Did Amazon cancel your order, too?

My sister's notification. Did you get one? 
Better check your orders!

Last week, the day after my birthday, my sister got a nasty surprise from Amazon: the behomoth had cancelled her pre-order for my book. If you pre-ordered a copy (or more!) from them, you had better check: they probably did the same to you. 

It's a complicated story, and goes back to Amazon's computers not having taken note of a change in the release date (a change that was entered into their system in JULY). What can I say? Despite its origin as "the world's biggest bookstore" (who else remembers that?) Amazon no longer cares about books.

The good news is that after a hiatus (on All Saints and All Souls Day!), the master of online sales is again accepting orders, so you can order it again from them. (You can order it from us, too: there are benefits to us either way. We lose money immediately on Amazon orders, but we gain visibility with their algorithms. Such is our world.)

More good news is that the shipment from the printer arrived at the motherhouse, and will soon reach our Pauline bookstores. (It can't go on display until November 15, but still: after all this time, I'll get to see it!) So you have a chance to get your order in, tell your friends, and in general cause some holy hullabaloo.

If you never heard about my book, or completely forgot about it, or don't know what the "nine First
Fridays" are all about, you can download a generous free portion to get started. I think you will find that it is not only a unique book for your own spiritual growth, but it will turn out to be your go-to gift book for all sorts of people on your list, including those hard-to-gift people: sisters, priests and deacons! 

New Orleans area friends (and relatives): I will be speaking on The Secret of the Nine First Fridays at St. Clement of Rome Parish on Thursday, Nov. 16 (7 p.m. in Vosbein Hall), and we'll have a Book Release Party here at the Pauline Bookstore on Friday, Nov. 17; drop in from 2-6 to get your books signed, and pick up some newly designed bookmarks! The community will be making my book (and others!) available  at St. Philip Neri after Masses on Nov. 18-19 and at OLPH in Kenner the weekend after Thanksgiving.

Outside of New Orleans? Tell your parish about the book, and let the adult faith coordinator know that I will be available, starting in January, for retreats and parish missions! Contact me by this blog's email [thenunblogger is a gmail account] for my official contact info.

Eucharistic Witness: Bl. Manuel Gonzales Garcia

Father Garcia's ordination picture

I learned recently about Bishop (now "Blessed") Garcia, an Apostle of Eucharistic devotion, born in Spain in 1877 and ordained priest in 1901.

 Just five months after his ordination, young Fr. Garcia was sent to preach a parish mission in the town of Palomares del Rio. What he saw there determined the whole course of his priestly ministry and spirituality. The wooden tabernacle of the parish church was pocked with termite holes and draped in cobwebs, filthy dirty. The scene remained, he later said, "glued" to his soul. He was determined that, as much as lay in his power, he would never see another tabernacle abandoned again.

After careful preparation, Garcia established a kind of sodality for women. He called it "The Work of the Three Marys," after the women who remained at the foot of Jesus' cross when all the others (but John) had fled. But it wasn't enough that women should take up his call, so he also established the "Disciples of St. John" and then the "Children of the Tabernacle." His aim broadened, and within six years there were "Diocesan Eucharistic Missionaries" sharing the dream.

In 1920, Garcia was made bishop of Malaga. This gave him just the position he needed to establish his works on a more lasting foundation by founding a congregation of sisters (the "Eucharistic Missionaries of Nazareth"), who would carry the work forward after his death.

When the Spanish Civil War broke out, the bishop's residence was set aflame, and Garcia fled to Gibralter, and then to Madrid. During this time, he launched a secular institute (the "Nazarene Auxiliary Missionaries") and the "Children's Eucharistic Reparation" movement.

What is the connection between the "missionary" thrust so evident in the names of his later foundations and the house of Nazareth? Garcia saw the house of Nazareth as the place of Jesus' apprenticeship for the hidden life of the Eucharist. In their convents (which the sisters called their "Nazareths"), the sisters would "learn to speak like Jesus in the Gospel and be silent like Jesus in the tabernacle."

Named bishop of Palencia, Garcia died only four years later. He is buried in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel of his Cathedral, so that his very bones "after my death, as my tongue and my pen during life, might continue to say to everyone who passes by, 'Jesus is here! He is here!' "

For the website of the Eucharistic Reparation Union (the "family" of Garcia's followers),  you might need the help of a translation service.