Photo by Eugenia Remark: https://www.pexels.com/photo/decorated-cards-golden-plate-and-ring-in-box-14784845/

Love Among the Saints

February 12, 2025/0 Comments/in Faith, Family Life, Marriage, romance, Saints, Uncategorized/by Mary McWilliams

Love Among the Saints

Do we think of saints being married? Among the most popular — St. Therese, St. Francis, St. Pio of Pietrelcina, St. Teresa of Calcutta were wed to Christ and the church. Yet Catholic history proclaims saintly husbands and wives who lived lives much like the rest of us. Who could ever imagine that the father of one of the most scholarly popes would have crafted a newspaper ad to find his wife? Or that a couple, now on their way to sainthood, would have a story that rivals Romeo and Juliet in family drama? Only one husband lived not just to testify to his wife’s saintliness but also to be present at her canonization. Another saint married twice. And one husband literally tried the patience of a saint.

Patrick O’Hearn’s Courtship of the Saints: How the Saints Met their Spouses, offers lively, loved-filled accounts of couples from Biblical times into the 21st Century. They shaped the church in some way through their sacrifice and devotion to one another and to their families by making the prayer their foundation and God the center of their lives.

Mr. O’Hearn, also the author of Parents of the Saints: The Hidden Heroes Behind Our Favorite Saints, and former acquisitions editor with Tan Books, clearly strives to provide an antidote to the decades old “hookup culture” that has degraded marriage, women, and men. He does this with inspirational examples of a proven formula for meeting one’s true love. People have, over the centuries, continued to seek love, but the ways of going about it have failed. He promises that the contents lying beyond the beckoning cover of the intimate painting, “The Meeting of Joachim and Anne outside the Golden Gate of Jerusalem,” by Fillipino Lippi (1497) are “… better than any romantic novel because they return to the source of love: God Himself” (p. 5), and Mr. O’Hearn is as eager as any evangelist to share the news.

He doesn’t begin there, however, because without the proper framework, the stories would only be pretty romance tales. Mr. O’Hearn commences by defining courtship and its significance, offering historical and contemporary perspectives. He explains how it is different from modern “dating” and urges those called to marriage to pursue it. “Our culture will only be renewed when the family is strong … when marriages reflect Christ’s radical love for His church; when couples love each other madly through the good times and bad, and are open to the number of children God wants to provide them.” (pp. 5-6). He peppers the narrative with quotes from Ven. Fulton Sheen, St. Thomas Aquinas, and other well-known and favored theologians.

“Courtship looks to the future – to eternity,” he explains. “Courtship asks the following questions: Does this person have virtue? Is this the best person to lead me — and, God willing, my future children — to heaven?” (p. 11). He moves into betrothal: “…a time for a couple to intensify their prayer life as they prepare for marriage” (p. 19). Introspective questions give further substance to the book and to Mr. O’Hearn’s premise of returning to a prayer-filled, God-invited relationship. Part Two “Courtship Counsel and Prayers” is a kind of action plan that offers contemplative questions such as: How do I pray daily for my future spouse? Where should I look for a future spouse? It also advises how to choose a spouse, discern marriage as a vocation, and offers prayers and saintly inspirational quotes. A section for married couples opens with this guidance: “Rediscover why you fell in love in the first place and continue to fall in love. Don’t let the fire burn out.” Mr. O’Hearn then suggests practical applications for doing so.

Sandwiched between the practical is the romantic with the couple’s entertaining encounters. The 23- year union between Karol and Emilia Wojtyla so influenced their young son that it helped to shape his perception of the love between a man and a woman that the author asserts it “… provided the first education concerning the splendor of marital love” contained in Pope St. John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body.” His parents are now Servants of God. Accounts like the Wojtylas will melt hearts. Others might drop jaws, such as the meeting of Josef and Maria Ratzinger that occurred when she responded to a newspaper ad he wrote to find a wife. St. Thomas More transitions from the martyr who dared to defy King Henry VII to the guy down the street who is widowed prematurely and, out of concern for his young children, begins looking for a wife. No doubt readers will chuckle – because they know a couple just like this — when they read about Bl. Anna-Maria Taigi and her husband, Dominic, who possessed “rough” manners.

