Pope Francis

Bible Study and Book Club
time is beginning, and I feel as
though I should be purchasing
yellow pencils, spiral notebooks,
and a backpack.
Taking adult style classes is enriching
and enlightening, but the thing they have
most taught me is that as much as Sister
Maria Mateo lectured, my study skills have
not improved. I still don’t do my homework
on time.
Nine new books, in their 14-by-17-inch
Amazon.com box have been sitting on the
floor of my office since I purchased them
the first day of June. How great was the
feeling when I received that box, smiling
with a combination of excitement and selfsatisfaction.
I told my kids, “I can’t wait to
sit out in the sun and start digesting all these
wonderful stories!”
Yesterday Meredith saw the first book,
The Book Thief, sitting on my coffee table.
“How do you like it?” she said.
“Love it!” I answered enthusiastically.
“The first 34 pages are incredible.”
I do read every day, beginning at 5 a.m.,
a good time because there are no phone calls
from polling services. It’s quiet — the only
sound is the den clock ticking, its chimes
ringing Westminster Quarters every 15
minutes, harmonizing with identical chimes,
from the clock in my husband’s office. (The
doorbell rings the same melody. When they
all happen together we don’t know whether
to answer the clock or wind the door.)
This summer I decided to dig into a
book my mom sent me, the story of Our
Lady of Fatima. I received it when I was the
mother of two, Meredith and John, while
expecting Julie. It has long been resting in
a moving box in the garage, waiting to be
picked up, dusted, and read.
I had procrastinated for three decades
before acknowledging this tiny book that
measures two and a half by four inches, and
is just 108 pages long. (I counted them —
VOICE
The pages of our lives
(End with a new beginning — happily ever- eternal)
By Kathy Cribari Hamer
We savor our good books, don’t we? We’re kind of sad
when they end, and sometimes we even re-read them,
their content is so precious. In many ways they are like
our lives, with content blowing past our eyes ....
they are not numbered). The little composition’s
imprimatur is by James E Cassidy,
Bishop of Fall River, August 11, 1947.
So instead of what the rest of my book
club was reading, I dug into a narrative that
had been waiting patiently for me, its paper
cover, long and patiently accepting the intrusion
of multiple dust bunnies. I still have
not finished it. I am saving the last 15 pages.
We savor our good books, don’t we?
We’re kind of sad when they end, and sometimes
we even re-read them, their content is
so precious. In many ways they are like our
lives, with content blowing past our eyes
as though a movie-prop fan were sitting
nearby, creating the image of wind.
The classmates of my youth, the Shamrocks
of Pueblo Catholic High School,
are preparing for our big high school class
reunion, and the current topic has turned
toward remembrances of those who have
died. Fifteen people we all knew well have
left us, one at a time. So we will listen to the
roll call of their names, each of us harboring
different memories of their lives, while
silently wondering who might be next, and
when is our turn??
My mom was born and died in the
month of October, a month full of sweet
smells, happy thoughts, and great promise.
This book came to me that month too. Every
time I pick up this story of the Blessed
Virgin Mary’s apparition to three little
children, I think of my mother, as she must
have thought of me when she mailed it.
Tucked inside the soft, dog-eared cover
is a lined, yellow sheet of paper. My mom
wrote a letter on it, folded it, and tucked it
into the package she sent. She told me all
about the book — where she got it, what it
taught her, and how it energized her faith.
She also wrote — on now finger-printed,
torn paper that I shall always keep —
what she ate for dinner: “A large fruit plate
with pineapple in the center, with cottage
cheese piled on it, pears and peaches around
it, and banana slices on the outside, with lots
of cherries in between.”
Then she said, “Oh-oh I shouldn’t have
told you; now you will want it.”
I laughed when I read the letter, and
saved it as I have saved and savored the book
that held it. I miss Mom. But I know where
she is.
The glory of the lives we were born to,
and most of us have lived, is the sureness of
the life that is to come, and the promise that
a choir of angels will come to greet us, taking
us to paradise. My mother knew about
that, and every day taught me the faith that
would one day lead me there.
Kathy Cribari Hamer and her
husband are members of St.
Andrew Parish. Her column
was recognized as best family
life column by the Catholic
Press Association of the United
States and Canada in 2014. She is the author
of Me and the Chickens: Big Kate’s simple
wisdom, and can be found on her website
www.somethingelseagain.com.
PAGE 14 NORTH TEXAS CATHOLIC SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2015