Now that I've finished writing my doctoral dissertation, it is my joy to share with you news of my new book. Remembering God's Mercy: Redeem the Past and Free Yourself from Painful Memories goes on sale this week, and there is much wonderful news to report. In the coming days, I'll have several updates here on The Dawn Patrol. For now, you are cordially invited to read the excerpt of Remembering God's Mercy that just went up on the daily must-read Catholic headline site New Advent.
Here is how the excerpt begins:
Francis, in his first major interview as pope, spoke of his admiration for the early Jesuit Peter Faber, whom he would soon declare a saint. Since you can tell a lot about a man by his friends—including his friends in heaven—I began to read Faber’s spiritual diary, the Memoriale, to see what it might tell me about Francis’s spirituality. It was a revelation.Read the rest courtesy of New Advent, or just go to Aquinas & More, Barnes & Noble, or Amazon to purchase your own copy of Remembering God's Mercy.
I found in Faber a man who had many of the same vulnerabilities as me. He battled anxiety, depression, and temptations to sin. Learning how he conquered those weaknesses helped me to better fight my own spiritual battles.
In the Memoriale entry for December 25, 1542, as Faber writes about celebrating midnight Mass, we see that he began Christmas Day in a state of sadness. He had hoped to receive Jesus in the Eucharist with feelings of Christmas joy. Instead, he writes, “I was feeling cold before Communion and was grieved that my dwelling was not better prepared.”
Just as he was thinking those thoughts, a feeling of consolation came to him with such suddenness that he knew it could only be a gift from above. “I received this answer accompanied by an interior feeling of devotion that moved me to tears: This is what the coming of Christ into a stable means. If you were already very fervent, you would not see here the humanity of your Lord because spiritually you would correspond less to what is called a stable.”
As I read those words, my heart tells me the saint was right to understand them as a message from the Holy Spirit.
