If I’m going to be honest as a reviewer, I have to say that I didn’t want to like this book. That’s a terrible thing. First of all, I generally prefer not to review books I don’t think I’ll like. I made an exception for Wild at Heart. It seemed like the natural follow-up to… [Read More]
When Religion Gets Real (Review: “Yom Kippur as Manifest in an Approaching Dorsal Fin”)
If I were Jewish, I would still write about my faith. I’m not Jewish, and I don’t plan on becoming a Jew. But I am Catholic, and you can probably tell from my writing here at Austin CNM or on my personal blog that I write a lot about my faith. It’s such a huge… [Read More]
Choosing to Love, Now and Every Day (Review: “Chastity Is for Lovers”)
Whether or not you’re a virgin, chastity is for you. I read a lot about chastity. You might have noticed that if you’ve read any of my writing here at Austin CNM. I recently re-discovered the blog of Arleen Spenceley, a chastity advocate and professional journalist, when I got word of her new book for… [Read More]
Called to Love (Review: Gay & Catholic)
If not for my particular faith journey, I might never have read this book. I started going to church at the age many people first stop. Campus ministry is how I met Gabriel, who blogs at Mudblood Catholic. His writing is highly philosophical and remarkably eloquent. I enjoy his writing because he is honest, faithful,… [Read More]
The Necessity of Hope (Review: The Children of Men)
Dystopia is hot right now. Perhaps, seeing how situations that were once born of slippery slope fallacies are becoming recent history, more and more people are drawn to depictions of worlds gone terribly wrong. How bad could it get? How would humanity be saved? Since we live in a culture where many people have separated… [Read More]
Behold the Face of God with a Pure Heart (Review: “Bought with a Price”)
Much has been said regarding the celebrity nude photo leak involving Jennifer Lawrence, among others. Lawrence partly explained having such photos at all by saying her long-distance boyfriend would either look at porn or look at her. Wrong. No one should look at pornography. Reflecting on Lawrence’s statement and reading a post by Bishop Paul… [Read More]
Discernment Demands Wisdom (Review: Decision Making & the Will of God)
I put considerable time into thinking about the decisions I make. I’m pretty indecisive by nature, so I have things like the two-minute rule 1 and the alphabet rule 2 to keep me from being paralyzed by too many choices. Lately, I’ve been considering some of life’s most important choices. My friends and I talk… [Read More]
Can the Old Be Made New Again? (Review: “Restoring the Sacred in Omaha”)
You know we are living in strange times when an article is shared on Facebook 2,800 times yet I only see it because an old friend posted it. I was intrigued because I keep my eyes open for new perspectives on books or ideas that have already crossed my mind. In this case, it’s my… [Read More]
A Response to “Why Nuns Don’t Have Mid-Life Crises”
I probably watch more YouTube videos than I should, and I probably also think about nuns more than your average YouTube video viewer. I love it when those sides of me unite, though. In my wandering about the Internet, I stumbled across a delightful video from a TEDx talk at Virginia Tech, “Why Nuns Don’t… [Read More]
A Manifesto for the New Revolution (Review: “A Return to Modesty”)
My journey to embracing modesty would be incomplete without “the step, step, pull down” and Wendy Shalit. I have had three major clothing conversions in my life. The first was when I acknowledged that, although I could get attention from men based on my body, that was not the kind of attention I wanted, so… [Read More]
Straight from the Shepherd’s Mouth (Review: “Open Mind, Faithful Heart”)
I don’t really have an opinion on Pope Francis yet. I mean, he’s the pope, so I follow his authority on Earth and all that, but I don’t know whether I like his individual personality or not (as much as that matters). I realize that he’s been pope for over a year, however, I am… [Read More]
Naming Your Antagonist (Review: “Something Other Than God”)
The world is actually quite small. I’m a military brat, and I’ve lived in multiple U.S. cities and states for non-government reasons, as well, so I know a few things about incredible connections. Being part of the Catholic blogosphere adds an additional dimension to those connections. I followed Jen Fulwiler’s blog, Conversion Diary, for some… [Read More]
Rediscovering Hope (Review: “The Catholic Girl’s Survival Guide for the Single Years”)
I spend about half of my lunch break at work on Facebook, but I like to read something other than statuses and blogs for the second half. When I took this book to work, I was so embarrassed that I was careful to hide the cover. I work for a secular employer, and most of… [Read More]
Playing Dr. Frankenstein Again (Review: “UnWholly”)
