Book praised as a tool for evangelization and a needed call to holiness

From Fr. C. John McCloskey's recent review of The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God: The Story of Ruth Pakaluk: Convert, Mother, Pro-life Activist (edited by Michael Pakaluk; also available in e-book format):

The book is a tool for evangelization through the witness of Ruth’s life and her death. However, I believe its most important message also lies at the heart of the Second Vatican Council—the universal call to holiness. All of us, after all, are called to holiness, and by the ordinary means the Church has provided since its foundation—prayer, the Scriptures, the sacraments, self-denial, self-gift, the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, and openness to the general and particular will of God.

But through the centuries, and particularly after the end of the early Christian era, it became a commonplace belief that holiness was largely reserved for those called to religious life and the priesthood, while laypeople could only aspire to a second-rate holiness, hoping to squeak into Purgatory. There have been many outstanding lay saints—St. Thomas More, for example—but even he was raised to the altar centuries after his martyrdom. That great doctor of the Church, St. Francis De Sales, in his Introduction to the Devout Life, opened the door to the aristocracy, but there was something more or less lacking.

In more recent times, the canonization of St. Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei, and the beatification of Blessed John Henry Newman, are ushering in the new springtime for the Church that Blessed John Paul II the Great foresaw. Newman has been called the invisible peritus of Vatican II and St. Josemaria the anonymous peritus. It is no accident that Ruth Pakaluk was deeply devoted to these modern examples of holiness, striving to put their teachings into practice in her daily life.

During his pontificate, Blessed John Paul II put out a strong call for worthy Catholic laymen and laywomen, preferably married, to be placed on the fast track in the Congregation of the Saints, raising them to the altar to emphasize the universal call to holiness. We leave the matter of a St. Ruth to the judgment of the Church.

Read the entire review on First Things. You can also read Peter Kreeft's Introduction to The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God on Ignatius Insight:

Comments

[Stephen Sparrow]

A beautiful story - I cannot recommend it highly enough