Review: The Little Way of Lent

Another review coming to you courtesy of my wife, Chistiane. This one on a book of Lenten meditations written in the spirit of St. Therese of Liseux. Enjoy.

----

The Little Way of Lent, by Fr. Gary Caster

Fr. Caster delivers. In The Little Way of Lent, he offers meditations that focus on the mass readings for each day, with quotes from the autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux. Lent, he says, can be a season of joy, if only we will focus on God and His love instead of on ourselves.

What Fr. Caster offers us is the chance to look at Lent in a different way. We shouldn’t be trying to prove ourselves to God, because we can’t. Instead, we can remember, indeed, revel in, our own littleness, as St. Therese did. We can’t make ourselves into what God wants, but He can. We can only offer him our little gifts, our small sacrifices, because we love Him.

In small, daily steps, centering on the mass readings for each day from Ash Wednesday to Easter Vigil, he meditates on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, but with the focus always on God as the inspiration and source of strength for our actions.

I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a deeper Lenten experience. Its day by day, small steps approach makes a meaningful, joyful Lenten journey possible for even the busiest Catholic.

----

Thanks to the Catholic Company for sharing this book with me. As part of the FTC rules, I have to be clear that they gave this book to us in order to elicit a review. The Catholic Company is also a great source for first communion gifts and baptism gifts.

Review: Celebrating Saints and Seasons

This review comes from my wife, Christiane Little, who is a Catholic homeschooling mom of four. She's very crafty (in a good way :) ) and likes to do projects with the kids, so it seemed like a good fit.

----

Celebrating Saints and Seasons, by Jeanne Hunt

I didn’t really like this book initially. Firstly, this is not a craft book. There are no coloring pages or neat little patterns for ornaments. Instead, there are ideas, ranging from simple, like using flower stickers to create a Lenten countdown calendar, to more challenging projects, like planning a New Year’s campout. Organized by month, the book offers suggestions for seasonal celebrations like Earth Day and Thanksgiving as well as memorials of Saints and other heroes like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King Jr. There’s a wealth of material, a boon to anyone finding themselves short of ideas.   

The book did grow on me after a bit. However, there are features that I find less useful. The “prayers” in each section are basically (sometimes overly flowery) prose poems. They may work well for personal meditation for the parent and educator—a number of them, to be fair, are thoughtful and/or beautiful – but will not appeal to nor be appreciated by most children.

The other feature that I found unappealing was the inclusion of guided meditations and pseudo-liturgies for home and possibly school use. These might work with a group of teens or pre-teens, but I doubt they would be very enthusiastic about them. The points made in the course of these rituals would be more likely to make an impression if presented in a less formulaic way.   

Overall, I’d recommend this volume to anyone looking to plan engaging activities with a Catholic slant for kids and family. It’s definitely geared towards adults, not kids, though. These aren’t ready-made projects; most require some degree of planning. However, with a little imagination, parents and educators will find plenty of ways to use the material presented here to enrich their lives and the lives of the children they work with.

----

Thanks to the Catholic Company for sharing this book with me. As part of the FTC rules, I have to be clear that they gave this book to us in order to elicit a review. The Catholic Company is also a great source for first communion gifts and baptism gifts.