Picking up where I left off...

Back to Chicago tomorrow! And that means back to blogging with a bit more commitment, at least until I go to the motherhouse for our community formation program and my annual retreat.
With the trip to Texas with Mom and my sisters, I didn't get much reading done on this vacation, but the two books I did read were fantastic. I plan to offer more detailed reviews later, but here's the capsule version:

The Life of Thomas More by Peter Ackroyd. I had borrowed it from the convent library (here in Metairie); I actually neglected to tell anyone, but they'll get it back tomorrow when I drop by on the way to the airport. The book is a phenomenal depiction of Thomas More and his times. My father was a lawyer; we had a picture of St. Thomas More in our den. I have two brothers who are lawyers, and one of them is named Thomas More. I thought "A Man for All Seasons" and his own book, Utopia, were pretty much the only sources we had for knowing St. Thomas More. Wrong!  Ackroyd filled in all the blanks--and also revealed how much of "A Man for All Seasons" was taken from More's own writing.

I was also able to read a newer publication: Jim Forest's biography of Dorothy Day, "All is Grace." If Thomas More was the "man for all seasons," then Dorothy Day is the woman for our season. Maybe the Lord inspired her as he did and when he did so that her life and faithfulness to the Gospel would be our heritage now in the challenges we face as a society. That's my prayer, anyway. (The Libertarians should really love Dorothy; do they know her story?)