Talking With Sarah Reinhard About Her New Book and the Rosary

The lovely, prolific, kind, and funny Sarah Reinhard asked me to do a brief interview about my reflection on the word "hour" in her new book, Word by Word: Slowing Down With the Hail Mary. Sarah invited forty people to contribute reflections on each word of the Hail Mary. The result was first a great blog series and now a great devotional book.

Find out more about Word by Word here, on Sarah's blog, and more about the rest of Sarah's wonderful books here.

My chat with Sarah is here, at CatholicMom.com.

Guest Post: Sarah Reinhard's New Book, A Catholic Mother's Companion to Pregnancy (and win a Nook or a book!)

To celebrate the launch of her new book, A Catholic Mother's Companion to Pregnancy: Walking with Mary from Conception to Baptism, Sarah Reinhard invites all of us to spend her blog book tour praying the rosary together. Today, she shares this reflection on the Descent of the Holy Spirit:

I remember bowing my head, sitting before the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament during adoration, and asking God to make me an instrument. I didn’t really know what to pray or how to ask, but I had a strong desire to do his will, and I felt an urge, though I couldn’t put it to words. I wanted to chart and plan, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, so there was nothing to organize: there were no tasks or specifics.

All I could do was turn myself to Jesus. I always picture him sitting beside me with his arm around me when I’m at adoration. It’s an intimate image, one where we are close and almost cuddling. I imagine that I can curl up beside him the way I do with my husband, and, in that comfortable position, confide the deepest parts of my heart.

For many years, the Holy Spirit has been difficult for me to grasp. He’s without form, for one thing, so there’s not a tangible or visual element. Picturing a dove descending upon me has always seemed sort of alarming. Fire above my head? Well, I have a bad relationship with fire after one ravaged through my apartment building in college, so that’s not very comforting or inspiring.

It has taken me many years to understand the Holy Spirit in context of my Catholic faith, and it all started with that prayer during adoration. Jesus is a face, a human, someone I can approach. The Holy Spirit, though it has taken me longer to reach this understanding, is also a person, but he’s a different kind of person—just as my children are vastly different (and yet eerily similar). So I have come to appreciate the third person of the Trinity in his own right.

The Holy Spirit was sent for each of us, to help us and guide us. He’s like GPS, but with the volume turned way down. He will take us all the way to heaven, but we have to clear the clutter and clamor so that we can hear his still, small voice.

Mary is always leading us closer to her son, and she does it with the help of the Holy Spirit. She’s the spouse of the Holy Spirit, which is a concept that helps me relate to the Holy Spirit. I understand spouses from my own experience with marriage. In fact, picturing the Holy Spirit as a tall, dark, protective guy like my husband, one who will gently carry me or fight through the difficulties to get to me, is far more helpful than the dove or fire images.

As we pray this decade of the rosary, let's hold all those brave women who have said yes to difficult and challenging motherhood in our intentions in a special way. Don't forget, too, that we are praying for an increase in all respect life intentions as part of our rosary together this month. (If you’re not familiar with how to pray the rosary, you can find great resources at Rosary Army.*)

Our Father . . . 
10 - Hail Mary . . .
Glory Be . . . 
O My Jesus . . . 

You can find a complete listing of the tour stops over at Snoring Scholar. Be sure to enter to win a Nook (and any number of other goodies) each day of the tour over at Ave Maria Press.

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*Karen here again ... another great resource for learning about the Rosary is The Rosary: Keeping Company With Jesus and Mary.

Be sure to visit the Wonderful Sarah at the above links and enter her giveaway. I think you'll agree she's wonderful -- she's my friend, my blogging colleague, my fellow coffee fiend drinker, and a wonderful writer. Wonderful things abound around Sarah. Go see for yourself.

Also, to celebrate the Wonderful Sarah's beautiful new book (which I'll be ordering at least three copies of, by the way - one for each of my daughters, for someday....), I'll give away a copy, too! Just leave a comment here, on this post, and I'll pick a random winner on Saturday, October 27th.

In this month of the Rosary

Just wanted to mention that Amazon has my Rosary book on its 4-for-3 promotion -- buy four copies of the book (or combine it with any of their other three 4-for-3 books) and get four for the price of three.