Others will bring tears. Arguably, no other romance is as beautiful as that between Pietro Molla and Gianna Beretta and the family life they created. The author devotes nearly 20 pages to them. Anyone who has read Journey of Our Love: The Letters of Saint Gianna Beretta and Pietro Molla, which the author cites, will marvel at how he was able to keep it to 20.

Among the 25 couples, readers will have many favorites because, regardless of the time, all have uniqueness and relatability. Each one also has the commonality of fervent prayer and love of God. Anyone willing to put their love life into God’s hand will be able to find joy, endure hardships, and withstand suffering, proving that but no one can write a love story better than the Father Himself.

Feature Photo by Eugenia Remark: https://www.pexels.com/photo/decorated-cards-golden-plate-and-ring-in-box-14784845/

Inset photo by Mary McWilliams

Roses and Ashes

February 3, 2024/0 Comments/in Catholic Writing and Publishing, Faith, Inspirational, Lent, Poetry, Praise, romance, Saints/by Margaret Zacharias

Gather ye Rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.

Robert Herrick, “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” 1648

In a rare, but not unprecedented, synchronicity this month, St. Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday will fall on the same day. These two dates last came together in 2018, and they will do it again in 2029. According to the Fayetteville Observer, this convergence seems to happen approximately three times in every one-hundred-years. The Twentieth Century also recorded three occurrences, in 1923, 1934, and 1945. (1)

The origins of our contemporary St. Valentine’s Day celebration are hidden in history. Even Roman Catholic sources record an astounding variety, of what can perhaps best be regarded as legends. He may have been a priest, a bishop, and/or a physician. It’s unclear whether the stories that have been combined under this saint’s name include the life one man, or the lives of two.

There is some evidence that, on an actual occasion, a prisoner named Valentine left a letter for his jailer’s daughter signed, “from your Valentine.” He’s said to have healed the child of her blindness; we all prefer to believe he did. He may well have converted her to Christianity. He might have converted her father, too. Plausible evidence does exist that a man named Valentine was imprisoned and martyred for his Christian faith. Other tales suggest that the little girl, and possibly her father, died with him. (2)

One fact is clear, that the official liturgical calendar of the United States makes no reference to a saint’s feast on February 14. On the USCCB website, it’s marked only with a purple dot indicating a day of Lent. There is no alternate reading for a saint’s feast day. (3)

Another mystery is how a saint, whom most legends report died as a martyr for his Faith, came to be a symbol of chocolate, flowers, and every other sort of indulgent romantic concupiscence.

Ash Wednesday, on the other hand, is a reminder of the death we all will experience. The Latin counsel memento mori, “remember you will die,” dates back to the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, from sometime before his death in 399 B.C. (4).

The use of ashes as a symbol of penance and anointing for death by the Hebrews is documented in the Old Testament books of Esther 4:1, 484-465 B.C.; Job 42:6, 700-500 B.C.; Daniel 9:3, circa 550 B.C.; and Jonah 3:5-6, circa 500 B.C. (5)

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, Illustration from The Book of Old English Songs and Ballads, Circa 1920; Public

domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A solemn recognition of Ash Wednesday has been practiced since the earliest days of Christianity. The words, “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” from Genesis 3:19 (6), have been spoken through millennia in both the Eastern and Roman Catholic churches. They are still used for Ash Wednesday services in many Protestant churches today, as well.

But the question remains. What meaning can we discern from this mysterious union of love with death, that seems to appear as a trinity in multiple centuries?

