Strange Gods: Unmasking the Idols in Everyday Life, by Elizabeth Scalia. Ave Maria Press, 2013.

Scalia, according to the introduction, seems to base her book on the golden calf in Exodus and two characters in the 2008 presidential campaign, namely  Barack Obama and  Sarah Palin. Her favorite Scripture for the book is the first of the 10 commandments, "You shall not have strange gods before you".

Scalia describes an idol as an idea fleshed out or formed by craftiness and a certain needy self-centeredness. The golden calf, which the Jews constructed, was a creation forged from valued possessions (their gold) of a confused, frightened people alone in the desert , seeking something  on which they could project the qualities they imagined in themselves.  The gold gave them the affirmation and greatness  which they could confirm with their own eyes, mirrored back at them. 

In Obama and in Palin, certain groups of people set up one of these two as mirroring qualities they liked in themselves. In one way or another, this person became their idol and mirrored what they liked in themselves. Some went so far that they placed one of these as their god, who could do no wrong. How wrong we were in our choices of placing humans before God!

In the ten chapters in this book, Scalia points out some idols  which humankind may  encounter:

1.     God before us

2.     God after us, the idol of I

3.     The idol of the idea

4.     The idol of prosperity

5.     The idol of technology

6.     The idols of coolness and sex

7.     The idols of plans

8.     The super idols

9.     Super idols and language

10.  The people of Gods

She concludes with her own: My dreadful idol.

"We will never live an idol-free life while we live corporale , but we can at least be aware of our common tendency to create idols unintentionally. We can recognize the havoc everyday idolatry can play in our personal lives and our spiritual lives if we do not constantly try to knock the idols aside, before they stand too completely in the way of God's constant and consoling love. He aches for us with a longing that our own yearnings for him cannot begin to approach."

(Thanks to Sr. Irene Hartman OP for this review.) 



St. Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-97) October 1

"I prefer the monotony of obscure sacrifice to all ecstasies. To pick up a pin for love can convert a soul." These are the words of Therese of the Child Jesus, a Carmelite nun called the "Little Flower," who lived a cloistered life of obscurity in the convent of Lisieux, France. [In French-speaking areas, she is known as Thérèse of Lisieux.] And her preference for hidden sacrifice did indeed convert souls. Few saints of God are more popular than this young nun. Her autobiography, The Story of a Soul , is read and loved throughout the world. Thérèse Martin entered the convent at the age of 15 and died in 1897 at the age of 24. She was canonized in 1925, and two years later she and Francis Xavier (December 3) were declared co-patrons of the missions.

Life in a Carmelite convent is indeed uneventful and consists mainly of prayer and hard domestic work. But Thérèse possessed that holy insight that redeems the time, however dull that time may be. She saw in quiet suffering redemptive suffering, suffering that was indeed her apostolate. Thérèse said she came to the Carmel convent "to save souls and pray for priests." And shortly before she died, she wrote: "I want to spend my heaven doing good on earth."

On October 19, 1997, Blessed John Paul II proclaimed her a Doctor of the Church, the third woman to be so recognized in light of her holiness and the influence in the Church of her teaching on spirituality. Her parents, Martin and Zelie (October 1), were beatified in 2008.