As all book reviewers know, sometimes the biggest chore is preserving to read the book through to the end. Because I’m asked to review many ‘lifestyle’ books—about families, divorce, children, grief, etc.—a lot of trite and ‘junk-food’ genre publications come across my desk. So it’s with great delight I draw The Interim readers’ attention to a new publication Nazareth, a Catholic Family Journal.

Donald McPhee

Published by Donald McPhee, former executive-director of Coalition for Life and now director of Nazareth Family Life Centre in Combermere, Ontario, the magazine comes at a significant time in the life of the Centre.

It’s another visible aspect of the apostolate Don and his loving wife, Posie, have honed and shaped over the last decade—establishing a place for concrete action to support Catholic and Christian family life, where families and individuals can spend a week or weekend in prayer and reflection with other Christian families.

Editor Michael O’Brien states it thus: “This magazine is. . .a place where the immeasurable beauty and holiness of our calling as spouses and parents can be reflected upon. Our triumphs encourage one another and our failures instruct each other. In this spirit nothing is lost, not even our defeats, for everything works to the good, and God is glorified.”

The staff demonstrates a strong graphic sense with their first issue. Because it’s an Advent theme (the magazine will be quarterly), one of William Kurelek’s beautiful Nativity scenes is used for the full colour cover.

The 13 items listed in the contents are as varied as married life in a family. Eight have male authors, a fact that cheered me because it reinforced the vital role which husbands and fathers play in the family unit, a role too often slighted or deemed irrelevant in some contemporary literature.

Overall, most of the articles are literate and meaty. Most authors draw us in to an intimacy with themselves, so they seem to be directly speaking quietly and sincerely quietly and sincerely to us. Clear, joyous photographs of the authors and their families add to that impression. Tasteful wood cuts and illustrations also add a grace and dignity.

Goodness

Regarding the content of the articles, again there’s variety undergirded by an overall sense of ‘quality’. This the journal’s title, Nazareth, and gives a poetic meditation on how to capture the secret of Nazareth into our own families.

He puts it this way.

“Trust God enough to allow him to break us open, which is the necessary prelude to transforming our individual lives. . .and the whole world.”

The article by editor, Michael O’Brien entitled, “The Flight into Egypt” proposes that “the cost of a family life is the death of selfishness,” and that the family home “must have at its core a heart that prays, a heart that is willing to look at its own poverty, a heart hungry enough to cry out for help.”

By reliving a situation familiar to all families—tending an infant to all families—tending an infant daughter who was miserable with a cold during the wee small hours—the author teaches us what he learned that night, “I had thought God was silent. I discovered that I was deaf.”

Catherine Doherty

Done McPhee, in “The Road to Nazareth” gives us wondrous account of the path he and Posie travelled to ‘Nazareth’, including their relationship with Catherine Doherty, foundress of Madonna House, and the double baptism of water and fire which set the seal on their endeavour in the family apostolate.

Brian Shaugnessy’s account of “Angel Gabriel” is about their child conceived when his wife, Rita, was 44. It’s a convincing insight into how a couple in conscience rethink the Church’s challenge teaching on responsible parenthood; namely, that couples postponing having more children must have a ‘grave motive’ for so doing. The loving thorough manner in which they explore this issue serves as an inspiring model. Again, the frank conversational tone ensures authenticity.

John Kipley’s article on the encyclical Casti Connubiil documents that Catholic opposition to birth control was—until as recently as 1930—the tradition to which all Christian churches subscribed.

A serious omission in this essay, however, is failure to update the teaching on sexuality in marriage declared by Vatican II—namely, that the unitive and procreative aspects, although inseparable, are of equal status. The author’s reference to the unitive aspect of conjugal sexuality as “secondary” does it a disservice.

Christian spirituality is eminently practical, and so is this first issue. Posie McPhee’s article with patterns for various Advent celebrations, including the fashioning of a Jesse tree, will become a standby for many families. The book reviews and cameo-portraits of ‘modern-day saints’ assist us in the daily struggle to realize the incarnational aspects of Christian life through an imitation of the “hidden years of the holy family of Nazareth.”

You can see that I was impressed!  Get subscriptions for your family (whether you are newly-wed or grandparent) and all you love. Or get your parish council to get the bulk rate. It may be pricey but each issue is more like a book than a magazine. You won’t throw any out, because what they have to say is timeless. Write Nazareth Journal, Box 106, Combermere, Ontario, K0J 1L0. One year $20. Two years $35. Bulk parish $15.

Mrs. Lorraine Williams is a marriage counsellor and journalist living in Willowdale, Ontario.