Arts

African reality alive in fiction

{mosimage}Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan (Little Brown and Company, 368 pages, hardcover, $26.99).

Say you’re One of Them is a masterpiece of reality-fiction that evokes powerful emotions. Uwem Akpan, a Nigerian Catholic priest, has exceptional narrative skills. He captures heartbreaking realities in Africa as seen through the eyes of children. He uses his characters to show us spiritual values of love, hope and sacrifice.

Akpan explores unimaginable tragedies of poverty, suffering and sacrifice across Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Benin in this collection of five stories. He narrates experiences perceived through the eyes of children in these five countries. In all the stories innocence and vulnerability are interwoven with suffering, survival and hope of families who struggle with some of the hardest realities of Africa — realities readers will barely comprehend. The children are lenses through which we see a series of surreal tragedies and triumphs.

Helping us in the chaos of our inner journey

{mosimage}Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, O.F.M. (St. Anthony Messenger Press, 136 pages, softcover $10.50).

I started reading Franciscan Friar Murray Bodo’s book, Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations, early this summer and ended reading the last pages as autumn came. As it turns out, the book begins in autumn and ends in summer.

These are serendipitous reversals that call attention to each individual section in this book of meditations and poems. Seasons signify personal states of mind and our sense of quest, as do the heightened awareness and insight that each changing time and period evoke on Bodo as he contemplates his life’s passages.

Setting the record straight on Martha of Bethany

{mosimage}The Many Faces of Martha of Bethany by Diane E. Peters (Novalis, softcover, 230 pages, $26.95).

For someone who only receives a couple of short mentions in the Gospels, Martha has certainly caused quite a commotion over the past two millennia.

Most know her as the woman who was too busy in the kitchen to hear Jesus preach. There is a lot more to her than that — including her skills as a dragon-tamer, at which (some say) she was more impressive than St. George.

Novalis deal completed

{mosimage}TORONTO - Bayard Canada has put the finishing touches to a deal that will give it ownership of Novalis, Canada’s largest Catholic book and periodical publisher.

The ink has dried on the deal signed Oct. 1 between Saint Paul University in Ottawa, which owned Novalis, and Bayard of Montreal, which since 2000 has been handling the distribution and marketing of Novalis books and magazines.

Unknown facts unveiled in Pope John Paul II film

{mosimage}VATICAN CITY - Pope John Paul II was lightly wounded by a knife-wielding priest in Portugal in 1982, one year after a gunman tried to kill him in St. Peter's Square, according to one of the late pope's closest aides.

The disclosure came in a biographical film screened for the first time at the Vatican on Oct. 16, the 30th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's election. Pope Benedict XVI and many of the world's bishops were in attendance.

The Irish-Canadian experience

{mosimage}A Story to Be Told: Personal Reflections on the Irish Immigrant Experience in Canada by M. Eleanor McGrath (Liffey Press, 215 pages, hardcover, $65.00).

TORONTO - Between 1940 and 1990, the reasons behind Canada’s last great wave of Irish immigration were about more than Ireland’s poor economy — there were social, cultural and political factors too.

Making sense of our different beliefs

{mosimage}Common Ground: A Priest and a Rabbi Read Scripture Together by Andrew M. Greeley and Jacob Neusner (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 335 pages, softcover, $24.95).

A couple of nights ago I looked up at the sky and saw the wishing star and so I made a wish. I wished there was a university course, perhaps called Thinking and Judgment 101, and that it became a required course for everyone in a position of responsibility or aspiring to one.

'Sheen Affair' on tap for Somerville election

{mosimage}TORONTO - A slice of American-Canadian relations, examined in the battle to get Bishop Fulton Sheen on Canadian TV back in the 1950s, will be the subject of the annual Somerville Lecture on Christianity and Communications.

Professor Mark McGowan, historian, author and principal at the University of St. Michael’s College in Toronto, will present the annual lecture on Nov. 6 at Toronto’s Newman Centre and Nov. 7 at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo.

Christianity's changing face

{mosimage}Christianity and Ethnicity in Canada. edited by Paul Bramadat and David Seljak (University of Toronto Press, softcover, 448 pages, $49.95).

Canada’s churches no longer look or talk the way they once did. The once predominantly Anglo-Celtic membership of the United Church, an organization that viewed itself as a potential national church for Canada when it was established in 1925, is now complemented by large Taiwanese and Hungarian congregations. Many Catholic parishes in major cities now have a significant Filipino presence.

Hope for Hollywood

{mosimage}In Hollywood, the mission field is as fertile as the wheat fields in Saskatchewan — or so you might hear from Mark Matthews, the founder of Bibles and Brew.

Bibles and Brew is a group of about 15 men who meet bi-weekly in the throes of Hollywood culture to discuss what it means to be Catholic and to support each other in the faith.

The true joy of Lourdes

{mosimage}The Miracle of Lourdes: A Message of Healing and Hope by John Lochran (St. Anthony Messenger Press, softcover, 134 pages, $12.95).

To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the miracle of Lourdes, where Our Lady appeared to French peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous, Fr. John Lochran retells the familiar story with deep insight and new appreciation.

ROM to host Dead Sea Scrolls

{mosimage}TORONTO - The Royal Ontario Museum has reached out to Israel and back to the beginnings of Christianity and Judaism as we know it to bring the Dead Sea Scrolls to Toronto.

Some of the most significant pieces of the 2,000-year-old writings will be on display at the ROM from June 27, 2009, to Jan. 3, 2010. Scrolls on display will include passages of Genesis, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Isaiah, the War Scroll, the Community Rule and the Messianic Apocalypse.

Praising God in song

{mosimage}MISSISSAUGA, Ont. - The 19th International Festival of Religious Song in Mississauga will bring both professional and amateur performances to the stage in competitions this year.

The festival, originally started by members of the Polish Catholic community and promoted by Catholic Radio Toronto, is meant to encourage musical talent, especially for use in praising God. The new professional category this year will provide a place for more established Catholic musicians to compete, whereas everyone previously competed on the same level.