St. Peter’s

Today is the Memorial of the Dedication of the Churches of Sts. Peter and Paul – St. Peter’s Basilica and St. Paul’s-Outside-the-Walls.

(It’s also the memorial of St. Rose Philippine Duchesne)

In honor of the former, I want to share a book with you – a fairly new book, written by a priest from the Diocese of Charleston:

It’s called Encountering the Lord in His Holy Court: A Walk Through St. Peter’s Basilica – and it’s exactly what it is.

Fr. Jeffrey Kirby was a seminarian at the North American College when we went to Rome in 2006. Bishop Baker suggested we contact him for a tour of St. Peter’s (that is a ministry that the seminarians at the NAC do routinely). It was a wonderful tour, and I don’t know if the book came about because Michael suggested it or then-Deacon Kirby had been thinking about it anyway, but whatever the case, he wrote it – and it is available here. It’s a very nice little book – whether you will ever go to Rome or not. (I blurbed it, btw)

Fr. Kirby is back in Rome, studying once more, and he’s blogging - it’s a very interesting blog and he has a lot going on.

Besides his blog, Fr. Kirby is keeping in contact with Charleston through writing a column for the diocesan paper, one with a focus I can’t help but be interested in - death and dying. The first column in the series is here and the archive is here.

Speaking of the liturgy and today, I was struck by this from St. Augustine in the Office of Readings:

But how can we rejoice in the Lord if he is far from us? Pray God he may not be far. If he is, that is your doing. Love, and he will draw near; love, and he will dwell within you. The Lord is at hand; have no anxiety. Are you puzzled to know how it is that he will be with you if you love? God is love.

And…it’s up

The Kindle version of The Fourth Rule: St. Benedict’s Guide to Life is up. It’s odd that the book description isn’t up, but maybe I missed a step on that one. I’ll have to go back and look.

It’s very strange and startling to me that this can be so easily done.  I had reformatted the book for Smashwords, which took about 30 minutes to get the Word document in the shape in which they require, and didn’t change much for the Kindle edition.  I clicked a few buttons and it was done – tossed out there into the deep…a published book.  Okay, e-book. With a limited potential audience. But honestly…think about the alternative. Even if I could get a publisher to pick this one up or self-publish it, would it be reaching any more people? If I got a few copies on bookshelves in the midst of thousands of other titles in real bookstores, would anyone find them?

It’s a tiny part of the market at this point, but the potential is..interesting.

Hearts ‘a-bustin

Today would have been Michael’s 51st birthday.  So it’s a good day to roll out some titles.

First, I have taken the e-book plunge, as I threatened a couple of months ago.  I am using Smashwords as a hosting site and vendor – yes, there is a lot of junk there, but it *seems* to be functional, is in the process of partnering with Barnes and Noble and other distributors and so on.

You can download a title in just about any format, suitable for any device. You can download a plain old HTML or plain text file and read it on your computer or print it out. You can download a pdf and do the same or read it on an ereader. You can download it in formats good for reading on your phone or Kindle.  As I’ve mentioned, it’s not my thing (yet), but a growing number of people are indeed, using ebooks and are reading books on their smart phones, so here we go

…

The first title is a short booklet of Advent meditations, so you can download it for..$0.00.

You can download it here.

He wrote it a few years ago, so the entries don’t match *exactly* to the Mass readings on every single day. Most of them do except for the feast days like Immaculate Conception, which falls on a different day during that particular “week of Advent.”  Sure, I could have rewritten it and written a new entry..but that misses the point.  You can cope.

(For the curious, the cover image is at Mount Etna.  The photograph only barely does the scene justice – the black rocky volcanic soil dotted with vegetation, the little shrine sticking out over the hill, all of it shrouded in fog.)

The next one is called The Fourth Rule: St. Benedict’s Guide to Life. The Fourth Rule of St. Benedict is composed of 73 Scripture-based counsels. Michael wrote a brief reflection on each of those counsels – some are longer than others, but most are just about a page long.

You can download it here for $2.99.

The cover image on this one is from Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky – photograph taken by Michael.

I’m not going to do print editions of these – it’s really not worth the hassle to me at this point (it would require re-formatting, doing back matter and covers that could actually be used in a print edition, an interior design….), and they are short enough so that reading them on a screen is not too taxing.

As I said, you can download Kindle-able editions on Smashwords, but I have done versions for the Kindle that will be available through Amazon, once they are approved in a few days.  Why, if it’s available on Smashwords? So they will be in the Amazon system and be searchable there.

And for Croatian readers….Michael’s 2 pocket guides he wrote for OSV have been published by a Croatian Catholic publisher:

The Pocket Guide to the Mass

The Pocket Guide to Confession

(And if you want English versions…start with the page I’ve done on the How-To Book of the Mass…)

Don’t forget the Christmas Joy book – the cover is over there on the right, and to order, go here.

So, that’s the best I can do for a birthday gift this year…that and focus my heart on raising his boys to live in joyful discipleship and the love of life God has given us, for however long it may last on this earth.

I have, of course, many more thoughts, but they’re not bloggable. They’re write-able, and they are being written, but they keep developing and evolving as time goes on, so the immediacy of the internet doesn’t seem like the best place for them right now.  They’re good thoughts.

The title of this post? This Billy Joe Shaver song, sung in this clip by Jimmie Dale Gilmore. The link takes you to YouTube, but there’s no visual – it’s just a clip of the song, with Gilmore introducing it at a tribute concert. The backstory is that Shaver wrote this song for his wife, Brenda, whom he was married and remarried to a couple of times – they had quite the up-and-down relationship.  He cared for as she battled the cancer which eventually took her in 1999.

So I’ve been listening to that.

And this (It’s not my favorite version – I just like Billy Joe straight up, without Big & Rich – especially that stupid coda. But it’s an enjoyable video.)

And this – Warren Zevon, one of Michael’s favorites, absolutely.  I’ve been listening to this one, too. It fits.

That’s the soundtrack for the last couple of days.

And the script to go along with the soundtrack? The Gospel reading today at Mass was what it seems to me the Gospel reading is every other time I go to Mass these days.  It must be my imagination. Or something.

Jesus stopped and ordered them to bring the man to him, and when he came up, asked him,“What do you want me to do for you?’ ‘Sir,’ he replied ‘let me see again.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Receive your sight. Your faith has saved you.’ And instantly his sight returned and he followed him praising God, and all the people who saw it gave praise to God for what had happened.

Old Women of All Ages

My daughter was in a play.

I anticipated, without seeing her in makeup and costume, that she might look like my mother. But she didn’t. She looks like herself, still.

And..why I should always have my camera…

..and I do try, but yesterday afternoon, I didn’t.

But I think the end result is the better for it.

She pulled up beside us on the way out of the Summit, and of course I yearned for a photo. But no, the camera was at home, so Katie grabbed my cel phone and did her best.

And despite my aversion to photographs, I’ll say that I liked the way it turned out.  The awesome older lady in her convertible in the background, me in the foreground, looking forward…I hope.

Hmmm

So…anyone else out there who has not been tempted one iota by the Kindle, but finds the Nook intriguing?

I have no idea why – except the Nook does look a little cleaner and doesn’t come with the annoying Kindle/Amazon proprietary closed-in gestalt.

Pondering…!

Got Your Apostolic Constitution

Here.

Brother Stephon of Sub Tuum has initial thoughts.