I was in middle school when I discovered Harry Potter. I got into it because I heard it was popular in the U.S. (Living in Europe, I didn’t really know much about its actual popularity at the time.) It only took a few chapters before I was hooked. Occasionally I stumble across a book that… [Read More]
You Thought Your Dinner Took Forever? (Review: “Thanksgiving”)
Holidays can be tough. At their core, they’re supposed to be a celebration of great joy. They involved people, though, and often families, and relationships among individuals always have the potential to get very, very messy. Now take that, multiply it by 350 years, add a turkey dinner, and you’ve got Thanksgiving, by Ellen Cooney…. [Read More]
A Little Story of the Little Way (Review: “The Story of a Soul”)
If you’ve been reading my reviews here for a while, you know that I love stories. I frequently remind you, dear readers, that I love stories because it helps explain my affinity for movies with bad acting or TV shows with morally objectionable content (which, these days, is all the shows). From the story of… [Read More]
Choosing Sides (Review: “The Great Divorce”)
This may be the hardest review I’ve ever had to write for Austin CNM. It’s not my last (unless the Lord knows something I don’t), and it’s not because I don’t know how to express myself here. It’s because I’m not quite sure how I can impress upon you the importance of this book and… [Read More]
A Book That Changed My Mind (Review: “The End of the Affair”)
I can’t stand cheaters—the romantic kind, not the board game kind. (Okay, both kinds.) Trust in relationships is so important that I shudder when anything that purports to be entertaining makes infidelity seem okay. That’s why I don’t like The Notebook, and that’s why I regret seeing Something Borrowed, although I do like Ginnifer Goodwin…. [Read More]
The Rope is Hope (Review: “Delivered”)
As you know, I read a lot. I believe that we read because it teaches us what it means to be human. Most of the nonfiction I read is for Austin CNM these days, so it doesn’t all apply to me. My job here is not just to share what I think and feel about… [Read More]
Don’t Just Read the Bible; Pray It (Review: “Praying Scripture for a Change”)
Praying is hard. I’ll admit it: I find it difficult to pray. Do you? Whether you struggle to pay attention while praying (“Lord, I know I need to—hey, what’s that noise?—focus more”), you don’t know what to pray about (“Let’s see…. Hmm. Am I supposed to pray about what to pray about?”), or you don’t… [Read More]
The Best Nightmare Ever (Review: “The Man Who Was Thursday”)
Sometimes I forget how much I love fiction. History is important because, if we don’t learn from it, we are doomed to repeat it. Theology is critical because we never stop learning about God, even after we die. But fiction can expand our world into real-life versions of what happens in our dreams—or in our… [Read More]
Grieving with God (Review: “A Grief Observed”)
As we near the end of November, the month in which we remember the dead, it seems appropriate to think about how death affects those left behind. As believers in particular, we carry the hope of the resurrection, but we were never promised we wouldn’t feel pain, loneliness, and loss. Theology can only console a… [Read More]
Never Be Ashamed of Your Mother (Review: “Hail, Holy Queen”)
To be Catholic is to love Mary. Although Marian devotion is not nearly as much of a dividing line now (between Catholics and those who could be Catholics) as it once was, it remains a hallmark of Catholicism. If I see a rosary hanging from a rearview mirror, I know that car is probably driven… [Read More]
Backing Your Way Into the Truth about Love (Review: “The Love That Satisfies”)
I’m no stranger to reflection. I think my life would be very different if I were not such an introspective person by nature. I can point to a few specific moments when my habit of thinking deeply before acting has actually changed my life. Generally, though, I trust my own thoughts more than anyone else’s,… [Read More]
More Than Preaching to the Birds (Review: Francis of Assisi: A New Biography)
I really like saints. This is fortunate, because I am a Catholic and can therefore experience the fullness of communion with those brothers and sisters in Christ that have gone before us. I have my extra-special favorites and my preferred companions, and then there are saints that I’m pretty apathetic about. For me, St. Francis… [Read More]
Much Better than Zombies (Review: “The Returned”)
Please accept my apologies for my unplanned hiatus. My life outside of Austin CNM got the best of me, but I’m back in action now, and I have recently finished one of the most inventive and lyrical novels I’ve read in a long time. Death scares us. It’s not quite as terrifying as public speaking,… [Read More]
A (Chaste) Movie Review of “Don Jon”
After my last post on pornography, I felt it was only fitting that I follow that up with my take on the new movie by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, called “Don Jon”. If you haven’t seen the trailer, it’s about a young man who is into fast cars, hookups and porn. Oh, and he claims to be… [Read More]
