I recently hired someone to redesign my website in preparation for the launch of my new book with Ave, The Ave Prayer Book for Catholic Mothers (October 2021). It’s all very exciting and believe me, you will be hearing more about it … but today I want to tell you about a different book. (More of a booklet, really.)

The 40 Day Marriage Adventure will be made available in the next few weeks — I created the booklet from a series of Lenten posts from 2012 — as a daily prayer exercise you can do on your own or with your spouse to give your marriage a “faith lift”. Each day begins with the “Prayer of Abandonment” by Bl. Charles de Foucauld, which was gifted to me by one of my seminary professors who told me, “If you want to transform yourself, pray this every day. If you want to transform your marriage, say it to your HUSBAND.”

He was right about the first part. This prayer has been a tremendous blessing to me, especially during those times when life became overly stressful and I caught myself resorting to the kind of controlling behavior that tends to backfire in a big way. So … if you’re interested in getting the download, hang in there. It should be available soon.

In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about Blessed Charles (who I understand is on the fast track to being declared a saint, fingers crossed), you can also check out a beautiful website on this desert saint by Fr. Lenny Tighe, a retired priest from Boston who has been promoting the life and message of Brother Charles in the U.S. for many years. He has prayer cards in English and Spanish available. He writes,

“I have been promoting the life and message of Charles de Foucauld in the US for many years. I am humbly called ‘all things Charles de Foucauld,’ and I have given out thousands of prayer cards of the Abandonment Prayer.” He also has a Facebook group on this saint.