BOOKS

‘Sun’ columnist rocks wider audience with ‘Wholly Family’ book

Reviewed by Andrew Junker | Nov. 16, 2009 | The Catholic Sun

Mary Moore, a regular columnist for The Catholic Sun, has written a book called “Rocking the Cradle Catholic: Raising Little Saints in a Lukewarm Culture.”

The genre to which “Rocking the Cradle” belongs — which I would describe as the “First Person Catholic Anecdotal Advice” genre — can often be either very stuffy or very cheesy. Thankfully, Moore’s book, like all of her columns, is notable for its humor, humility and lively writing style.

The book, which includes columns first published in the Sun, is divided into four main sections covering traditions and daily life, sacrifice and obedience, the sacraments and liturgical life and a final section that’s a bit of a catchall.

Each section has a number of brief entries, which include an anecdote or musing by Moore followed by some discussion questions that come under the headings “contemplation” and “action.”

For example, under the entry titled “A recipe for friendship,” Moore recounts a tradition she has with her daughter to make dolmades — stuffed grape leaves — together during Lent. It was a tradition and recipe she picked up from her close Lebanese friend, who taught Moore the long, complicated process.

“During our first lesson, which took hours, we shared stories, laughed, prayed, and even cried together,” she writes. “We engaged in conversation that would not have been possible by texting or e-mailing, or by updating each other on our Facebook pages. Only by truly being present to one another did we bind our relationship fast.”

That paragraph exemplifies so much of what I liked about this book. The first sentence — with its quick succession of storytelling, laughter, prayer and crying, all while rolling up thin, stuffed grape leaves — is, to my mind, more than a little funny to imagine.

I’m not sure why, but I found myself laughing a lot during “Rocking the Cradle Catholic.” Like when Moore tries to plan Valentine’s Day crafts for her children inspired by Benedict XVI’s encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, or how she turns pulling weeds in the front yard into a lesson on the sacrament of confession.

I think I found them humorous because my youth — though Catholic in practice and culture — did not have the sort of constant presence of a visible faith that Moore and her husband are offering their children.

Saints instead of goblins for Halloween, a daily family rosary, scapulars and family room walls holding up St. Faustina’s Divine Mercy image created an environment in which some of my friends lived, but to which I was only an occasional visitor.

The occasional visitor, though, seems like a perfect audience for Moore’s book. Its title shows that shaking up an oftentimes banal, lukewarm faith is needed, especially today. When American culture isn’t really Christian anymore — Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is a term that, perhaps, most accurately describes the current dominant religious affiliation — Christians need to be counter-cultural.

Moore shows that this doesn’t have to be dramatic. It simply requires living like you really believe the things you profess to believe at Mass. Actually, that is pretty dramatic.

“One thing I had to submit to early in my marriage: my husband’s idea of tithing,” Moore writes. “‘Ten percent off the gross, straight to church and charity,’ the then-Protestant stated plainly. Aghast, I returned with myriad arguments, beginning with my college loans and debt, and ending with several tithing loopholes I had myself discovered through some miserly advisors.”

But her husband asked Moore to trust him, stating that God had always provided for him in the past. They began to write their tithe check before ever even looking at the bills.

“I have come to understand that tithing isn’t so much about paying the Church’s very real bills as it is about trusting,” Moore writes. “It begins with stepping out of the comfortable and really putting our faith in God. As the great author Fyodor Dostoevsky put it, ‘Faith is not born of miracles, but miracles from faith.’”

For many readers of “Rocking the Cradle Catholic,” following Moore’s advice and suggestions would be an exercise in stepping out of the comfortable, which is why she is such a good guide.

Her writing is never holier-than-thou; it never takes itself too seriously; it never bores. Instead, her book reads as the uncompromisingly honest thoughts of a very happy and vital Catholic parent.

Who wouldn’t want to follow her into the breach of Caritas Valentines and domestic Church dolmades?

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Media critic Andrew Junker is a staff writer for The Catholic Sun. Comments are welcome. Send e-mail to letters@catholicsun.org.