For one answer, we might turn again to scripture, and discover that Song of Songs is the only one of three writings classified by biblical scholars as ‘Wisdom books’ that appears in Protestant bibles. Our Catholic Bibles contain all three, with the Book of Wisdom and the Book of Sirach included (7). Here is another trinity.

The Song, also called Canticle of Canticles, is a romantic poem that evokes all the sensual joys of earthly lovers, as metaphors that describe God’s desirous love for us. In Christian churches it is read as allegory (8). The determination of the bride to reach her lover, and the strength of their bond, represent the Sacrament of Matrimony on earth and Christ’s love for His Bride, the Church, in eternity.

When the cross of ashes, death, and dust is marked on our foreheads again this year — and the day wavers from joy, to penance, and grief — may we remember the powerful lover who awaits us, and continue to sing the Canticle:

“… Set me as a seal upon your heart,

as a seal upon your arm;

For Love is strong as Death …

Deep waters cannot quench love,

nor rivers sweep it away …

… You who dwell in the gardens,

my companions are listening for your voice–

let me hear it!

Swiftly, my lover,

be like a gazelle or a young stag

upon the mountain of spices.”

Song (Cant.) 8:6-7, 13-14 (9)

John William Waterhouse, Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May; 1909, Public domain, via Wikimedia
Commons.

Featured Photo: John William Waterhouse, Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May,1908, Public domain, via
Wikimedia Commons.

Footnotes for Roses and Ashes and Sources for Further Reading

https://www.fayobserver.com/story/news/live-wire/2018/02/06/live-wire-when-was-last-time-ash-wednesday-and-valentines-day-were-same-date/15307391007/#

For a few different perspectives, see:

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/will-the-real-st-valentine-please-stand-up

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Valentine

https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/culture/catholic-contributions/history-of-st-valentine.html

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021424.cfm
https://dailystoic.com/what-is-memento-mori/#:~:text=Memento%20Mori%20—%20(Latin%3A%20remember,but%20dying%20and%20being%20dead.”

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Socrates

https://catholicstraightanswers.com/what-are-the-origins-of-ash-wednesday-and-the-use-of-ashes/

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/3

https://www.artesianministries.org/bible-study/why-are-catholic-and-protestant-bibles-different/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_Songs

9. https://bible.usccb.org/bible/songofsongs/8

Celebrating Our First Christmas with Alzheimer’s Disease: Laughter Allowed

December 24, 2014/5 Comments/in Advent, Catholic Writing and Publishing, Devotionals, Faith, Humour, Inspirational, Pro-life, romance, suspense/by Larry Peterson

IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

by Larry Peterson

I guess the first time I realized that something was really wrong was about a year and a half ago. I have a bedroom I turned into an office, and I was sitting at the keyboard clicking away. I sensed someone behind me and turned to see my wife, Marty, standing there. She had a strange look on her face. I remember the moment because fear was etched across her face. “Hey,” I said. “What’s the matter?”

Then I noticed she was trembling. I stood up and went over to her and put my hands on her shoulders. She stammered and sort of whispered, “I don’t know. I think I need your help.”

“Okay, what is it?”

Marty turned and headed down the hall past the living room and into the kitchen. I followed and noticed that she had her “cookie” stuff out. As she had done so many times in the past, she was about to make the best old fashioned, home-made, chocolate-chip cookies I have ever had. Like a child, I said, “Oh, awesome, you’re making cookies. So, how can I help?”

She sighed and shook her head. She began to cry and, looking at me, said, ” What is all this? I don’t know what it is for?”

The woman who had made thousands upon thousands of these cookies over the years had no memory of previously doing what she had done so many times before. She had placed the needed supplies on the counter and went to use the bathroom. When she returned a few minutes later, what had been virtually second nature to her had been erased from her mind. It was all gone.

She had come back to me for help because she KNEW something was terribly wrong inside her head, and this time the sudden, specific memory loss was scaring the hell out of her. She sobbed, “What is happening to me?”

