Film and Book Reviews

For those seeking a theological story of truth, love, and faith—but aren’t quite ready to sit down with St. Augustine’s Confessions—Thomas Curry’s Miss Sally’s Son (Ignatius Press) is a compelling alternative.

Curry himself describes the novel as a way to reach audiences who might otherwise not be open to reading about the Catholic faith, writing that his “goal in writing has always been evangelization, believing that fiction speaks to a different ear than serious theology.”

“You can’t study the life of a Christian mystic for very long before you find yourself back in the Church,” Jenny duBay recently told Paloma & Fig. She would know, having immersed herself in Catherine’s writings and the landscape of Siena itself to write World Between Worlds, a lush and sprawling novel of the saint’s early life.

When I hear there’s a new The Lord of the Rings movie in the works, I get just a wee bit protective (never mind my long-standing argument that there are no good sequels . . . or at least, very few). Middle-earth is special for so many of us, especially those who grew up tucked away in the pages of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “sub-creation.”

 Entering the Mystery: The Song of the Lamb By Marge Hynes, Writer “The liturgy derives its greatness from what it is, not from what we make of it.”—Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy Usually, my book collection grows at a rate that suggests a minimalist intervention is long overdue. But while most titles […]

After a meaningful plot reveal, the film zeroes in on the interiority of Maria’s murderer, who is in the room with us. In light of this revelation, perpetrators, victims, sinners, and saints stand on equal ground, because mercy infuses justice. Despite our discomfort with this evening of scales, grace still does its work. It vitalizes the bleak room of the prison, a place one character likens to Hell.