Of Sound Mind and Spirit

How do you select a Catholic Children's Bible?  Which children's bible is best for my kids?  Those are questions I get asked all the time.  Searching in my house I discovered almost a dozen different Catholic Bibles for kids or youth on our shelves. When looking for a children's bible or book of bible stories for children, there are several things to take into consideration.  How old is the child?  Do you want something easy to read in story form or a bible with scripture text?  How big or heavy is the book? Is the children's bible a keepsake to commemorate a special event like a baptism, first communion or confirmation? And the answers to these questions might change as the child grows and develops or you have multiple children. With those questions in mind, I'll delve into the Catholic Children's Bibles and Bible Stories we like best of those in our home. My Big Book of Catholic Bible Stories My Big Book of Catholic Bible Stories Compiled by Hei

Meditating the Hail Mary "Word by Word" Three years ago, Sarah Reinhard invited me to participate in a little writing project to Look Closer at the Hail Mary prayer.  She gave me the word OF .  Yes, my assignment was to write a meditation on the word "OF" as it appears at the end of the Hail Mary prayer.  Crazy, right? Today that blog series is the latest publication by Ave Maria Press titled, Word by Word: Slowing Down with the Hail Mary . Last month, Sarah invited her contributors to participate in an online "interview" and mine appears on Catholic Mom  today.   As I answered the questions for the interview, several  previously unnoticed "connections" were revealed to me showing that these events -all occurring seemingly independent of one another - were not mere coincidence. I just couldn't see the bigger picture. Looking back though, it became so beautifully apparent. After finishing the interview, it was very lat

Storm of the Century by Al Roker As the co-editor of Through a Night of Horrors: Voices from the 1900 Galveston Storm , whenever a new book is published about the 1900 Storm, fiction or non-fiction, someone in my family calls to ask my opinion. So when Al Roker released “ The Storm of the Century Tragedy, Heroism, Survival and the Epic True Story of America’s Deadliest Natural Disaster: The Great Gulf Hurricane of 1900 ,” earlier this year I added it to my “must read” list. Right away, the cover evokes the century-old sensationalist journalism publications of the past, with a long descriptive title; however, I like the use of Kurz & Allison’s 1900 lithograph, Galveston's Awful Calamity - Gulf Tidal Wave, September 8th 1900 . It’s an easy read for me and while it isn’t a great work of literature, it’s not the worst I’ve read about the 1900 Storm. Overall, the book contains sloppy editing and it’s rife with minor errors that likely few would notice.  I rritating Tex