Tag Archives: Fulton Sheen

Open Book: History Lessons

A year ago, I wrote that I was working my way through Fulton Sheen’s Life of Christ (published 1958). The book still accompanies me to weekly Adoration, and when at home this Lent I keep it nearby. It takes only a few paragraphs to foster prayer and meditation.

While browsing through the Kindle store, I came across an interesting-looking book about Dorothy Day. I downloaded a sample that captivated me. Never mind the e-book; I had to have the hard copy! I’m now well into Dorothy Day: the World Will Be Saved By Beauty by Day’s granddaughter, Kate Hennessy. It’s a loving and lyrically-written portrait of Day by someone who loved her dearly, yet saw her clearly.

This seems to be my month for history books. I came across Crown and Sceptre by Tracy Borman thanks to my library’s online service. More a reference work than a compelling page-turner, it’s a survey of Britain’s monarchs from William the Conqueror to Elizabeth II. Over the years I’ve had reason to study some of the Plantagenets and Tudors and Windsors, and the rest of the ruling houses are a mystery to me (aside from some dramatic figures like Victoria and George III). Time to fill in the blanks.

My favorite recent discovery from a used-book store is The Refugee: a North-side View of Slavery by Benjamin Drew. It’s a 1969 reprint of an 1855 book. Drew went to Canada to interview formerly enslaved people who had escaped the American South. He transcribed the brief oral histories and collected them for his fascinating and unsettling book.

What’s on your shelf this month? Let me know in the comments.

Open Book is a monthly blog roundup hosted at My Scribbler’s Heart and Catholic Mom.

Open Book: how a unique pro-life ministry got started

A recent interview for my blog Leaven for the Loaf (reblogged here on April 12) put me back in touch via email with Melissa Ohden, a woman who survived an attempted saline abortion some years ago. Our interview reminded me of her moving memoir You Carried Me (2018: Plough Publishing House), which I’ll be re-reading soon. She was adopted as an infant into a loving family. As an adult, she met her birth mother and learned the circumstances of the attempted abortion that was meant to claim her life. She writes without sensationalism, which makes her story more memorable. Ohden has established The Abortion Survivors Network, which has brought together a startling number of people who survived attempts to abort them. Beyond peer support and sharing stories, the Network serves as a resource for policymakers striving to ensure that born-alive abortion survivors are properly cared for. A remarkable woman, a remarkable ministry.

A book I chose for Lenten reading will follow me into the Easter season, as I’m reading it slowly and taking time to reflect on each section. I have Fulton Sheen’s Life of Christ (published c. 1954) in an old hardback edition, picked up can’t-remember-where quite awhile ago. This is the first time I’m giving it more than cursory attention. It’s become valued reading during my times of Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. I needn’t be in a church to read it, of course. Sheen’s devotion and reverence for God are leavened by a down-to-earth gift for touching busy hearts.

I’ve reached the final pages of a thoroughly secular work of history that I’ve been chewing on for awhile: Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin (2005, Simon and Schuster). A part of the basis for the Spielberg film Lincoln, the book is not so much a biography of Abraham Lincoln as it is an account of a network of his relationships that had a profound bearing on the Civil War and thus American history. Goodwin writes with respect without resorting to hagiography. I’m fascinated to read about how the paths of a handful of intensely ambitious yet patriotic men happened to cross. Those paths eventually led to Lincoln’s Cabinet during the Civil War, where the rich broth of personalities required to preserve the Union kept the President busy.

#OpenBook is a monthly blog linkup by Carolyn Astfalk, featuring a roundup of bloggers and the books they’re exploring.