Last week, in his column, The Catholic Difference, George Weigel offered a list of recently published books that he recommended for Christmas gift-giving in 2011.
One of the suggested titles was
“The companion book to the brilliant 10-part television series, this eminently readable exploration of Catholicism-in-full is an even ampler introduction to the mind and spirit of the Church’s most important American apologist.”
As we read over Mr. Weigel’s list, pined over the titles, and hoped that our small office gift exchange might yield pristine, roughly-eight-by-five-inch packages of fresh, hot-off-the-press literary goodness, we had an idea! Why not give our readers even more options? Why not overwhelm them with choices and decisions? Why not take a Word on Fire poll, a Barnes-&-Noble–style “Staff Recommends” to assist our faithful blog followers in procuring meaningful gifts for the ones they love this Christmas season?
Why not? Why not!...
On this All Saints Day, Rozann Carter reviews Heather King’s new book, "Shirt of Flame: A Year with St. Thérèse of Lisieux," a poignant and practical commentary on the deeply authentic reflection of Christ that is present within the spirituality of this great saint and Doctor of the Church.
There is a certain hypocrisy built into our human nature with regard to the “saccharine.”
What is Saccharin? It is an artificial sweetener with an ever-increasing likeness in taste to “real” sugar; it is meant to provide the experience of sweetness without the work of a proper appreciation and the implied discipline of moderation. Saccharin makes sweetness free, consequence-less, and available on a whim, but it’s suspiciously incomplete.
Saccharin simply isn’t natural; it imitates an ideal experience and then slowly replaces it, promising and delivering the addictive “shortcut.” Even as we sprinkle multiple packets of sweet-n-low into our coffee, we rail against the artificial, the disingenuous, the hypocritical, the idol. We seek authenticity and raw-ness and claim to be repulsed by unnatural additives that mask what-is-meant-to-be. Yet, we secretly hold on to our addictive guarantee because it forces no pesky, un-called-for challenge. The immediacy of our desires, especially in our current age, lends itself to a sweet-n-low culture-- in our music, our art, our architecture, our religion, our often vapid and cursory self-expressions, our writing… Saccharine-ness in lifestyle keeps us lukewarm, our desires seemingly fulfilled, the negative side-effects seemingly avoided.
Then, once in a great while, we taste it again, the originality and sweetness of a story that has been told over and over again but ever-new, one that reflects of the timelessness of truth and rejects this laughable imitation that can only convey such a pitifully small portion...