Pope Awesome and Other Stories by Cari Donaldson

I used to make fun of Mike for his reading habits (in my head, of course, until now.) He had a fixed set of things that he would always chose to read and it seemed like such a crazy mix of stuff- for fiction he likes thriller/suspense/political type books and for non-fiction baseball, Mt. Everest, and WWII (but not in the Pacific, only in Europe. Think Band of Brothers.)  Lately tho, as I try to actually blog everything I read, I discover a shockingly narrow range of interests of my own. (Romance novels, paranormal young adult/romance, brain science/psychology  non-fiction/memoirs and books about religious experiences/conversion.) So last fall when Cari Donaldson's book about becoming Catholic came out I made a mental note to look for it. I broke down and bought it over Christmas. A couple weeks ago we took a little car trip and for reasons unknown I skipped all my review books and decided to read this instead. I read all but the last few pages in one day.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that not many of my blog readers (all three of you) also read a lot of Catholic parenting blogs, but if you are looking for new blogs to read I can highly recommend Clan Donaldson. Cari is down to earth, funny and realistic about having a large Catholic homeschooled family.  I can honestly say I enjoy all of her posts, except the ones about The Walking Dead which I skip because we don't currently watch it AND I don't want any spoilers just in case we start.

Cari grew up going to church because you were supposed to go to church. Not because you felt anything or because of any theological reason, but because you were supposed to go. (Which is pretty much what I did. Looking back, it seems very strange that you'd go to church every week and learn these stories and listen to a minister talk, but no one ever says THIS IS WHY. It was all just stories and lock-ins but there was never any emotion or personalization. There was no discussion of what it all meant. I think perhaps as an adult you might start to clue in on your own, but as a kid? Not so much. You wore a cross because you went to church like a good girl, duh. And to get even more off track, I hear stories of little kids bullying other kids because they don't believe in God, but I bet even those bullies don't believe anything more than "good kids go to church/Heaven".) As a young adult and college student she actively avoided Christianity. She felt a void in her life but pretty much did every possible thing to fill it with any other religion or spiritual practice.  Pope Awesome is her hilarious recounting of how she ended up joining the Catholic church and how the Church ultimately overcame all her reservations about Catholicism.  Many of her reasons for not wanting to be Catholic matched up with mine, so I found that all to be highly interesting.  I'm not interested in a theological debate here on my blog, but this was a really great book that managed to be both funny and thought provoking, while not actually feeling like she's preaching to you. You never feel like she's trying to convince the reader to also become Catholic. In my informal study of religious memoirs, I'd put this right up there in my top two or three.

Now go read her blog.

Therese, Faustina and Bernadette by Elizabeth Ficocelli

The Blurb: In Thérèse, Faustina, and Bernadette: Three Saints Who ChallengedMy Faith, Gave Me Hope, and Taught Me How to Love author, speaker, and retreat leader Elizabeth Ficocelli introduces her readers to three remarkable women saints who became not only her role models, but also her life-changing friends. Thérèse, Faustina, and Bernadette taught Ficocelli about faith, hope, and love, and showed her what true Catholic womanhood looks like.
Some of the best saint stories are not about wonder-workers, but rather the everyday saints—friends who understand the challenges of marriage and motherhood and the banalities of day-to-day life. Bestselling author Elizabeth Ficocelli discovered three such friends in Thérèse of Lisieux, Faustina of the Divine Mercy, and Bernadette of Lourdes. The witness of their lives moved Ficocelli to cultivate the virtues of faith, hope, and love as she journeyed from a successful career as a marketing executive to what she found was a more authentic, even counter-cultural Catholic womanhood. Ficocelli offers women the wisdom of these saints for their own spiritual journeys.

 

In Short: Oddly compelling, but at the same time hollow feeling.  It feels like the author is rehashing stuff she’s done before (I say that not having read anything else she’s written.)

 

The Long Version:   I am (still) fascinated with non-fiction books about other people’s spiritual journeys. In particular, I enjoy it when people convert to another religion, or in this case from non-practicing-Christian to Catholicism.  I am ALSO fascinated with Catholicism. I requested this one from NetGalley  They weren’t mothers, nor where they even wives.  That said, I could see understand that one might learn something from them. For example, Saint Therese was an example of pure love. And, in all honestly, I did see where the author is going here. I can see how you should learn from the book that You! Too! Could be sainted if you only love Jesus/everyone enough, but I absolutely could not tell how the author was relating that to her life. Her personal stories were interesting, but they didn’t relate to the specific saints that she was claiming she was learning from.

 

I also didn’t feel like the book itself delved very deep. Let’s take for example Faustine of the Divine Mercy. Ficocelli repeated “Divine Mercy” roughly every other sentence, but barely even touched on what “Divine Mercy” means. Yes, I can see, God’s Mercy. Whatever. Tell me what that really means and why I WANT that, don’t assume that I know. OR assume that I am well versed in Catholic theology and write ALL the book like I know what you’re talking about. (It’s like telling someone they have a “Federally Compliant ID card” but not explaining what that is or why it matters.) Ficocelli also continually refers to books she’s written or read about each or the saints prior to writing this one, and I couldn’t tell what new thing this book brought to the table. Sure to me it’s all new, but I hate to read something that feels like a summary of something else. Perhaps if she’d done a better job of relating her personal stories to each saint and tying it all together I would not have felt this way. I really came out of it feeling like this is a 60 minute speech she gives somewhere and she padded it out to be a 180 page book.

 

In the end, I am more interested in the lives of these saints, and exactly what made them a saint, but I didn’t feel that this book was one I’d recommend to other people.