I went away last week for continuing education with some brother priests. I used the week to work on a set of lessons to present in Pre-K through 2nd grades in our school next year, and on some advanced preparation for preaching in the year ahead. Summer’s a great time to keep learning, so I thought I would share with you some great books you might read this summer.
Saints Around the World, by Meg Hunter-Kilmer, illustrations by Lindsey Sanders. This is a wonderful book of saints written for children. The illustrations are gorgeous, and Hunter-Kilmer has a gift for presenting the stories of many saints from all over the world in a way that makes sense to children. I got a lot out of reading this book as an adult, too!
Pray for Us: 75 Saints Who Sinned, Suffered, and Struggled on Their Way to Holiness, by Meg Hunter-Kilmer. This book got me excited about the lives of the saints in a new way! I’ve found the stories here a wealth of inspiration for both my personal spiritual life and my preaching. You’ll probably hear me tell some of the stories in this book to our whole congregation; they are just that good!
Rebuilt: The Story of a Catholic Parish: Awakening the Faithful, Reaching the Lost, and Making Church Matter, by Michael White and Tom Corcoran. I love the humility and honesty of this look at parish life. I love reading books on parish renewal and this book is the one that’s stuck with me the most. It’s also a great study in leadership, not in any formal or prescriptive way, but just telling stories of what it is like to try to make things better when life’s problems are generally a little more complicated than we would guess at first.
Sir MacHinery, by Tom McGowen. Here’s a book I bet no one else in our congregation has ever read! When I was in middle school, Tom McGowen was one of my favorite authors. He wrote great fantasy and science fiction, and in my opinion, this book is his best. Then and now, I loved its strange cast of characters and the way it uses common tropes in surprising ways.