She had been sick with Lymphoma since 2011. She had endured numerous cycles of chemotherapy to fight the disease. Anesthesia, required because of surgery in August (needed to repair a broken ankle), and an attack of A-Fib (Atrial Fibrillation) in September exacerbated the cognitive dysfunction. She was officially diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s Disease* on September 28. And now we are approaching our first Christmas together with Alzheimer’s as our unwanted Christmas guest.

Guess what? It is OK. He will not ruin our Christmas. He is welcome to join us. That is because we have started to laugh again, more and more. And we are laughing at the insanity of living in Alzheimerville. And trust me, it can get quite wacky.

I have always had a bit of a flip attitude. It probably has helped me get through some tough times. So when Marty goes to the cardiologist and goes to sign in and cannot remember her name she looks at me for help. I smile and say, “Who cares Lucy, they know who you are. Just put down Lucille Ball.” She starts to laugh and I laugh and I write her name down for her. Not an issue.

The past ten years of her life seem to have literally vanished from her brain. She does not remember us getting married. (We were both widowed and married eight years ago. She has no clue.) So she asks me if we are really married. I show her our marriage license and pictures from our wedding. She is shocked. “I can’t believe it, ” she says. We really ARE married.”

Now, every night I say to her, “Okay, we can sleep together tonight. It’s not a sin.” She always laughs at that.

There are so many little, extraordinary things that happen every day. Being asked the same question over and over can become unnerving. I have turned it around to where I start by giving her the answer. For example, she asks me ten times a day, “How do you feel today?” After a few times I answer, “Today I feel like seeing you and that makes my day shiny.” It is a ridiculous answer but she likes it and I like it too.

I cannot count the things that have been moved to the strangest places. I have found the Parmesan cheese in the towel closet, unwashed clothes in the dryer. She makes coffee and tells me it is the worst coffee she ever had and I should let her make it. She has hair curlers that keep vanishing. I have found them in the garage, in the refrigerator, and under the kitchen sink. We had been searching for them and when I found them in the refrigerator I said loudly, “Here they are.”

She was standing nearby and turned to see me lifting the bag from next to the milk. I quickly asked, “Can I use these for curly fries?” I began to laugh and she shook her head and smiled. I gave her a hug, opened the freezer door and tossed the curlers in. “They are not frozen enough,” I said. She began to laugh and so did I and, although shrouded in a dark moment, we laughed our way into the brightness of a new moment.

Marty has been captured and imprisoned by the most insidious of diseases. It is like a computer virus slowly deleting what is in memory. So far the last ten years are gone. That cursor is still clicking delete, delete, delete. The day will come when she will not even know who I am. I will do my best to keep her laughing and smiling as long as I can, and as long as she understands why we laugh.

As for me, I must admit, this entire situation has been wearing me down. There is a lot to do as a caregiver. I traveled a similar road with my first wife, Loretta, who died 12 years ago from cancer. She was sick a long time, but she never lost brain function. That is a very difficult thing to deal with 24/7. But you do what you have to do. If a man and a woman love each other that is the way it should be, HAPPY to be there for each other, no matter what. We both took vows before God and man to that effect and, for me, they remain in full force until death.

Our biggest friend in all of this is our Catholic faith. It is there for us through the Holy Mass, through Our Lord Jesus, through Our Blessed Mother and through the examples and intercessions of so many great saints, reinforced every day by prayers from our family and friends. In fact, I did attend Mass this morning and I had a bit of an epiphany. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself when I realized I had been given a Christmas gift from God Himself.

This gift is my ill wife afflicted with a disease that is unstoppable and incurable. She is foremost God’s child, and now she needs someone to take care of her just as she did years ago when she was a child. We met at church and were married in church. An unlikely couple, I know that God brought us together. Maybe this is why. Because during the Christmas season of 2014 I realized that besides a wife, HE has given me one of HIS children to care for. I will do my best to make Him proud. I will also do my best to keep us laughing. It is all GOOD.

