Resurrecting Grace Remembering Catholic Childhoods

Resurrecting Grace is a wildly entertaining collection of memoir about the often painful and humorous experience of growing up in the one true faith. This small confessional of personal pieces from women and men about the Church, the saints, the nuns, hidden desires, and overt transgressions--and of course the guilt, the guilt, the guilt--is one for proud Catholics, former and recovering Catholics, and Catholics by association. Editor Marilyn Sewell, a Unitarian minister who was raised in the Catholic faith, approaches her subject with a kind of reverent humor. The book is arranged thematically, around topics like "The Sins of the Flesh," "Sister, May I?," and "Suffering and Sacrifice," and includes pieces by Rosemary Bray, Roberto Rodriguez, Mary Gordon, Esmeralda Santiago, Tobias Wolff, and many others. Rich in the images and experiences that can only be the result of a Catholic upbringing, these stories prove the promise of a community founded on faith and sustained with hope.

Marilyn Sewell is senior minister of the First Unitarian Church in Portland, Oregon, and editor of Cries of the Spirit (Beacon / 6849-7 / $20.00 pb) and Claiming the Spirit Within (Beacon / 6861-6 / $20.00 pb). She lives in Portland.