Dear friends in Christ,
As we move to the celebration of the Nativity, our weekday classes take a break. However, there is a Sunday class every week. Over three classes—December 21, December 28, and January 4—I will cover the final chapters of the book of Ecclesiastes. The class meets weekly at 10am on the 5th floor of the parish hall.
I’ve mentioned before that the next “Good Books & Good Talk” seminar will be on Christopher Beha’s What Happened to Sophie Wilder. The discussion is scheduled for Monday, January 26, from 6:15 to 7:45pm Robert Fay has recently written: “In Christopher Beha’s excellent debut novel, What Happened to Sophie Wilder, writer Charlie Blakeman nearly laughs when Sophie, his ex-girlfriend and a Catholic convert, says she plans to save the soul of her dying father-in-law, an atheist: ‘I don’t think I knew a single person who would have spoken in that way about saving someone’s soul,’ Charlie observes. ‘The religious people I knew talked about their faith apologetically. It was an embarrassment to their own reason and intelligence, but somehow a necessary one.’”
Christopher Beha is not embarrassed to write novels in which Christian faith is depicted with fairness. He also is an editor at Harper’s, and lives in Brooklyn. And, he is coming to Saint Thomas. On Wednesday, February 4, at about 6:30pm (following the mass that follows evensong), Beha will speak to us on “Faith and Fiction.” I plan a panel discussion with him also, some general Q&A, and a reception and book signing. You might like to note the date on your calendar now.
This will be my last email of 2014. May our Lord bless us as we move into the celebrations of his Nativity.
Peace,
Father Austin
