The Queue

To my great surprise & delight, I was able to keep up with Beautiful Hope, even amidst the hectic (early) holidays with kin: a wedding in *shudder* Ohio, then hosting out-of-state company in sacred Michigan, then back to *shudder* Ohio to be out-of-state company ourselves. This was without a doubt Dynamic Catholic's best "Best Advent Ever" yet.

Messy & Foolish is a wee little thing, not quite seventy pages long. It strike me as absurd that insofar as the accounting of the queue, in the "Recently" section, finishing the minute Messy & Foolish will look no different than when I eventually finish the massive Vanished Kingdoms. Absurd, yet I have no solution to offer. Then again, does an absurdity, simply by being absurd, require a "solution"? Should it not be allowed to persist as an absurdity? After all, we here at The Secret Base have often been told we live at the intersection of the absurd & the sublime.

I am familiar with Fr. Riccardo, pastor of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Plymouth (Archdiocese of Detroit, not my own Diocese of Lansing), from his Ave Maria Radio program Christ Is the Answer. I began Heaven Starts Now last Wednesday (20 December), after an early exchange of Christmas presents with kin in Ohio. In reading the book, I hear Fr. Riccardo's voice from Christ Is the Answer.

Recently
Scott & Kimberly Hahn, Rome Sweet Home: Our Journey to Catholicism
Matthew Kelly & Co., Beautiful Hope: Finding Hope Every Day in a Broken World
Matthew Warner, Messy & Foolish: How to Make a Mess, Be a Fool, and Evangelize the World

Currently
Father John Riccardo, Heaven Starts Now: Becoming a Saint Day by Day

Presently
Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations ***paused***
Matthew Kelly, Perfectly Yourself: Discovering God's Dream for You
Sherry A. Weddell, Forming Intentional Disciples: The Path to Knowing and Following Jesus
William E. Simon Jr., Great Catholic Parishes: How Four Essential Practices Make Them Thrive
Bishop Robert Barron, Seeds of the Word: Finding God in the Culture
Mike Aquilina, Understanding the Mass: 100 Questions, 100 Answers
Xavier Rynne, Vatican Council II
John W. O'Malley, What Happened at Vatican II
Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est (God Is Love)
Pope Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis (The Sacrament of Charity)
Richard Price, Clockers
Sir Richard Francis Burton, translator, "Sinbad the Sailor" from The Arabian Nights
Sir Ernest Shackleton, South: A Memoir of the Endurance Voyage
William F. Buckley Jr., The Unmaking of a Mayor
Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World
John le Carré, A Legacy of Spies