Catholic Dads

I have a guest post from Justin Catanoso. Justin is a Catholic father who has a saint in the family. He has written about rediscovering his roots and his faith in a book described below. I thought fellow Catholic Dads would be interested in his post. I have not read the book myself. If anyone has, let us know what you think. Thank you Justin for sharing your post.
- RobK

It’s a great honor to be hosted on Catholic Dads to share with you some thoughts concerning my new book, My Cousin the Saint: A Search for Faith, Family, and Miracles (Morrow/HarperCollins). Incidentally, the title is literal, not metaphorical. I really do have a cousin – Father Gaetano Catanoso, a contemporary of my grandfather’s born in the same Italian village – who was canonized on Oct. 23, 2005, by Pope Benedict XVI.

Writing this book turned, in part, on a few simple questions: How would you feel if you were related to a saint, a true member of the Catholic Church’s communion of saints? Would it deepen your spirituality and make you believe you should receive blessings directly from God? In pursuing the answers, I set off on a journey that led me across town and a return to church, and across the ocean to meet with high church officials at the Vatican. I also spent nearly a month with new-found Italian relatives in Calabria, sharing meals with them, attending Mass, talking with them at length about our shared familial history and witnessing how Father Gaetano still plays a tangible role in their lives every day.

In exploring the life of the saint, a humble mission priest who died in 1963, I confront my tenuous spiritual moorings. I question the value of prayer in times of profound loss and grief. I walk the line between the mystical and the superstitious in hearing for myself one miracle story after another. I determine that I’ve been a lapsed Catholic for too long and return to the church, thus taking a few steps down a long road to a renewed sense of faith.

I have shared all these experiences with my own family in North Carolina, my wife of 24 years and our three daughters, ages 20, 18 and 15. We were all there for the canonization. We have learned church history and church rituals together. We have seen our family ties extend across the Atlantic to so many wonderful relatives in Italy. We have been blessed with the knowledge of having a true saint in our family tree. All these experiences have drawn us closer together, and enriched our lives in ways we never could have imagined. And as the Catholic dad in the family, it has been a special and singular privilege to lead the way — and then share this story with others in My Cousin the Saint.

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Ask backflip blinklist BlogBookmark Bloglines BlogMarks Blogsvine BuddyMarks BUMPzee! CiteULike co.mments Connotea del.icio.us

Digg diigo DotNetKicks DropJack dzone Facebook Fark Faves Feed Me Links Friendsite folkd.com Furl Google

Hugg Jamespot Jeqq Kaboodle kirtsy linkaGoGo LinkedIn LinksMarker Ma.gnolia Mister Wong Mixx MySpace MyWeb

Netvouz Newsvine oneview OnlyWire PlugIM Propeller Reddit Rojo Segnalo Shoutwire Simpy Slashdot Sphere

Sphinn Spurl Squidoo StumbleUpon Technorati ThisNext Twitter Webride Windows Live Worlds Movies Yahoo!

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML: 

 If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

More »