And, here's a lovely quote about the Rosary from Through the Year With Mary: 

 

"The Rosary taught Bernadette everything …
The Rosary was her dictionary, her spelling book,
naming and explaining the mysteries of God’s kingdom;
it was a map guiding her to the heart of  God’s love for humanity."

 

~~ Fr. John Lochran, The Miracle of Lourdes

Of Interviews and Wall Rosaries

I had a delightful talk with Sean Herriott this morning on Relevant Radio. They are in the midst of a two-day, online Marian retreat, so be sure to take advantage of the opportunity.

While you're at it, take a mini-mini-retreat in the form of this post from Sean, at his blog, Joe Convert.com, about praying the Rosary. Wonderful!

More News from the Inbox: Rosaries with Names

 A friend introduced me to Rosaries with Names and I'm happy to spread the word about this beautiful ministry, which is also a mom's small home business.


Chris Lafser is a homeschooling mother who has been making rosaries for many years. She's also a mom who knows the heartache of miscarriage and it was in praying for her lost children by name that the ideas for this ministry was born. You can take a look at their mission statement here, and see more samples of Chris's rosaries here and here. 

May Feelings II

It's time for this again:



Find all of the Rosary videos on Belomasan's Channel on YouTube. Be sure to watch May Feelings III, and tell the selfless, faith-filled priests in your life, "Thank you."

Our Lady of the Rosary

"Christ is the supreme Teacher, the revealer and the one revealed. It is not just a question of learning what he taught but of 'learning him'. 

In this regard could we have any better teacher than Mary? From the divine standpoint, the Spirit is the interior teacher who leads us to the full truth of Christ (cf. Jn 14:26; 15:26; 16:13). But among creatures no one knows Christ better than Mary; no one can introduce us to a profound knowledge of his mystery better than his Mother."

-- Venerable Pope John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae

Interview on Catholic Spotlight

The other day I talked with Chris Cash from Catholic Spotlight and The Catholic Company, You can hear the podcast here. We talked about my Rosary book and the power of prayer. And, I promised Chris that I'd send an article over for the resource page of Rosary.com, so I'd better get to work!

Soul, Soldiers, T-shirts and Totus Tuus

This made me smile and laugh. In the best possible way.

I can't get the video to fit here, so you can see it on YouTube, here. It's called May Feelings II.

H/T to Burning the Candle at Both Ends and to Amy, from the Omaha Catholic HS group.

Mike Aquilina on the Rosary book

Speaking of feeling honored, Mike Aquilina says in this post at The Way of the Fathers that he was honored to write the foreword for my book.

But, I have to say that I am the one who felt honored to have such a lovely and touching foreword written especially for this little book on the Rosary.

Mike shares such great memories about his own mother and the part the Rosary has played in her life (and by extension, his) and I'm very grateful to him.

Thank you, Mike!

The Snoring Scholar Weighs in on my Rosary book

Sarah, at Just Another Day of Catholic Pondering, has posted her reaction to The Rosary: Keeping Company with Jesus and Mary.

Sarah promises a full review is on the way, but I couldn't be more honored than she has already made me feel.

Thank you, Sarah!

Alice Gunther Reviews The Rosary: Keeping Company with Jesus and Mary

Alice Gunther, from Cottage Blessings, has posted the most lovely and touching review of my new book on the Rosary. I feel both honored and humbled by the care she took in sharing her impressions and reactions.

And, in true Alice fashion, she has visually presented the book and the post in a way that is far lovelier than anything of which I could have conceived.

Thank you, Alice!

My book is shipping!

If you pre-ordered a copy of The Rosary: Keeping Company with Jesus and Mary it looks as if it will arrive soon!

Do let me know what you think, won't you?

Anne-with-an-e's Confirmation (or, The Sacramental of a Bathroom Floor)

(For this reason, I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands. ~~ 2 Timothy 1:6

Last year, we attended a Confirmation (the same young lady who gave me the brilliant Zoo Pals idea) and three years ago, we attended her sister's Confirmation. What struck me each and every time was the combination of the mundane and the sublime.