MERRY CHRISTMAS
________________________________________________________________________

* In case you do not know this, Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia are NOT the same thing. Alzheimer’s is the number one cause of dementia but there are over 150 different causes.

Cheerleading! Mutually Beneficial Author Support

May 27, 2014/3 Comments/in Blogging, Book Review, Catholic Fiction, Catholic Writers Guild, Catholic Writing and Publishing, Encouragement for Writers, Fiction, Inspirational, Marketing Your Work, Networking, Novel, Pro-life, romance, Self-Publishing, The Writing Life, Writing Tips and Tricks/by Leslie Lynch

There are a lot of us out there. Authors. With great books to share. Too often, though, we feel alone in our endeavors, trying to get readers to notice us in the roiling sea of other great books. This is a great time to be a writer! It’s more possible than it has ever been to publish a book. But that means that all sorts of other people are doing the same.

Whether you are independently publishing your work, under contract with a traditional publisher, or working with a small, online press, the business of marketing one’s work falls more and more upon the shoulders of the author. “But I just want to write,” you say. Hey, I’m with you. Me, too. But that’s not our reality anymore.

How do we get “out there” where someone might notice?

First, write a quality book, no matter the genre. If you’re publishing independently, surround yourself with an expert team of editors, formatters, and cover artists. First impressions matter. Don’t give the reader a reason to skip past your book; give them a reason to stop and look at it, really look at it. Hopefully, they’ll be intrigued enough to click the ‘buy’ button.

Then, the meat of this post: Network. Before you ask people to spread the news about your book, make sure you’ve nurtured relationships with them, and have crowed about their successes. You can do this well before you are ready to publish your own work; in fact, that’s the best time to create these relationships. Have you gone to Catholic Writers Conference Live? Or participated in the online CWG conference? How about the Writing Retreat? Or any other writing focused activities? What about the CWG Facebook page? Have you interacted with other writers in any of those venues? I hope so, because that’s crucial for the next step, which is:

Celebrate with them! Post their new releases or awards on your Facebook page. Use your blog or Twitter to let your followers know there’s something available that’s worth their time. If you’re on Twitter, find and follow some entities that reflect your interests; they may reTweet for you and expand your reach.

Buy and read your friends’ books, and then review them on Amazon and Goodreads. *Caveat: Always say something nice, or don’t post a review. This does not mean you can’t be honest, but be honest in a kind manner. Personally, I never give a review with less than four stars, and even if I didn’t like everything about the book, I focus on what I loved about the book—or, if it’s in a genre that’s not my favorite, focus on what readers of that specific type of book will enjoy about this particular one.

Here’s an example of how this might work. A few weeks ago, Erin McCole Cupp contacted me because I’d done a cover reveal on my upcoming release, Hijacked, on CWG’s Facebook page. Would I like to trade read and reviews with her? She’d recently published Don’t You Forget About Me, a cozy mystery. I said yes, and posted reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. She upped the ante and asked me to be an interviewee on her blog the week my book comes out. I said yes (!), and then tagged her on a My Writing Process blog tour/relay. With any luck, some of my readers will be interested in her work and some of hers readers, in mine. That’s just with two authors! Imagine what can happen when more get in on the fun!

(And did you notice what I just did? I linked Erin’s website and the Amazon link to buy her book to this post. I purposely do this for everyone I mention on both my CWG and personal blogs. What goes around comes around…)

Join writing organizations and establish relationships with authors you respect. Be a cheerleader for them, and hope they’ll return the favor when it’s your turn. Yes, it’s time consuming, but it is well worth the effort—not just because they’re going to help you sell books, but because they are wonderful people and their friendships enrich your life.

Are you feeling a little less alone now? I hope so! If you’ve had success in the arena of networking, please share your story! What are the elements that contribute to that success?