Religion

This is a lovely book with color photos of the Holy Father with children and quotes from speeches and letters that the Holy Father has addressed to children throughout the world. I was so pleased to find such an appealing Catholic book with color pictures and solid text.

The Pictures: Besides photos of the Pope holding and hugging children, there are: a large first communion class pictured with the Pope, a bishop and a number of nuns (in full habit); children from around the world praying (these are very beautiful and quite reverent - such as a group of girls from South Korea in traditional costume in addition to lace chapel veils singing); a picture of the Pope in a classroom looking at a young boy's schoolwork, children stopping their play by a river to look up and wave at the Pope driving by in the "popemobile", two young children receiving their First Holy Communion from the Holy Father (on the tongue!), a baby being baptized by the Pope, and a vintage picture of the Holy Father at his own First Holy Communion (along with a few paragraphs of his remembrance of the occasion).

The Text: Even better than the pictures is the text. Rather than someone else's interpretation of the Pope, we have the Pope himself, appealing to children to pray for him and for the world, to remember Jesus in the Eucharist even in their play and on vacation, renounce violence and learn to love peace in the way the Lord teaches us. They are very thoughtful and powerful passages to read and reflect upon for children of all ages The quotes are well-chosen and are so beautiful and revealing and contain so much truth about children that they would also make excellent meditations for newly-married couples and expectant mothers (and really all parents - even the best parents can use a healthy reminder of the great gifts God has given us in our children - particularly when the house is torn apart, the two year old is wreaking havoc and the baby is crying!!).

This book is filled with prayers for children from cover to cover! The premise of author Kelly Renz is that formal prayers are too distant from the language children use everyday. Moving through the liturgical year and reflecting specifically a reading from each daily mass, the prayers have been written in simple language and are of short length--five to seven lines at the most.

God Listens to Our Children may be very be useful in Catholic homeschool both for families that make it to daily mass and those who are not able to do so. In the first case the children will enjoy the opportunity to revisit the daily reading and in the second case they will have an opportunity to reflect on the mass readings. Sundays readings display cycles A, B and C options, while daily readings in ordinary time have both Year I and Year II passages.

The author has given each set of readings a simple theme, such as Trust, or Belief, Mercy, or Hearing God. An index lists all of the prayers' themes in the end, so users can also look for prayers specific to their changing needs. She has also listed one related Catechism passage below each set of daily prayers. The responsorial psalms for each day are also included.

If you are interested in purchasing this book to aid in the praying with your children, you might want to leaf over it beforehand and read a few prayers just to make sure the style is to your liking (I include a sample below). Although I am one to promote teaching children the richness of the formal (and more complex English) prayers of the Church, these simply phrased ones could be welcome and helpful at times.

Another note is on the absence of prayers related to the saints' feastdays. The author did, however, include prayers related to the two major Marian feasts of Immaculate Conception and the Assumption, as well as for All Saints Day. Maybe this would be material for a follow-up book?

Twenty-Fifth Tuesday in Ordinary Time

Pleasing God

Dear Lord, the book of Proverbs tells me a lot about how You see things. You look at each person's heart. May You look at my heart and be pleased. Show me how to make my heart more pleasing to You. Inspire me to read Proverbs and other books in Your bible.

God's Will Be Done is the story of Jonah and the Whale and The Wall is the story of the Fall of Jericho. Both Bible stories are presented as audio dramas, performed with full casts, music and sound effects. The shorter length and simpler dialogue of these in particular make them especially appealing to younger children.

Here are two great resources for Catholic bookshelves everywhere. Written by a homeschooling dad named Paul E. Nowak, Guerilla Apologetics for Catholics and Guerilla Apologetics for Life Issues are wonderful resources for educated debates on Catholicism and pro-life concerns.

I first heard about these books because my brother, Paul A. Nowak, did the cartoons in the Life Issues book. So, I do have a bit of bias on these books. But I really like the clean, direct apologetics contained in both of these slim volumes.

The slim paperback, Guerilla Apologetics for Catholics, is packed with fabulous information that is easy to read and important for all Catholics to understand.Guerilla Apologetics for Catholics starts with the Bible -- refutes that the Bible is the only source of revelation and that it doesn't say faith or personal acceptance of Jesus is enough -- then goes on to talk about who founded the Church, teachings with the authority of Christ, leadership traceable back to Christ, uses certain individuals as examples of how we should live, forgiveness of sins, Purgatory, sanctity and inviolability of marriage, and the sacrament of the Eucharist. All of these are discussed within a three-four page analysis that is direct and irrefutable.

The conclusion of the book includes recommendations for further reading and almost a dozen lined pages for notes.

The Guerilla Apologetics for Life Issues is much the same in format except that it states each argument in the form of a question rather than a statement. When does life begin, can choices be wrong, and does legality mean right-ness are just the first three questions. The safety and life issues for the mom are the next concerns. The book continues with asking questions about the veracity of population control statistics, benefits of embryonic stem cell research and euthanasia. The final question is the traditional ultimate apologetics question -- "what if you're wrong" -- attributed to Pascal's famous "wager".

As with Nowak's earlier volume, Life Issues does not have many wasted words or pages. And, "ya gotta" love the cartoons done by my brother (although I do wish the prints had been a bit clearer)!