Book benefactors! Thank you.

[[In the picture above, we see some attack-mould doing it's deadly work on one of my favorite reference volumes. This was a pre-hermitage, living in the loft of the neighbor's barn while building the hermitage experience. Now that I'm starting to enclose the hermitage, I think the books will be faring much better altogether. Me too!]]

• Thanks go to J.E., who sent in Father Mark Gruber’s: Journey Back to Eden. My Life and Times Among the Desert Fathers. I’ve started that already, and it looks to be a page turner. Having been to Egypt myself (though not so extensively or for so long!), I can identify with much of what I’ve read so far. I’m especially interested in how he will fare in Upper Egypt. Orbis Books publishes this. The Maryknollers! Yikes! I was resident in their house in Rome by the American Embassy for quite a while. I also lived with them in Lourdes, for they would come for months at a time to be auxilliary chaplains. Their history with Lourdes goes way back to the beginning. Don’t forget, we are praying to their founder, Father Price, for a miracle to heal the brain cancer of seminarian Philip Gerard Johnson, over at In Caritate Non Ficta. Philip is doing well, by the way, and that’s very cool altogether. Visit the first link to be inspired altogether, and then the second to see what Philip is up to these days.
• J.E. also graciously sent in Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s: The Spirit of the Liturgy. Thanks for that. Ignatius is, of course, publishing that volume. I started to read this when I was living in Montefiascone just before beginning the doctorate in Rome. This was reading on the bus. Don’t think I ever finished, which I’ve always regretted. I have no idea where that copy is now. There must have been some collaboration with some guardian angels to inspire J.E. to add this to his care package. So, thanks to the angels as well!
• Thanks go to J.T.H., who sent in Gerard J. Keane’s Creation Rediscovered. Evolution and The Importance of The Origins Debate. I’m guessing that he saw my rather rambunctuous defense of Father Gordon MacRae’s (about) ever brilliant post over on These Stone Walls The Higgs Boson “God Particle”: Of All Things Visible and Invisible, if not also the page on this blog about my equally stridently orthodox thesis on Genesis 2,4–3,24. It’s published by TAN Books. I like TAN very much. They are now Saint Benedict Press here in North Carolina. The Judicial Vicar has a great appreciation for them as well. Here’s a link to what they do. I very much look forward to delving into this volume. Very thoughtful, J.T.H.

May the Lord continue to bless you and all benefactors of Holy Souls Hermitage according, as always, to the perfect intercession of the Immaculate Conception.