty, and goodness.

Dancing with a Porcupine: Essential Reading for Foster and Adoptive Parents

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dancing with a porcupineIf you are even thinking of becoming a foster parent, you need to read this book.

Like many people who decide to become foster parents, Jennie Owens and her husband, Lynn, were confident that love would conquer all. The trauma. The anger. The pain and loss experienced by every member of the family.

And like many such couples, they never knew what hit them. The isolation. The bone-chilling fatigue. The mental strain. Most of all, the unrelenting inner refraing that keeps on and on: Am-I-going-crazy?

I wish I had had this book fifteen years ago, when I needed to have someone explain to me why self-care is good for the whole family. Why “bonding” can be a subtle trap that prevents kids from becoming as strong and self-reliant as they need to be. Why getting a dog might be the one thing you really do need most. Most of all, why the hardest stuff really is the best.

But better late then never. Thank you, Jennie, for sharing your beautiful heart.

“A Walk in the Woods” with Mom

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Every night before she goes to sleep, I read to Mom. Sometimes it’s a devotional like Jesus Calling or a chapter from her Bible. Sometimes I give her a “sneak preview” of one of the books I’m editing. (She particularly liked Forgiveness Makes You Free, by Fr. Ubald Rugirangoga.

If you liked the movie, read the book … Heck, even if you DIDN’T, read it anyway!

This weeks’ book du jour is from my favorites shelf, A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. For those who haven’t yet stumbled on this one (and who missed the movie), it’s a delightful romp about two middle-aged men who set put one spring to walk the two-thousand something miles of the Appalachian Trail.

Now, my mother and I have some history with this particular trail. When I was a Junior in Girl Scouts, and my mom was the troop leader, she and her friend decided to take a group of us to High Point State Park to practice our trail marking skills. She divided us into three groups: The first group was to mark the trail, second to follow the marks, and the third (also presumably following) would clean up as they went. We would all meet back at the car for Smores before heading back to the school parking lot to our parents.

Our third group fared best. When the second group managed to erase the trail marks in their eagerness to read the signs, the third group merely followed the path back to the car. An hour later, when the other two groups didn’t show up, the leader decided to take her group back to the school so their parents wouldn’t worry. Meanwhile, the first group had missed the park’s markings, and took a “shortcut” that put us on the Appalachian Trail. Two hours later, my mother was standing on the side of the road with eight middle-schoolers (group two had caught up with her), miles away from where we should have been.

This was long before cell phones (or Amber Alerts). As dusk fell, we emerged from the woods and found ourselves on the side of a (relatively) busy highway. And so, when a bearded gentlemen in a Volkswagen bus pulled up and offered us a lift back to the park … I guess some angels do wear flannel.

I don’t remember what happened after that, other than (a) we arrived back in the school parking lot three hours after we said we’d be there and (b) it was the last troop outing I remember my mother leading. Apart from missing the smores (the greedy guts in the first group ate them all), we were none the worse for wear. It had been an adventure, and one of the few clear memories I still have of my scouting experiences. Not all bad, right?

So … this week as Mom and I read this Appalachian Trail adventure,  and laugh over the antics of Bill and Katz, I’m happy to find that Mom is alert and seems to be enjoying it more than some of the other books I’ve tried. “I just love the Appalachian Trail,” she murmurs.

So do I, Mom. So do I.

Labor Pains in Church: Advice from Emily Wilson Hussem

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This morning the top story on my Facebook newsfeed was a post about the sudden resignation of one of my former profs at Sacred Heart Major Seminary — one of the few female professors, who had taught there for decades. God alone knows the full story, and the point of sharing even this much is to acknowledge my own grief and dismay over just how broken the Body of Christ has become. Color me naïve, but never in a million years would I have suspected just how widespread this sickness had grown.

go bravelyThen, mercifully, a bit of light came in the form of another post, this one by Ave author Emily Wilson. Like me, she has grown weary of the brokenness that has surfaced in the Church. In her post, “Labor, Delivery, and Our Sick and Sorry Church” she compares what is going on in the Church today with the painful realities of childbirth, particularly C-section:

There are evil men in my Church who have abused their power at the expense of thousands of innocent people whose lives are forever altered by such abuse, and  … spineless cowards … who have covered for these monsters and done absolutely nothing to protect the vulnerable except turn a blind eye and pretend to be exhibiting “leadership.” Any person with a brain would wonder why anyone would stay when the continued cover-ups of abuse and corruption go so deep and wide it is unfathomable.

