When COVID-19 hit, retreat leader and author Liz Kelly had more time on her hands as activities were canceled. She used the extra time to complete a book.
Kelly, also a speaker, spiritual director, jazz vocalist and columnist for The Catholic Spirit, recently joined Patrick Conley, host of the “Practicing Catholic” radio show, to discuss her latest book, “Love Like a Saint: Cultivating Virtue With Holy Women.” The interview airs at 9 p.m. April 30 on Relevant Radio 1330 AM.
Liz Kelly
Kelly said her publisher was keen to see more on the topic — “readers longing for stories of holy lives and not just the greats, Catherine of Sienna and St. Augustine, though they are wonderful,” she said. “I really tried to focus on women that we had really recent access to. We have their letters, we have their photographs, we have their correspondence and things like that.”
In addition to saints, Kelly includes stories of women declared by the Church to be blessed, venerable and a servant of God, steps on the road to sainthood.
One woman addressed during the interview is the Venerable Anne de Guigné, who died in 1922 just before her 11th birthday. Featured in the book’s first chapter, Kelly said she was looking for someone to exemplify the virtue of obedience.
De Guigné was not obedient because she feared repercussions or punishment for disobedience, Kelly said, but because she was “wildly in love with the Lord,” and she wanted to offer her obedience as a gift to him. “So that completely reframed the virtue for me,” Kelly said, “because I do tend to think of obedience as why I want to avoid what the punishment would be for disobedience.”
Kelly said she includes information in each chapter that might help readers to engage with the subjects of the book, including prompts for prayer for a specific virtue, questions designed to be answered while journaling or in a small group, and quotes from the women.
Asked what sets this book apart from others written about saints, Kelly said it wasn’t meant to be exhaustive on any of the saints. But what she hopes it does well and will be helpful to readers is focusing on one or two virtues from the life of each woman.
“There’s a kind of intimacy that is created, rather than trying to gather up the entire life experience,” she said. “There is a kind of intimate glimpse into each of the virtues that we are focusing on, that makes that saint so much more available to you, rather than feeling so distant. ‘They’re so holy, there’s no way that I can touch that.’ I think that by concentrating just on the one virtue, suddenly it’s like the woman is sitting next to you on the couch and you’re having a conversation.”
Conley asked Kelly if the book is just for women. To hear her response and her thoughts on a potential book about male saints, tune in to this episode of the “Practicing Catholic.” It also airs at 1 p.m. May 1 and 2 p.m. May 2 on Relevant Radio 1330 AM.
Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the latest show also includes interviews with Evan Koop, who describes his Cuppa Joe presentation May 4 about St. Joseph as the young husband of Mary, and Bishop Andrew Cozzens, who discusses justice and forgiveness in the wake of the Derek Chauvin trial.
Listen to all of the interviews after they have aired:
soundcloud.com/practicingcatholic
Practicing Catholic on Spotify
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