Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Good Words: book review

It's taken me a while to get back here again, but I'm back with another book review for you. The Catholic Company sent me a review copy of Good Words: Inspiration for Catholic Women.


Wow. I can't say enough good things about this little book! It's divided up into 16 sections based on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. You know it--
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die,
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted,
a time to kill, and a time to heal,
a time to break down, and a time to build up,
a time to weep, and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn, and a time to dance,
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together,
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to seek, and a time to lose,
a time to keep, and a time to throw away,
a time to tear, and a time to sew,
time to keep silence, and a time to speak,
a time to love, and a time to hate,
a time for war, and a time for peace.

This little book has excerpts and short passages from many of the books that have been published by St. Anthony Messenger Press authors, and then there are a couple of questions for reflection after each excerpt. I can easily see this as a starter for a daily devotional practice. I plan to use this in that way but I will also pull from it to use these little pieces as opening prayers/moments of reflection at the beginning of our Mothers Ministry meetings. I love that there are so many different topics in this little book; that really makes it useful for anything. Seriously, look at how many little markers I have in my copy of the book! :)


If I had a word of criticism for this book it's that there isn't an index by topic in the end of the book. The index simply lists the different contributors. I wish that I could look up "pain", for instance, or "finding my path" or something like that and then have a cross referenced list of which reflections might match that theme. I'll make my own index, though, because I really feel as if this is a resource that I'll come back to time and time again. If you're looking for something easy to use to help you kick-start your Lent, this might be just the thing for you. I'd say that you could read the excerpt and the questions for reflection in a matter of minutes--it's up to you how long you spend in actual reflection, though! :)

I wrote this review of Good Words: Inspiration for Catholic Women for the The Catholic Company Review program, a great source for Baptism Gifts and First Communion Gifts. For more information and to purchase, please visit The Catholic Company.


I receive free product samples as compensation for writing reviews for The Catholic Company, but the content of my reviews is not dictated by them and comes solely from my opinion.