But on that Sunday in the hospital, as I sat on my bed with my baby in a clear box on wheels next to me, and this woman held up the Eucharist, I received “His body, given up” for me. Those words I had spoken to my baby so many times the day before this Eucharist…they are the reason I stay.  

To be Catholic is to understand that pain and suffering is not without purpose when it becomes a purifying force, joined to the sufferings of Christ. In his March 2002 homily that was later picked up by the Los Angeles Times,  my friend Monsignor Clem Connelly observed, “What’s happening is good for the church,” he told parishioners. “Bad for its image, maybe, but good for the church. In some miraculous way . . . through the growing of the Holy Spirit in the church, we will find our way to a new day in which there is more honesty, courage, faith and accountability.”

That was more than fifteen years ago. So much has happened since that time, and yet his words continue to hold true. The pain and suffering of the faithful — innocent laity and clergy alike — are like the labor pains of the mother whose body has betrayed her, and must be splayed open in order to give that child life. “This is my body, given up for you.”

Give us strength, dear Jesus, not to waiver. And give us sustaining faith that we might never turn away from the scalpel of the Great Physician.

“Hauntings, Possessions, and Exorcisms” by Adam Blai: Fighting Scandals and Spirits

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BlaiLike so many, I’ve been watching the unfolding of events surrounding the release of the PA grand jury report, and the subsequent response of laity and clergy alike. One aspect of the scandal that has been particularly tough to stomach is the revelation (to me at least) is the prevalence of sexually active clergy (both gay and straight) that has short-circuited the spiritual authority of the Church, reducing men who should have been warriors and spiritual fathers to weak and ineffectual CEOs fluent in empty assurances who would rather meet than lead. What are we to do? So far, even the Vatican has been distressingly silent on the matter. How are we to separate the sheep from the goats, and restore the moral authority of our leaders?

In the seventh chapter of Judges, the Lord gives Gideon the blueprint for raising the army that would conquer their feared enemies, the Midianites. “The LORD said to Gideon: You have too many soldiers with you for me to deliver Midian into their power, lest Israel vaunt itself against me and say, ‘My own power saved me.’” (Judges 7:2). After reducing the company of 22,000 soldiers to 300 stalwart, brave men, the Lord delivered into the hands of the Israelites not just the two princes of Midian, but all their troops as well. Reading this story, it seemed to me that a similar winnowing process is in store for the Church. The Lord needs not thousands of “career soldiers” who will let down their guard and seek to their own comfort, but a handful of faithful, vigilant warriors in order to take back the ground the enemy has occupied.

But how? It wasn’t until I picked up and began reading this book by Adam Blai that both the reason for this standoff and its path of resolution began to take shape. His book  Hauntings, Possessions, and Exorcisms (Emmaus) offers insights into the spirit world and articulates the rules that govern demons, malevolent spirits that roam the earth as fallen angels. Reading between the lines (he does not directly reference the scandals), Blai provides sobering insights about how we got to where we are today … and what needs to happen for our leaders to become instruments in the hands of God that will purify his Bride.

Reading this book, I was reminded of two spiritual principles that go to the heart of the current crisis: First, that darkness and hiddenness — including self-deception and rationalization — are among the devil’s most powerful tools. Second, it is those who are most ardently pursuing God who are most likely to draw the devil’s fire. Blai reminds us in his reflection on the book of Job.

The Book of Job has two clear lessons: God is all-powerful and cannot be hindered, and the Devil has to ask permission from God for everything he does. We see that both temptation and trials come from Satan, but it is God’s protection and decrees which are important, not the Devil… People, particularly people the most committed to God, are targeted by the Devil and God allows them to be tested. We see this play out in the life of Job and in the lives of many of the saints, who are often tested fiercely by the Devil as they draw closer to God. The end reward of this struggle is the restoration of all that Satan was allowed to wound, and abundant graces beyond that in the form of an eternal life in heaven with God. (p.112-113, emphasis mine).