Your Intro to RCIA (Review: “Waking Up Catholic”)
The journey to Catholicism can be a winding one. Some sharp stones have been pressed in by years of habit, and some gems are waiting just around the next bend. It can be tricky to navigate the path. Sometimes you want a companion on the journey. Sometimes you just want a simple road map. Waking… [Read More]
Wandering Through Worldviews (Review: “Starting at the End”)
Living in a Catholic bubble can be nice, but I like to pop my head outside and take a look around every now and then. In the context of Austin CNM, that means reading books by non-Catholics or without explicit religious themes for this Catholic book review column. Sometimes that leads me to gems like… [Read More]
Breaking Open Revelation (Review: “The Lamb’s Supper”)
I love learning. That sounds so cheesy, but I really do! My favorite learning experiences are always connected to finding out earth-shattering new information about something I thought I already knew well. I used to think that car turn signals were activated by the car (not the driver; in-car navigation systems seemed unremarkable at first!),… [Read More]
Roamin’ Home (Review: “Confessions of a Mega-Church Pastor”)
I love conversion stories. As a cradle Catholic who lapsed for a few years, I have my own story of coming to know Christ and his one true Church, but I am always fascinated by the journeys other people have taken to get to Catholicism. Some of my favorites are the stories that came with… [Read More]
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry: A Review
I have a thing for pilgrimage stories. It shouldn’t really come as a surprise, I suppose, since my personal (and currently neglected) blog is entitled This Pilgrim’s Progress. Knowing that alone, however,might not tip you off to how much I thoroughly rave about the film The Way, or the fact that I’ve listened to the… [Read More]
The God Who Is Just Like You (Review: “Strange Gods”)
I don’t worship false gods, at least not on purpose. Let me explain. I never say I was raised Catholic. My mom’s side of the family is Catholic, which is the reason I am a Catholic (although not the reason I remain one). We didn’t go to church for most of my childhood. Because of… [Read More]
Meditations on Mama Mary (Review: “The World’s First Love”)
Oh, May: the month of flowers, of the fullness of spring, of mothers, and especially of the Blessed Mother, Mary, the Mother of God. I must confess that I didn’t quite realize the convergence of these annual symbols when I selected my next book for this column; the Holy Spirit surprises me like that sometimes…. [Read More]
Every Woman’s Mission (Review: “Blessed, Beautiful, and Bodacious”)
I’ve been thinking a lot about mission lately: what I want from my life and from my work, and whether what I actually do with the time God gives me is working toward those goals. If it’s not, then I am really just wasting time. I’m more than just a cute machine, though; being the… [Read More]
What Love Really Means (Review: “The Four Loves”)
Love is complicated. After I came back to the Church, I realized that the world’s definition of love wasn’t going to cut it. I knew that it had to be more than just a feeling, but I was still confused. How could I define something so powerful, so sacred, and so broadly applicable to everything… [Read More]
The Irish Struggle (Review: “Flight of the Earls”)
As a Notre Dame grad, I am always in the company of proud Irishmen (and women). Even though St. Patrick’s Day was suppressed for the Fifth Sunday of Lent this year, I managed to wear a little bit of green, and I randomly heard a track from my twin friends’ St. Patrick’s Day compilation on… [Read More]
The Purpose-Driven Catholic Church (Review: “Rebuilt”)
I am a parish employee. Campus ministry works in some significantly different ways than geographical parishes, but for practical purposes (such as when people ask what I do), I work in a parish. I’m betting pretty strongly that most of you reading this either currently belong to a parish, go to Mass, or used to… [Read More]
Your New Catholic Toolkit (Review: “The Confirmed Catholic’s Companion”)
“Now, Lindsay,” you might say, “it’s barely Lent! Confirmation season isn’t for months!” Well, you’re right. It’s not Confirmation season, and except in emergencies, no one is going to be confirmed for at least six more weeks. That makes it the perfect time to consider not only what delightful Catholic reference book you’re going to… [Read More]
When Your Very Own Ideas Are the Truth (Review: “Orthodoxy”)
I like reading. I’d be crazy to have written a book review column for a year and a half if I didn’t like reading. But, in addition to reading, I like getting to know people. I’m an interesting person to make friends with because I have a knack for focusing very intentionally on developing the… [Read More]
