A New Dream

From Seton Magazine:

I have always had this dream of a perfect cottage garden. The carefully bedded out plants which are planted with an eye toward harmony and blending of color, shape and size. I would also love to have a perfect French potager right outside of my kitchen.

When I dreamed of having a family I had a similar kind of vision, and when my oldest son Ryan was born I pictured a smart, athletic kid who would read books, play games, have lots of friends and someday find a nice girl (of whom I approved!) and settle down to giving me beautiful grandchildren.

The reality of that was very different. Ryan was diagnosed with autism when he was three years old. I had an eighteen-month-old and was six months pregnant. My husband and I knew this diagnosis was coming but we were still heartsick at the official-ness of calling our son ‘disabled’.

The dream died a little that day but I have to say that after the mourning period it wasn’t that hard for us to look at the situation, see what was good and adjust the dream. We revived it rather than bury it and we surrendered to the plan that God had for our family. He made this leap of faith in trusting us with this extraordinary child and we had to believe that the Almighty had a plan and that we needed His help to accomplish it. (Read more.)

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A Lady's Maid

From History of the 18th and 19th Centuries:

The job of a lady's maid was, according to one author, "far from laborious, and [was], in most instances, little more than an agreeable exercise of useful qualities." Besides serving as a confident and secret keeper, a lady's maid was also responsible to attend to all of the personal needs of her lady and acted in ways similar to a gentleman's valet. To achieve this, a lady's maid needed to have an arsenal of various skills, and many of a lady maid's talents were connected with her mistress's toilette and wardrobe. Duties included selecting clothing and millinery that highlighted and improved her mistress's complexion and figure. It also meant a lady's maid was responsible to protect, maintain, and repair her mistress's skin so that she would be less likely to suffer from age spots, freckles, pimples, moles, warts, wrinkles, or other skin imperfections. Headdresses and hairstyles were another vital component of a mistress's toilette, and no woman wanted to look ridiculous just to be in vogue. A lady's maid also had to balance the latest fashions, makeup, and millinery styles with her mistress's physical advantages and disadvantages. Moreover, the lady's maid had to ensure that when her mistress stepped into the street, the mistress reflected her best work. (Read more.)

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The Kirkus Review

An Irish Penal Cross

An exceptional review of The Paradise Tree from Kirkus Reviews:

An Irish immigrant builds a new life in Canada, the decades marked by marriage, children and the odd otherworldly encounter. 

Vidal (Madame Royale, 2010, etc.) successfully transforms family stories into a historical novel that chronicles the life of her great-great-great-grandfather, Daniel O'Connor, who established a homestead in Ontario in the 19th century. O'Connor, a blacksmith living in County Cork, Ireland, is frustrated in his desire to train as a doctor because of English laws restricting Catholics' religious freedom and economic chances. When the political activities of his wild younger brother Owen cast suspicion on O'Connor, he flees Ireland, carrying just two mementos of his homeland--a white rosebush uprooted by his mother and a "paradise tree," a wooden crucifix so called because it represents a ladder of suffering to climb to heaven. Nine years later he has carved Long Point farm out of the wilderness, creating a home despite the new continent's own anti-Catholic prejudice. He marries Brigit, a girl 18 years younger than he is, then almost loses her to Owen, who arrives at the farm after his own midnight departure from Eire. But when a vision of his mother appears to him, hands on hips, he finds the will to throw his brother out of the house and confront his bride. She sobs and swears she will die of shame, insisting, " 'Oh, yes, I will die. I will,' she choked. 'But fret not....I'll be getting over it.' " And she does, bearing 11 children. The novel follows them as they grow to adulthood, marry and have children of their own, with each section of the book told through the eyes of a different character. 

Though the story unwinds slowly, it never drags. An imaginative, meticulously told history that will especially appeal to those with Irish roots.

The Paradise Tree is available from Amazon. Share

Restoration of Sacred Beauty

From Crisis:

Some of the most jarring evidence of internal unsettledness in the Church over the past century has been the drastic physical alteration of older church interiors, often to a point of becoming unrecognizable as what they once were. Such alterations were enforced based on the assumption that the buildings, along with the liturgy and other sacraments inside them, needed to cede to the thinking of the times in order to remain relevant with modern Catholics.

Had this been a truly successful endeavor—or even a correct initial assumption on which to base such an endeavor—we should be able to observe, after all these years, that the majority of lay people actually want their churches to look and feel like casual living rooms or concert halls. Yet, according to Fr. Jamie Hottovy of the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, a growing body of evidence would seem to suggest exactly the opposite.

A priest with a background in architecture, Fr. Hottovy is part of a team that advises on church renovations throughout the diocese. He finds that more often than not, parishioners have not so much embraced modernism as tolerated it over the years because they’ve felt that they had no choice. “When they’re shown what their church could look like, the enthusiasm and response is amazing,” he says. “Every renovation has very intentional theological and symbolic weight to it, and people have been hungering for that.”

