Happy Epiphany and a very blessed New Year Dear Readers!

The Book Club will be meeting second Fridays of the month, in the morning, in the one-level Conference Center off the lower parking lot. Sometimes we’re in the room way in the back so be sure to step through the kitchen and find us.

In 2020 the second Friday falls on Good Friday. No meeting in April.

Meeting time is after Mass and (new) after a respectful amount of time to participate in the Friday Eucharistic Adoration group prayers in the chapel after 8:30 am Mass. That sounds like sometime around 9:30 am, perhaps a little bit later.

A note: many times someone has said to me, well, I’d come to Book Club, but I haven’t finished / started / gotten the book. Please come anyway. The meetings are structured so you can still take something away. And the club is ministry, not a repeat of school: the Holy Spirit might just use you to give us something the rest of us need to hear!

The coming Friday morning, January 10th, we’ll discuss In the School of the Holy Spirit by Fr. Jacques Philippe.

Meet the Author! Father Jacques is leading a retreat in Oceanside at Prince of Peace Abbey in Oceanside on February 8th! $35.00. Call Patrice or Christine at 760.603.8669 for info.

Proposed 2020 Selections

February: Pope Fiction Patrick Madrid. For, as he’d put it on the radio, your “good to know” file.
March: The Case for Christ Lee Stroebel. Foray into work by a non-Catholic author, and seems like perfect Lenten reading. I know two people whose conversion to Christianity was from the one / two punch of this book plus Mere Christianity, and CS Lewis didn’t happen to be a Catholic either. There is a 2016 new edition.
April: no meeting
May: Our Marian book Virgin, Mother, Queen: Encountering Mary in Time and Tradition Fastiggi and O’Neill. Apparitions corresponding to the Holy Names of Mary. (There’s a Bouguereau painting on the cover; the San Diego Museum of Art has a large exhibit of his work through mid-March. I’m a painter so I pay attention to that stuff.)
June: Into Your Hands Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us Fr. Stinnisen. Surrender, healing, peace. This will probably be the key book of the year.
July: Loved as I Am: An Invitation to Conversion, Healing, and Freedom through Jesus by Sr. Miriam James Heidland. Testimony, which happens to have a lot to do with Theology of the Body. This is a message of human dignity and identity the world needs.
August: Summer fiction Diary of a Country Priest Georges Bernanos
This fall how about a Saints Series; aligns with the fall Adult Faith Formation series on Discernment / Saints Ignatius / Teresa of Avila / Frances de Sales and the Christmas Matthew Kelly Saints book giveaway
September: The Witness of Early Christian Women: Mothers of the Church Mike Aquilina
October: John of the Cross (Saints by Our Side) George P. Evans. St. John of the Cross (as well as his fellow Carmelite and contemporary St. Teresa of Avila) sounds hard; this is hopefully a simple introduction to his life, times, and thought.
November: Rediscover the Saints: Twenty-Five Questions That Will Change Your Life Matthew Kelly copies given away at 2019 Christmas Masses
December: well, we haven’t always met in December; and this book, while Christian-themed, probably appeals more to my nostalgia for reading children’s books around Christmastime than Advent spirituality. Still, I have never read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis!

See you Friday! May the Lord order your days and deeds in His Peace! Happy Reading, Karla

20 + C + M + B + 20 https://aleteia.org/2018/01/05/how-to-bless-your-home-with-epiphany-chalk/