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To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of
Blessings, by John O'Donohue. Doubleday, 2008.
This book is a collection of blessings to help readers through the everyday and extraordinary events of their lives. The book is written in elegant poetic language and spiritual insight to afford comfort and courage on life’s journeys. The author leads his readers through the main thresholds of life: marriage, childbearing, new jobs, and other transitions.
The book is divided into seven areas, the rhythms of the human journey: beginnings, desires, thresholds, homecomings, states of the heart, callings, and beyond endings. The book ends with a section called, “To Retrieve the Lost Art of blessing.” The author believes life would be lonely without blessings, for the very word evokes warmth and protection, a sense of intimacy and ecstasy, an invitation to satisfy the pleadings of the heart of God, the discovery of a fresh will, a change in the atmosphere, and
light amid darkness. The author defines a blessing as a direct address driven by immediacy and care, and usually including the word MAY, as imaging and willing the fulfillment of desire, and acting as the spring through which the Holy Spirit is involved to surge into presence and effect. O’ Donohue sees the Holy Spirit as the subtle presence and secret energy behind every blessing
(Thanks to Sr. Irene Hartman OP for this review)
Hardback, Kindle, Audio CD
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St. Catharine of Bologna: (1413-63). March 28.
Some Franciscan saints led fairly public lives; Catharine represents the saints who served the Lord in obscurity.
Born in Bologna, Catharine was related to the nobility in Ferrara, and was educated at court
there. She received a liberal education at the court and developed some interest and talent in painting. In later years as a Poor Clare, Catharine sometimes did manuscript illumination and also painted miniatures.
At the age of 17, she joined a group of religious women
in Ferrara. Four years later the whole group joined the Poor Clares in that city. Jobs as convent baker and portress preceded her selection as novice mistress.
In 1456, she and 15 other sisters were sent to establish a Poor Clare monastery in Florence. As abbess,
Catharine worked to preserve the peace of the new community. Her reputation for holiness drew many young women to the Poor Clare life. She was canonized in 1712.
Calendar of Saints
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