The Blog

This past Sunday, on the Feast of Corpus Christi, our deacon concluded his homily with a simple enough lesson: “Love isn’t love until you give it away.” I spent the rest of my day trying to figure out why this line sounded so familiar. It had moved me deeply—I would go so far as to say that it galvanized me in the face of both everyday discontents and deeper wounds that I’d brought to the Lord that morning. Eventually, Google informed me that it comes most directly from the reprise of “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” from The Sound of Music, a film I have a fondness for but don’t know by heart.

I was hooked from the get-go. I read it during lunch breaks, over dinner, after walking the dog, while waiting for the girls to get ready for brunch. I carried it from room to room, tucked it into my purse—always looking for a spare moment to squeeze in one more chapter.