So … what is the pathway to healing? Ultimately, lasting justice will not be found through our legal system (though this may be the means by which the full extent of the problem must come to light). The Bride of Christ, deeply wounded by the sins of her representatives, can never be healed through a temporal legal process, by compensating victims, or by placating the public. It will come only through the winnowing of the army of the Lord so that, purified and disciplined, they are ready to serve the Bride with humility and devotion, even unto death. They must seek out the wounded, and show them the mercy of God until they open their hearts to God for healing and to find the peace they seek through the grace of forgiveness.

Healing will come when those called to be on the front lines of this great spiritual war stand up and fight to take back the ground that has been occupied by the enemy. These warriors must embrace the principles of discipline and authentic love, and refuse to give the devil the tiniest foothold through moral compromise. Only then can they make themselves battle ready, and move forward to resist the enemy at the prompting of God himself, as we read in Ephesians 6.

Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil. For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens. Therefore, put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground. So stand fast with your loins girded in truth, clothed with righteousness as a breastplate, and your feet shod in readiness for the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, hold faith as a shield, to quench all [the] flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (Eph 6:13-17).

Come, Lord Jesus, pour forth your spirit, and renew the face of the earth. Give us courage to persevere, even to the shedding of blood, to bring your light to the darkest places of the world, and to restore the glory of your Kingdom. Jesus, we trust in you.

Mother Mary, embolden your children for battle, that we might imitate you by resisting evil and crushing the serpent’s head. Take every priest to your Immaculate Heart, and enkindle in each of them the courage of a lion and the humility of a dove. Cover them with your mantle, and protect them from evil. Give them hearts of purest love, the most powerful and irresistible force in the universe.

Lunch with Fiat #GraceofYes

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When I picked up an advance copy of Lisa Hendey’s new book The Grace of Yes, the goldfish (“Fiat,” or “Yes”) whispered to me … “Say, I’ve never been on a walking tour of Notre Dame before. How about it?”

And so, to celebrate with the rest of Lisa’s MANY fans in and out of cyberspace, Fiat and I hit the Grotto, where we introduced Fiat to Bernadette, lit a candle, and took a selfie with OLoL (who had already gotten her advance copy, and enjoyed it very much.)

Fiat and Bernadette Fight lights a candle Heidi and Fiat

Congratulations, Lisa! Looking forward to your launch on the 18th!

“Mothering Without a Map”: A Book Whisperer Review

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Book WhispererEven those who have a great relationship with their own mothers can appreciate how the mother-daughter bond colors the way they parent their own children. Suddenly and without warning, we begin channeling our own childhood soundtrack in recipes, songs, and other traditions — for better or worse (“Because I SAID so…”).

In Mothering Without a Map: The Search for the Good Mother Within, journalist Kathryn Black recounts the experiences of dozens of women who struggle to become the best version of themselves as they take on the life-changing challenge of motherhood.

motheringRaised by her grandmother after her own mother’s death, Black writes about the loss of mothers in her chapter entitled “Ghosts.” Having two children who experienced the trauma and loss of their first mother, the subject of attachment — how they attach to us, their adoptive parents, and we to them — is an ongoing topic of interest. In MWAM, Black references the research of psychologist Mary Main, who identifies attachment “types” in order to address the ways adults pass along their childhood experiences (including traumas) onto their own children through dismissiveness, preoccupation, or secure autonomy.

“Other researchers found that being able to reflect clearly on [how they treat their own children] wasn’t related to personality, self-esteem, intelligence, education or other social, economic, or demographic factors. What distinguishes the autonomous adults is that they understand themselves and others and can relate a coherent narrative about their pasts.”

If you’ve ever wondered if unresolved issues with your own mother is having a negative affect on your ability to connect with your own children, this book might help you to identify those areas in need of healing. Although the author does not address the need for forgiveness from an explicitly Christian perspective, she does offer the reassurance that “one doesn’t have to have had a good mother to become one,” and how even “wounded daughters” can indeed become “healing mothers.”

The Book Whisperer: “Parenting from the Inside Out”

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Book WhispererHappy New Year!