Although sacraments are spiritually powerful gifts, amazing delivery methods for God's divine grace to make its way into our souls, they are always mixed up with the very real, the earthly stuff. A sacrament is itself a visible sign -- the use of an earthly thing, a tangible, sensible bit of the material world -- that somehow, by God's choosing, contributes to our sanctification.

The classic definition sums it up this way:

"Sacraments are outward signs of inward grace, instituted by Christ for our sanctification."

God works, in other words, through things. Through stuff, through people. And no matter how sublime the work, it is always intertwined with the weight of human existence.

The day before Anne's Confirmation, we were down to the final preparations before our out-of-town company was scheduled to arrive. Atticus had volunteered to do the last of the grocery shopping, and he planned to take all three girls with him, leaving me with a quiet house for an hour or so before the weekend plans kicked in. But, Anne suddenly didn't feel well enough to go shopping. She was hit with a monster headache, and lay down on the couch just as Atticus and the other two girls left.

I thought she probably just needed a short nap, but the next thing I knew she was feeling sick to her stomach. So, there I was, sitting on the bathroom floor with my poor sick daughter, and I wanted her to know that I was doing everything I could for her. But, what can you do for someone who's feeling sick? Other than a cool cloth for the forehead, and simply being there, there isn't always a lot to do. But, Anne turns to the Rosary in times of trouble, and so do I. So I emailed a quick prayer request to some friends, grabbed my Rosary, sat down on the bathroom floor with my daughter, and simply kept her company while I prayed for her.

I was reminded of someone else who prayed the Rosary in a bathroom, but Immaculee Ilibagiza prayed her Rosary for three months straight, while crammed into a tiny, hidden bathroom with seven other women, praying for her life, her family, her country and her would-be killers. And though just moments before I'd been worried about how a million little details of the weekend would play out, I was reminded of the thought I had just after I read Immaculee's wrenching book, Left to Tell: "Who am I to whine when I could be praying?"

So, I simply prayed. On a cold, bathroom floor, next to my daughter, I prayed the Rosary.

And when Anne felt well enough to go lie down, she did. She slept for over an hour, and when she got up, she felt much, much better, and the details of the weekend played out beautifully. All was well that night, and into the next day. Our friends arrived, we went to the Confirmation Mass and I watched the Archbishop lay his hands on my daughter's head. She was sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit. And I was moved, exhilarated, thrilled, joyful ... so full of love for my daughter, my family, our dear friends, and our Lord.

Then we went out to eat.

Sounds silly, doesn't it? Proclaiming God's majesty and then talking about food? But it's not silly. It's all over Scripture, really. It comes straight from Him.

Jesus heals a little girl and then says, in His practical way, "Get her something to eat."

He rises from the dead, and while His apostles are still incredulous with joy, He basically says, "Hey, do you have anything around here a guy could eat?"

Sublime and mundane.
Divine and earthly.

We can't escape the mix on this earth. God comes down to us, wherever we are, and though we can feel His love, and catch glimpses of His power, we can't yet escape the shackles of the world. And so, He does the next best thing for us: He can make even a cold bathroom floor a sacramental, offering strength to get us through everything from our setbacks and inconveniences to terribly heavy crosses.

And so it goes. Incredulous joy is always followed by some food. Beauty is mixed with messiness and whine turns to prayer in all circumstances because, really, what else do we have?

And that's the story of my eldest daughter's Confirmation weekend. My beautiful, beloved daughter experienced the power and the glory of our beloved God:

For this reason, I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands. ~~ 2 Timothy 1:6

And then we ate pancakes.

Amazon.com: Reminding Me That I Wrote a Book

I woke up to find this in my Inbox:

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated A Mother's Rule of Life: How to Bring Order to Your Home and Peace to Your Soul by Holly Pierlot have also purchased The Rosary: Keeping Company with Jesus and Mary by Karen Edmisten. For this reason, you might like to know that The Rosary: Keeping Company with Jesus and Mary will be released on May 1, 2009. You can pre-order yours by following the link below.

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Why, yes, thank you! I would like to know that!

A sneak peek at my book's cover!

Last fall, I mentioned here that my writing path has been circuitous and unpredictable, but that it led me to writing this book:

The Rosary: keeping company with Jesus and Mary, soon to be published by Servant Books.

