Theology Professor Endorses My Book

"Clear and crisp, substantive and yet easy to follow." 

 

"Successfully communicates Catholic wisdom on marriage and family by weaving well-selected quotations drawn from the tradition with living examples from her family and other faithful Catholic couples today."

 

"Shows that married couples who are faithful not just to one another but to the example of Christ the Bridegroom and the teaching of his Bride will find their love flourish and be fruitful now and in the life to come, for it will be fed by deeper wellsprings than anything available in our shallow culture today."

I am so grateful for these words of support from Dr. Michael Hoonhout, professor of systematic theology at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception here in the Diocese of Rockville Centre.  Prof. Hoonhout has helped me greatly in the last stages of finalizing my book on the Church's beautiful teachings regarding marriage and family life.  For the past ten years, I have been writing the book chapter by chapter and piece by piece.  Dr. Hoonhout encouraged me to look at the book as an integrated whole.

 

When I met him last November, Dr. Hoonhout took the chapters I gave him and then requested a Table of Contents and bibliography, neither of which I had prepared.  Writing the Table of Contents helped me to envision the connections between the myriad topics on marriage and family, from sacramental grace to openness to life to raising your children in the faith to turning work into prayer.  It was as if squares of a quilt had been stuffed haphazardly into a sewing basket, and now I had to sew each square together and unite them all with a border.  Dr. Hoonhout helped in crafting that border as well, by suggesting an overarching theme for the book that was far better than my tentative choice.

 

Dr. Hoonhout is a terrific resource on the theology of marriage, since he has taught a course on the topic to seminarians and laypeople for the past six years.  He is also the general editor of the seminary's online theological and pastoral journal Seat of Wisdom.   The journal has published helpful and informative articles on marriage and family such as "What Do Children Think of God? New Data on Childhood Images of the Divine" (Summer 2011) and "Natural Family Planning over Contraception: A Strong Case," which examines some negative health effects of artificial contraception (Summer 2012).  The journal's Winter 2013 issue just came out.  The journal is free and open access, so just click on the link in this paragraph to take a look.

Once again, I'm thrilled that Dr. Hoonhout has endorsed my book.  Please pray that the Holy Spirit and Holy Mary, Seat of Wisdom, guide me to find the right publisher!