Good gatherings, good books: “Evangeline” and “Pray With Us”

Writers and readers will flock together, given the chance. I’ve enjoyed two recent events featuring good books by authors whose work makes my shelves fuller and my horizons broader.

“Evangeline”

This year’s Catholic Literature Conference in New Hampshire (presented annually by the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in Merrimack, NH) featured a presentation on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Evangeline. Based on the 18th-century expulsion by the British of the French-descended Acadians from what is now Atlantic Canada, it’s a haunting and poignant tale of a woman’s lifelong search for her beloved, a man from whom she was suddenly separated by deportation. 

cover of book "Evangeline" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I read only a small portion of the poem many years ago. Professor Joseph Pearce’s lecture and reading at the conference brought the story back to life for me. Fortunately, included in my conference packet was a splendid gift: a new edition of Evangeline, published by the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton (ACS Books). Introductory essays by Pearce and Christopher Check place the poem in historical and literary context. Evangeline is presented in a fresh and inviting way in this beautiful little volume. I’m rediscovering an underappreciated classic.

“Pray With Us: a Saint for Every Day”

cover of book "Pray With Us" by Belinda Terro Mooney

I caught up with Belinda Terro Mooney at the recent Catholic Writers Guild conference in Chicago. Her latest book is Pray With Us: a Saint for Every Day (published by Our Sunday Visitor). More than another lives-of-the-saints, it’s a calendar-based guide for daily prayer. There’s a page for each day of the year, with a brief biography of a saint or background of a feast day. Each biography is followed with a prayer that refers to the particular ministry or charism of the saint (or Blessed).

This is a convenient volume to keep on hand in the home, but it would also be a good addition to a parish or school library. Belinda writes as a guide, making introductions between readers and their brothers and sisters in faith who have gone before them. Her book is suitable for reading aloud with the family, for personal prayer and study, and for sharing with anyone who wants to learn more about Christian living.

This post is part of the Open Book linkup led by Carolyn Astfalk at My Scribbler’s Heart and CatholicMom.com.

Celebration as NH gets its first Safe Haven Baby Box

On a drizzly May day, dozens of people gathered in a fire station’s bay in downtown Manchester, New Hampshire, in an atmosphere that defied the grey weather. We came for dedication, blessing, gratitude, and remembrance. 

The reason was a new installation in the station’s eastern wall: a Safe Haven Baby Box, designed so that an infant can be surrendered anonymously and safely through a door on one side of the box, to receive care and fostering on the other side. The box is designed so that a signal alerts the station’s firefighters when a child is placed inside.

In one way the project was a tribute to Baby Grace, the baby in the pond. In another way it was an act of hope and faith: hope that the box will never be needed, and faith that if it is, a child’s life will be saved.

New Hampshire’s original safe haven law was passed in 2003. Any police station, fire station, hospital, or staffed church can take in an infant surrendered in accordance with the law. Now, the Baby Box offers another way to surrender a baby safely and anonymously.

“Hope and resilience for our entire community”

First responders were there for the dedication, including some of the police and firefighters who responded when Baby Grace was found in Pine Island Pond. Leaders of Pennacook Pregnancy Center were there; the Center funded the project. Father Jason of nearby St. Joseph Cathedral offered a prayer of blessing. The mayor gave heartfelt remarks. 

Manchester New Hampshire's police chief, fire chief, and mayor at a press conference
Manchester NH Fire Chief Ryan Cashin, flanked by Police Chief Peter Marr (l) and Mayor Jay Ruais (r), at the dedication and blessing of a Safe Haven Baby Box. “I can’t thank everyone here enough.” Photo by Ellen Kolb.

Silence fell over the firehouse when it was Fire Chief Ryan Cashin’s turn to speak. “Every fire station in the city is a place where the community can feel safe, knowing we are here 24 hours a day, and this Safe Haven Baby Box further demonstrates the commitment by the city of Manchester providing a secure option for vulnerable infants, making this fire station a true Safe Haven. While we cannot change the past, our commitment is to make the future safer and stronger. Today I pray that the efforts by the City of Manchester, Pennacook Pregnancy Center, Safe Haven Baby Boxes [among others]…will inspire hope and resilience for our entire community. I can’t thank everyone here enough.”

This is an excerpt from a report for paid subscribers to Braided Trails on Substack. Please visit that site to learn more.

“Thérèse: Saint of a Little Way”

My discovery of Frances Parkinson Keyes’s Thérèse: Saint of a Little Way was providential. This warm and affectionate account of the life of Thérèse of Lisieux brought the saint to life for me as no account has done before. This true story is written with a novelist’s sense of drama and an historian’s eye for detail. 

I found the book in the basement of an antique store, amidst a cluster of books marked as being linked to New Hampshire. I wondered what the Little Flower had to do with the Granite State. I soon learned that the author had lived in New Hampshire, where her husband served a term as Governor in the early 20th century before being elected to the U.S. Senate. 

Mrs. Keyes published a first edition of this biography in 1937, with the title Written in Heaven. The volume I found was a revision published in 1950 under the new title. The author spent time in France visiting the sites where Thérèse had lived, and she lived for a time at the Abbey where Thérèse went to school. Her immersion in Thérèse’s milieu left rich impressions to share with readers. Her photos taken on her trips to France complement the text.

I had not heard of Mrs. Keyes before discovering this book, but I have since learned that she was a prolific mid-century author in a variety of genres. A convert to Catholicism, her faith-related works include books about St. Bernadette and Our Lady of Guadalupe, as well as an account of her own conversion.

At this writing, not even Amazon can come up with this title. Leave it to a little antique store in a small New Hampshire town to have in stock this 75-year-old hardback with its tattered dust jacket, waiting to fall into the hands of a receptive reader.

This post is shared on the Open Book linkup hosted at My Scribbler’s Heart and CatholicMom.com.