It's a little book about what the Rosary is, what it isn't, and how to more effectively fit the prayer into your day.

While the book is already listed on Amazonit's not actually available for shipment yet (but, I couldn't wait any longer to share this cover design with you.)

The release will be in May, the month of Mary.

"Babies Are Important"

When Anne-with-an-e was very young and we participated in a Life Chain, I didn't want her to have to deal (yet ... I knew the day would come for more detail) with the reality of what an abortion was. So, I told her that all the signs were different ways of saying, "Babies Are Important." I explained that some people don't understand how helpless babies are, how much they need our full protection and care, even before they're born, and so we were trying to help spread the message that babies -- all babies -- are important.

Down the road, when her little sister Betsy saw or heard something about abortion, and asked what it was, Anne chimed in with, "It means babies are important, Betsy!"

And so they are.

Important facts:

• The UnChoice Campaign, from the Elliott Institute -- staying informed on the most recent abortion studies and news, facts about teens, the most recent research, resources and more.

• "Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women." -- Alice Paul
  
  (More quotes from early feminists, who proclaimed an authentic feminism that respected women, pregnancy, childbearing and motherhood.)

• A Million Rosaries for Unborn Babies -- see this link for details.
  

• Rachel's Vineyard news, articles, resources for men.

• Babies for Life -- Making it easier to donate cord blood.

You might be a Catholic if ...

Your home decorating tends to revolve around liturgical colors.

You say things to friends such as, "You love the Office of Readings? So do I!"

Your favorite jewelry involves a crucifix.

Your kids yell, "Hi, Jesus!" when you pass a Catholic Church.

There's Latin somewhere, in some form, in your life.

You like being obedient to such sublime wisdom.

You've been heard saying, "Stop swinging that Rosary around your head!"

You have eleventy-seven children (because that's how God works in your life.)

You have only one child (because that's how God works in your life.)

You were unable to have children (because that's how God works in your life.)

You have adopted children (because that's how God works in your life.)

You call a man who lives thousands of miles away, in a foreign country, "Papa."

You think cassocks are cool.

You sometimes slip and refer to a male friend as "Father."

You've actually had discussions about "rose" vs. "pink."

You remember events based on the saint's feast day on which they fell.

You thoroughly enjoy having three moms (biological, Holy Mother Church, the Blessed Mother ....)

And, this is not part of the list, but she asked if she could type, and this is what came out:

i love you lord! (typed by Ramona)

And, finally, you might be Catholic if you hope and pray with all your heart that she, and all your children, keep saying that same thing all the days of their lives, and that they allow the beauty of the teachings of this ancient faith to permeate everything they do.

A Meaningful Lent, Part 7: My Crown of Thorns

When I was received into the Catholic Church fourteen years ago, my dear friend Jack gave me an incredible gift: a crown of thorns.

This is not a miniature replica, nor a harmless likeness. It is a real, piercing, terrible, beautiful crown of thorns.

Every year, during Lent, it is prominently displayed in our home. It does wonders for my tiny Lenten sacrifices. A brief, but penetrating gaze upon the thorns penetrates my thoughts, my soul, my desires. It keeps my little offerings in perspective.

The sight of the crown that our King endured keeps me close in thought to Him, the Man Who gave everything for me, the One Who loves me no matter how weak I am, or how petty or selfish. No matter how much I may stray or grow lukewarm, He is there. He is faithful, waiting for the one He loves to return that love and fidelity. All. The. Time.

And that's what Lent is, for me ... a rekindling of the greatest love affair of my life. And, when I am tempted to think that my little Lenten sacrifices are too much, or too hard, I gaze upon that crown of thorns.

And I know that nothing is too much. He showed us what it means to give everything. The least I can do is feel the sting of my small sacrifices.

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Places to find a crown of thorns:

Holy Land Imports
Rosary Workshop
Jerusalem Export House

Treat yourself to some Rosary time

I love the Rosary.

It has given me many moments of comfort and peace. It calms my heart when I am anxious, and helps my soul to be still and to know that He is God.

Later today, I hope to have time to sit down, be still, and read the many, sure-to-be-lovely entries in this month's Mary Moments at Behold Your Mother.

May you be given the gift of a few quiet moments today, too.