The point is not only to have a church that looks nice, but that communicates and teaches the truths of the faith to a world bombarded by competing messaging. “We live in the most visually stimulated culture the world has ever seen,” he says. “We as a Church have to have a valid and compelling visual language. To recapture that is needed now more than ever.” (Read more.)

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A Review and An Interview

Thanks to Luann for the rave review of The Paradise Tree and  the great interview questions! To quote:

The Paradise Tree by Elena Maria Vidal is a sweeping tale of an Irish-Canadian family that I happily dare to mention in the same breath as Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind.  We get to see a fair amount of the family's life while still in Ireland, where they suffered state-condoned harassment and discrimination on account of their Catholic religion.

To escape imprisonment, Daniel emigrates to Canada, hoping to find a better climate in which to live and raise a family of his own.  He's practically just off the boat, looking for work, and someone says, "Just don't tell me you are Catholic."  Daniel proudly claimed his religion.  That earned him points with me.  I've heard it said that if we don't stand for something, we'll fall for anything.  Daniel, and most of his family are fine examples of that maxim.

But Daniel's work ethic and honor win over a lot of people, who otherwise probably wouldn't have given him the time of day.  He finds a good Catholic girl (who is considerably younger than him) to be his bride and they have a number of children.  I believe two of them do not survive to adulthood, and the deaths are handled with the sensitivity and sadness that go along with the passing of family members.

One part that I found both intriguing and charming is that Daniel regularly invited a Protestant minister and his assistant to supper with his family, and lively debates over religious topics peppered the meal-time conversations.  I know that parts of the book had to be fictionalized, due to the long time since these events occurred, but I hope this bit has a kernel or two of truth in it.  These supper debates took place because Daniel felt that his children should be able to defend their faith if called upon so to do, and this was a good way for them to listen and learn.

Ms. Vidal was a new author to me before I read The Paradise Tree.  I am now a huge fan!  I subscribe to her blog and everything she's ever written for distribution is on my TBR (to be read) list.  If you enjoy history and/or historical fiction, you'll become a fan too. (Read more.)

The Paradise Tree is available from Amazon. Share

Maria Amalia and Her Children

One of Marie-Antoinette's sisters, the Duchess of Parma, gives an example of maternal solicitude by breastfeeding her child. Via Tiny-Librarian. Share

Diabólica vitáre contágia

From Fr. Mark:

If the Church makes us pray to avoid contact with the devil, it is because such contact is possible. The very mention of contact with the devil conjures up images of Pan Twardowski and of Faust, of Madame Blavatsky and of Huysman’s Là–bas. Sadly, contact with the devil is not limited to the infernal dalliances of philosophers, artists, theosophists, and decadent aesthetes. If there is a weak point in any man’s life — and there always is — the devil will find it and use it, be that man lettered or unlettered, rich or poor, young or old, believer or unbeliever, impious or devout, clerical or lay.

One can come into contact with the devil either by deliberately seeking it, or inadvertently by taking foolish risks or by placing oneself recklessly in harm’s way. I shall not address the first possibility; it lies, to my mind, among those things that Saint Paul says, “should not so much as be named among you” (Ephesians 5:3). The question of foolish risks, however, must be named; such risks include everything related to the occult, including Tarot cards, fortune–telling, the ouija board, spiritualistic practices, and superstitions. (See my post on Blessed Bartolo Longo here.) This is, by no means, an exhaustive list. One engaged in the illicit pursuit of possessions, pleasure, or power can be certain that the Evil One is lying in wait for him along the way.  The devil is always ready to ambush the unsuspecting adventurer. He bides his time. He “goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8), but he also slithers along silently like a deadly viper quick to strike. (Read more.)

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A Little Prince

The Comte d'Artois' eldest son and heir, the future husband of Madame Royale. Share

Mysticism and Magisterium, Part III

From Spiritual Direction:

The function of Tradition is to transmit the deposit of faith from one generation to the next as Christ delivered it to the Apostles. The apostolic mark of the true Church assures that this function is realized within Catholic ecclesial body that Christ founded. This means that the bishops, especially the bishop of Rome, trace their succession back to the Apostles and have received through their ordination the mandate to teach in Christ’s name. Thus, in the bishops, “the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ” (Dei Verbum 10).

This does not mean that everything every bishop, or even the pope says is guaranteed to be without error. Nor is there any assurance that every bishop at each moment will fulfill his mandate to teach only as Christ and the Apostles taught. But the working of divine providence is not restricted to the exercise of papal infallibility or the solemn declarations and condemnations of ecumenical councils. Christ is present in the details and His providence is exercised in and through the Church that He founded. (Read more.)

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