Book Review: Holiness for Everyone

Well, today is the last day of the year. It is a time when people reflect on the past year, and come up with resolutions to do better in the coming year. I would like to say that I perfectly planned this book review to line up with the new year, but I am not that organized. This Monday's book review is brought to you by Our Sunday Visitor, and I am reviewing Holiness for Everyone: The Practical Spirituality of St. Josemaria Escriva by Eric Sammons.

I was very intrigued by this book before I ever opened it. For starters, Scott Hahn wrote the foreword to this book, and I automatically assume anything he puts his name on has to be good. I was also intrigued by the spirituality members of Opus Dei (the order St. Josemaria Escriva founded) practiced. I knew it wasn't the exaggerated tales Dan Brown concocted in his book The Da Vinci Code, but I didn't know what all it entailed.

There are two main parts to this book. The first part is called "Laying the Foundations" and deals primarily with our relationship with God and free will. These three chapters were nice, but I didn't find it overly helpful. It was well-written, but it didn't satisfy what I was looking for and thought I was getting from the title of this book. Don't get me wrong, I understood the purpose of this section, it just didn't hit the spot.

The second part of the book is called "Building a Saintly Life." Let me just say that everything I wanted in the first part of the book, I got in this part. Drawing on the writings of St. Escriva, we get practical advice on prayer, sanctifying our daily work, and honoring the saints, particularly Sts. Mary and Joseph. I loved this part of the book and hope to be able to take these pointers and apply them to my everyday life.

Overall, I would have to give this book a 4 out of 5 stars. It was a very good, particularly the chapters in "Building a Saintly Life," but the first part was disappointing and progressed slowly. I would recommend this book to others though, as it is a book for the average person, and I don't know about the rest of you, but I can use all the help I can get.

Children's Corner: Where is God?

Welcome back to the Children's Corner. Today, I have another fabulous board book to review courtesy of Pauline Books and Media. Today, it is Where is God? written and illustrated by Joni Oeltjenbruns. Don't let the last name of the author scare you off. The book is a delightful and simple read and is intended for children  5 and under.

In this sweet little book, you go on a journey with a young baby in search of God. Joined by the faithful family dog, the baby looks in common and uncommon places people often look for God, including a book and underneath the bed. What makes this book special is that there are flaps for you and your child to lift up under each of these places the baby looks. Ultimately your child will discover that Jesus is within all of us.

This book gets 5 out 5 stars from me. This is a useful book for your child beginning their relationship with God, as they will ultimately ask and wonder "Where is God?" This is another book from Pauline Books and Media that Christian parents of all denominations will enjoy as there is nothing in it that only a Catholic family would enjoy. I look forward to reading it to my little boy many times over.

Book Review: My Sisters the Saints

Today I am reviewing My Sisters the Saints by Colleen Carroll Campbell. You might recognize the author's name as she is the host of EWTN's show Faith and Culture. She also writes for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and blogs for the New York Times and Washington Post. In a nutshell, this is Mrs. Campbell's autobiography of her spiritual journey so far.

In addition to being an autobiography, we also get a glimpse at key female saints in the Catholic Church. Drawing on these saints, such as Mary, Teresa of Avila, and Dorothy Day, Mrs. Campbell tells how each one's life helped shape various points in her life. This was not only informative about the author, but also about the saints as I had never known much about the lives of some of these saints.

Although this is a book whose target audience is women, I felt that I could relate to some of Mrs. Campbell's life. Perhaps the stage in her life I relate to most is her college years. This is where the book starts off, in fact. Mrs. Campbell described her days in college as a party girl who put religion on the back burner. While I was never a party guy myself, I can relate to losing my religion to some degree in college. I think more people than not can relate to this as that seems to be a time we "adults" go through where we think we know more than we really do.

This was a very well written book, and I would expect nothing less from a journalist and presidential speechwriter. However, my biggest gripe with the book is chapter length. The chapters do have subheadings thankfully. However, with only six chapters in a 200+ page book, it made them a bit hard to get through each chapter in one sitting, so I always had a hard time finding a good stopping point. Overall, I would give this book 4.5 out of 5 stars.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review. Some useful links for this book are listed below.

• Author's Web Site
• More Info
• Read Chapter One
• Author Bio