Each time I make something for dinner that one or both the children don’t like, the familiar refrain resounds: “Tell us the story of the baked beans!”

When I was about six or seven, my mother made homemade baked beans for dinner, which I refused to eat. After an hour of watching me poke at my plate, my mother said to me, “You may be excused, Heidi. Maybe you’ll eat a good breakfast.”

The next morning, I ran down to the kitchen expecting to find a steaming plate of oatmeal or scrambled eggs … and found instead the baked beans. Again I refused to eat them, and went hungry until lunchtime. That night for dinner I was given beans a third time, and I ate them — reluctantly — only when my father informed me that I would get the beans the next morning in my oatmeal. (This story is always met with a resounding Y-u-u-u-c-k!)

So when the kids balk at eating dinner, all I have to say is, “So… you want that in your oatmeal tomorrow?” Problem solved.

Long before we become parents, we form impressions of what constitutes a “good parent” from the adults in our lives. Our own parents, for better or worse, provided our first model; other cues came from friends and extended family members.

* The aunt who consistently gave up a career in nursing in order to tend to her growing family and bedridden mother-in-law.

* The neighbor who allowed her daughter use mascara in eighth grade to cover up the fact that her lashes were blonde in one eye and brown in the other.

* The church friend who invited every new family at church for “impromptu” dinners of chicken parmesan.

Sometimes these models were not so heart-warming: the parent who drank or spanked excessively, who exaggerated her children’s misbehavior to win sympathy but refused to come clean with her own dark deeds, who yelled at the kids for making noise while he watched T.V. instead of turning off the set and engaging them in conversation. And all too often, these children grow up and find themselves saying and doing the same things with their own children, despite their firm intention never to repeat the same mistakes.

So what is a parent to do?

In Parenting from the Inside Out, Dr. Daniel J. Siegel and Mary Hartzell explore “the extent to which our childhood experiences shape the way we parent …. and offer parents a step-by-step approach to forming a deeper understanding of their own life stories that will help them raise compassionate and resilient children.” The authors help parents to identify the “toxic ruptures” in the relationship between parent and child, and the interactive dialogue that must occur in order to repair the damage. Each chapter includes “inside-out exercises” to help the reader apply the lessons of their own lives in order to strength the parent-child bond.

During the month of January, I’ll be reviewing parenting resources. If you have a good book to recommend,write to me at Heidi(dot)hess(dot)saxton(at)gmail(dot)com.

The Book Whisperer: “God Found Us You” by Lisa Bergren and Laura Bryant

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Book WhispererMerry Christmas! While my family and I are unwrapping our presents, I wanted to share this resource for families whose children experience emotional upsets during the holidays or at other times (such as birthdays) that are typically “happy” occasions.

In Handle with Care, Picoult refers to a “language of loss” that parents and children endure in the most intimate family relationships. Within adoptive families, these losses can be especially complex — if for no other reason, because of the number of people involved in the family bond.

God found us you

As parents, however, we must be willing to see – and help them articulate – the pain of our children as it surfaces. Sometimes the expressions of grief will surface at unexpected times. For example, the other day I was reading my children a book entitled God Found Us You, by Lisa Bergren and Laura Bryant (HarperCollins).

This happy, gentle story about a mother fox and her adopted baby fox, who asks her to tell him the story of how he came to be with her. The kind of books adoptive parents love, because it ties up the future in a lovely, reassuring bow. We read it to our children, hoping it will give them the feelings of love and security we so much want them to have.

The first I read this book to my kids, however, their reaction was mixed. While they want — and need — the reassurance of my love for them (just as Mama Fox reassures her little one), the book also brought some unsettling feelings to the surface.

“It is those who have been most deeply wounded by grief that have the greatest capacity for joy.” I can’t recall where I heard this bit of wisdom, but it seems to fit here. We cannot “fix” or wipe away the pain, cannot silence this language of loss. But if we are doing our job as parents, our children will find in us the compassion they need to make sense of their world.

The Book Whisperer: Two Special Books on Adoption

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Book WhispererTo kick off my first “Book Whisperer” column, I thought I would share some wonderful adoption resources. If you have other recommendations, why not send me a note?

ten days Continue reading →