Catholic Women's Book Group

Meeting Time and Location
The book group meets the first Tuesday of each month from 2-3:30pm in the Parish Ministry Center. For more information, contact Sue Andzik (719-359-2471 or sandzik@gmail.com).

2023 Book List

  • January         Life is Messy by Matthew Kelly
  • February       A Song for Nagasaki: The Story of Takashi Nagai: Scientist, Convert, and Survivor of the Atomic Bomb by Paul Glenn 
  • March            Just Rest: Receiving God’s Renewing Presence in the Deserts of Your Life by Sonja Corbitt
  • April                From Worry to Wonder: A Catholic Guide to Finding Peace Through Scripture by Melissa Overmyer
  • May                Reveal the Gift: Living the Feminine Genius by Lisa Cotter
  • June               My Grandfather’s Son: A Memoir by Clarence Thomas
  • July                A Declaration of Dependence: Trusting God Amidst Totalitarianism, Paganism, and War by Fulton Sheen
  • August           In the School of the Holy Spirit by Jacques Philippe
  • September   How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas Woods
  • October         Conceived by Science: Thinking Carefully and Compassionately about Infertility and IVF by Stephanie Gray Connors
  • November     Friendship with the Fathers: How the Early Church Evangelized by Mike Aquilina
  • December     The True Meaning of Christmas: The Birth of Jesus and the Origins of the Season by Michael Barber
​2023 Book Reviews
Ratings 1–5 †
January 2023
Life is Messy by Matthew Kelly (†††††)

Synopsis: 
The mess of life is both inevitable and unexpected. It is filled with delightful mysteries and frustrating predicaments. In our disposable culture, we throw broken things away. So, what will we do with broken people, broken relationships, broken institutions, broken families, and of course, our very own broken selves?  This book is about putting our lives back together, and allowing ourselves to be put back together, when life doesn't turn out as we expected it to. Based on his own heart-wrenching personal journals, Matthew Kelly shares how the worst three years of his life affected him, by exploring this question: Can someone who has been broken be healed and become more beautiful and more lovable than ever before? The answer will fill you with hope.

Some Comments from the Group’s Discussion:
  • I call Kelly's books (all the ones I’ve read) Catholic Light literature, but they are extremely practical. There are several experiences in my life that I can relate to when I read his book.
  • His book does have a lot of good food for thought, such as when he says that life is messy because it can be random and unpredictable.  But we don’t like random and unpredictable, we like the illusion of being in control even though we are not in control. The reality is that while we can influence a great many outcomes, we are not in control. Despite this indisputable reality, we waste so much energy laboring under the illusion, trying to control people, situations, and outcomes.  Comments of his I liked were “Life isn’t a race, it’s a dance” and “when we make decisions based on how we want to appear to be, we make bad decisions.” The book is well worth reading, reminding us that we are all imperfect and we are all living “messy” lives.
  • I’ve read many of his books--some I liked and some I don’t.  He had so many good points in this book on how our lives turn out (unexpectedly) and how we respond and deal with it.
  • I liked the part on the four absolutes—honesty, unselfishness, purity, and love—all powerful guides, and his three appointments:  to self, to God, and finally to death itself.
  • The book got better and better as I read to the end, asking some very poignant questions: do you feel like you are doing what you were born to do? How do you measure your life? What is really important in your life?
  • I loved his story about talking with the author of Shindler’s Ark (made into the movie Shindler’s List) who talked about the Polish Holocaust survivor who was very slow to make friends because he would always wonder “would they hide me?” Kelly asks the reader “How many people would you be willing to hide?”—in other words—risk your life for? Would they do the same for you?
  • He writes about how our society is changing and how we have lost our honor, our sense of worth. “When immorality becomes your morality, you are profoundly lost. And immorality has become the morality of an alarming number of the most influential people in our society….  And so we become desensitized to evil.”
 
Quotes of note: “If you wish to live a good life, fill your life with goodness. Fill your life with love, kindness, gratitude, compassion, and generosity.”   
“Celebrate goodness every chance you get.”