One Catholic Life

One Catholic Life Blog

January 24, 2018

Prayer in the Digital Age by Matt Swaim

I’m a tech guy and a Catholic school administrator, so I was very interested when a kind-hearted school parent gave me a copy of Matt Swaim’s Prayer in the Digital Age. I was hoping it would give me insights into how to help students cultivate the habit of prayer in today’s digital world. The blurb on the back promised “practical suggestions for learning how to ‘unplug’ in order to cultivate a fruitful relationship with God.” Unfortunately, the book’s suggestions were lost in a sea of negativity, generalizations, and judgments....

Book Review / Books and Reading

January 23, 2018

Tripwire (Jack Reacher #3) by Lee Child

A Jack Reacher book is a lot like a popcorn movie: if you just go with it and don’t think about it too much, then it can be pretty entertaining. Tripwire is the third book in the series and the fourth Reacher book I’ve read, and while it was entertaining, it’s my least favorite. Not that it’s bad, it’s just not the Jack Reacher story I was anticipating. The book is more of an investigative mystery than an adrenaline-pumping action thriller. Tripwire features a more introspective Jack Reacher, a man...

Books and Reading

January 22, 2018

Les Misérables Chapter-a-Day Read-along: The Monstrous Waters

With day twenty-two of the Les Misérables Chapter-a-Day Read-along upon us, we reach “The Deep and the Dark,” one of the most fascinating chapters of the book so far — at least to me. Hugo’s considerable poetry skills are on full display, and from this chapter it is easy to see why Hugo is more famous in France for his poetry than for his novels or plays. “The Deep and the Dark” is a chapter-long metaphor that uses the sea to represent the fate of convicts. The chapter attempts...

Homily

January 21, 2018

One Chapter a Day: Homily for the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Many of you know that Les Misérables is one of my favorite books, but it’s a long one, almost 1500 pages, so reading it takes a while. Last year I found out that it has exactly 365 chapters, so I decided that in 2018 I would read one chapter a day, starting on January 1st and going to December 31st. They’re short chapters, about 5 pages or so, and I I thought it would be kind of a meditation and exercise in patience and delayed gratification to read...

Books and Reading / Twitter

January 20, 2018

#LesMisReadalong on Twitter: Week 3 Highlights

As readers are finishing week three of the Les Misérables Chapter-a-Day Read-along, the Twitter chat has been informative and fun. You can be a part of the Les Mis action by using the hashtag #LesMisReadalong. Here’s a sampling of the tweets from this past week: https://twitter.com/bronasbooks/status/952783356302774272 https://twitter.com/bronasbooks/status/952819730447925248 https://twitter.com/burns_nancy/status/952887291390898177 https://twitter.com/MissCarrieLA/status/952930490943713285 The good woman touched the man's arm and pointed out to him on the other side of the square a little low house beside the bishop's palace."You have knocked at every door?" she asked."Yes.""Have you knocked at that one?""No.""Knock...

Books and Reading

January 18, 2018

Deal Me In Story #3: Buffalo Horns by Arthur Winfield Knight

Card Drawn: Q♠ Anthology: The Montanans, edited by Bill Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg Story: “Buffalo Horns,” by Arthur Winfield Knight, 1991 For the first western short story of the Deal Me In Challenge, “Buffalo Horns” was a bit unusual. The story takes place in 1929 in Hardin, Montana. Not exactly the heart of the West. But that’s the point of this story, I guess. It’s a wistful look back at a time gone by, more of a vignette than a story. It’s beautiful in its own way, but...

Book Review / Books and Reading

January 17, 2018

Pope Francis and the Joy of the Gospel by Edward Sri

This past December our pastor gave each member of the parish staff a copy of Pope Francis and the Joy of the Gospel: Rediscovering the Heart of a Disciple by Edward Sri. He asked us to read it because his focus for the parish in 2018 is on our baptismal call to share the Good News. Sri’s book fits this focus because it’s is a distillation and explanation of The Joy of the Gospel, an apostolic exhortation published by Pope Francis in 2013. A pope writes an apostolic exhortation in order to...

Book Review / Books and Reading

January 16, 2018

Classics Club #18: Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas is one of my favorite all-time books. I might even put it up there with the likes of The Lord of the Rings, Master and Commander, and Don Quixote. And like the characters in those other books, the characters in The Three Musketeers are old friends of mine. I love hanging out not only with D’Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos, but also with their servants Planchet, Mousqueton, Grimaud, and Bazin. I’ve read the book maybe three of four times in my life, most recently in...

Books and Reading

January 15, 2018

Les Misérables Chapter-a-Day Read-along: The Beginning

I once read that almost every story begins in either one of two ways: someone goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town. The journey story is as well known as The Odyssey, Gulliver’s Travels, The Grapes of Wrath, The Lord of the Rings, and Journey to the Center of the Earth. But think about the other type of story, the tale that begins with the arrival of a stranger. For example: The events of To Kill a Mockingbird get started “the summer Dill came to us, when Dill...

Books and Reading / Twitter

January 14, 2018

#LesMisReadalong on Twitter: Week 2 Highlights

The tweets keep coming in the Les Misérables Chapter-a-Day Read-along. We’ve finally reached the end of Book 1: A Good Man, and I’ll have a new read-along post up tomorrow to wrap it up and look forward to Book 2. In the meantime, enjoy this post which gathers some of the tweets from the second week. A big Thank You! to everyone who’s sharing their favorite quotes, thoughts on translation, struggles, victories, and all the other other ways Les Misérables is affecting you. You’re making this read-along an interactive adventure, and...

Deal Me In Short Story Challenge Queen of Hearts

Books and Reading

January 9, 2018

Deal Me In Story #2: Angelfish by Lester Dent

Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, The Continental Op, these are the hardboiled detectives. Tough and no-nonsense, they fought crime in the pages of pulp magazines like Black Mask, Dime Detective and Detective Fiction Weekly. Some of their stories are collected in The Hardboiled Dicks, edited by Ron Goulart, where this week’s Deal Me In story comes from. Card Drawn: Q♥ Anthology: The Hardboiled Dicks edited by Ron Goulart Story: “Angelfish” by Lester Dent, 1936 When I was choosing and organizing my short stories for this year’s Deal Me In Challenge, I was excited...

Books and Reading

January 8, 2018

Les Misérables Chapter-a-Day Read-along: The Bishop

Welcome to week two of the Les Misérables Chapter-a-Day Read-along. We’re now seven chapters into the book, and the story so far has been dominated by one man: the Bishop of Digne. Dominated is probably too strong a word for someone with his humility and charity, but he certainly makes an impression, and for all the right reasons. To my mind, the Bishop of Digne is one of the most memorable saintly characters in all of literature. But he almost wasn’t. Get Rid of That Bishop In the mid 1800’s,...