Easter Monday funday #ThreeShots☕️📚😇
An artsy trip to Paris, Ghosts of Midgard Manor, and St. Vincent Ferrer
So there goes another Lent.
1. Tour the Louvre
Not getting to Paris anytime soon?
Well, no worries. You can still browse all the collections that are housed in the Louvre.
I’m not sure it’s better than going to the museum in person, but it’s still pretty cool.
#technologyWIN
2. You can’t go wrong with this book
Sometimes, I just can’t concentrate. Turns out, I’m not alone. (Pandemic Life has done that to a LOT of people, I know. For me, it was a number of other factors, but I think that’s in the background of the last 13 months, no matter what.)
In that setting, though, a collection of readings—stories, essays, excerpts—sometimes fits in perfectly.
Add that this was written by one of my favorite writers and boom: a book I heartily recommend Roger Thomas’s latest collection.
The Ghosts of Midgard Manor is a collection of nine stories, widely varying in their subject. It starts with a bit of a ghost story, the title story, which has some parallels to C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce (and if you haven’t read that one, it’s unforgettable). You’ll find yourself mulling a bit—and maybe rethinking how you see things.
The other stories in this book are:
The Rock
Rosalia
Zakkai
The Narrowing
Miriam
Catherine’s Triumph
The Queen’s Request
Kateri’s Sentence
Thomas has crafted stories that push and pull at your mind as you read them, and it reminded me of how I feel when I’m reading C.S. Lewis (who Thomas credits on the dedication page) or one of the classics.
This is the kind of collection you can dip back into, or that you read here and there (as opposed to cover-to-cover, which I did for my first time through). Thomas crafts characters with a specific purpose, and as you get to know them, you find them inside yourself.
I think that approachability—that “finding the characters inside myself”ness—is what draws me back to Roger Thomas’s writing again and again.
Check it out for yourself and see what you think. 📖1
3. Saint of the Day: St. Vincent Ferrer
St. Vincent Ferrer was a Dominican missionary priest who is credited with converting many. He counseled Pope Benedict XIII and had this special talent: Even though he only spoke Spanish, everyone who listened to him understood him.
As if that’s not enough, he also lived in “endless fasting” and reportedly brought a murdered man back to life.
Because he worked so hard to build up the Church, he’s the patron of everyone in the building trades. He’s also a patron to prisoners, plumbers, fishermen, and Spanish orphanages.
Prayer for today: O St. Vincent Ferrer, our guardian, because God our eternal Father has blessed you with an inexhaustible fountain of grace and blessing, we beg you to hear our prayers and to assist us with your powerful intercession which is even more effective now that you are in heaven than it was when you were on earth. Full of confidence in your mercy and compassion, we kneel in prayer before you, and commend to your powerful intercession all our needs, those of our families, our friends, relatives, and especially (mention your intention here). Glorious Saint Vincent Ferrer, let not our hope and confidence in your protection be deceived. Intercede for us before the throne of God. Watch over our eternal welfare. If our trials and tribulations in this world multiply, may they serve to give us spiritual joy and happiness. If God will only grant us the grace of ever increasing patience to the end that we may save our souls. Amen. 🙏
Enjoy your Easter Monday!
Blessings and coffee,
Sarah