As a French poet once said, Mary is the sea that no one exhausts.

"Sally Cunneen By Miri Rubin Yale Univ. Press. 560p $35 9780300105001 As a 13th-century French poet once said, Mary is “the sea that no one exhausts.” Yet the remarkable cultural history that the medieval historian Miri Rubin has assembled from worldwide resources seems to challenge that

Elaine Showalter s book is a delightful literary voyage guided by a woman who truly knows the territory Neither an anthology nor an academic critique it is something quite original the first informed popular literary history of American women writers It was inspired by a question this distingui

Cardinal Bertone on 'The Last Secret of Fatima'

As its title suggests The Florist 8217 s Daughter the fifth memoir by Patricia Hampl centers on her own life In her earlier books personal revelations were filtered through experiences of Prague Assisi and the paintings of Matisse But this is hardly a tell-all autobiography Hampl is seeking

Assigned to read Thomas Hardy 8217 s The Return of the Native in high school I was fascinated by its evocation of our pagan agricultural past Reading Jude the Obscure recently however I suffered all the way through Hardy 8217 s determined destruction of hope in the life of his stonemason hero

Because the world is passing through a dark period, in which its very existence is threatened, it is more important than ever to be open to the astonishingly good news of Christmas: God has taken on our flesh, and through that inconceivable act God has brought joy and hope to all creation. It is new

This memoir begins with Patricia Hampl rsquo s accidental viewing of the Matisse painting Woman Before an Aquarium which waylaid her on her way to the cafeteria of the Chicago Art Institute to meet a friend some 34 years ago She stood transfixed absorbing the portrait of a woman gazing at a goldf

The rosary is the oldest and most popular of all private Catholic devotions, and one that has been strongly promoted by the church since the 15th century. The origin of bead circlets used to aid in prayerful meditation is lost in ancient Eastern customs—the Chinese Kwan Yin statue in my living

This short enthusiastic explanation of why and how Catholics should come to know Mary the mother of Jesus through better acquaintance with her types in the Hebrew Scriptures obviously springs from true devotion The author Scott Hahn formerly a Presbyterian minister and now a professor of theolog