Solace for our souls

In which I can’t fix a thing but maybe I can give you a book?

All tragedy is local.

1. The past five days in Minnesota have been awful and surreal. If you want to support the children of Melissa and Mark Hortman, here’s a GoFundMe to help them fix their house and bury their parents. If you want to help John and Yvette Hoffman in their healing after their assassination attempt, here’s their GoFundMe. (It’s set up by the PTO at the elementary school where Yvette Hoffman works as a para. Does that show you how ordinary these folks are? Honest to God, I could lose my mind.) I’m grateful for a pastor who spoke straight to the evil of political violence this weekend, no small task in a community located smack dab in the middle of the horrors. A plea to pastors and anyone with a platform to speak from (and this means many of you on social media): keep preaching the Gospel. We’re in dire need of hope, peace, justice, mercy, and love—and not one more speck of extremist nonsense.

2. “My own story is that of a citizen, the descendant of immigrants, who in turn chose to emigrate. All of us, in the course of our lives, can find ourselves healthy or sick, employed or unemployed, living in our native land or in a foreign country, yet our dignity always remains unchanged: it is the dignity of a creature willed and loved by God.” As the descendant of immigrants, I could have written these words. Maybe you could have, too. Pope Leo XIV spoke them. Heartened that the U.S. Catholic Bishops are speaking out, too.

3. In a wretched time, our souls and nervous systems need all the solace they can get. Did you know you can livestream the Grotto at Lourdes? The flickering candles, the pilgrims praying, the sacred stone, the holy dark—it was all exactly what I needed.

4. Ever heard of fore-edge painting? This hidden beauty on book edges is a metaphor all its own. Check out this Narnian masterpiece.

5. Speaking of book beauty,

   Shannon K. Evans
   &
   Eric A. Clayton
   have teamed up to write a children’s book on Marian apparitions: Our Mother Too: Mary Embraces the World. Ryan McQuade’s illustrations are so inviting, and the gentle words are exactly what our children (and ok, their adults) need right now. “Mary wanted each person to know…that God lived in their culture, in their homes, and in their neighbors. And so, Mary set out to travel the world.” 

Shannon and Eric are generously giving away one copy of their book to a lucky one of YOU. Comment below by Sunday, June 22 at midnight CST to enter to win: