April | 2017 | Fountains of Carrots

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We’re excited to welcome Brandon McGinley for a second time on the podcast! Brandon is editor of EWTN publishing and he also edited a great book about Catholic fatherhood titled The Joys and Challenges of Family Life. He lives in Pennsylvania with his lovely wife and three kids.

In this episode we discuss whether the Church should aim to be attractive to modernity by aligning it’s liturgy and evangelization with “the spirit of the age” or whether we should focus instead on offering beauty, goodness, and truth. We bemoan the past few decades of unfortunate church architecture and music (we may or may not bring up a few of our least favorite “hymns” and ugliest church sightings) but we focus on the transcendent, even unfamiliar nature of our Catholic faith and how we can really bring that to the forefront of our liturgy and evangelization. We cover a lot of ground and have a great time tossing around some weighty ideas so grab a cup of coffee and join us!

Links to what we mentioned in today’s episode:

Our first episode with Brandon: The Challenges and Joys of Catholic Fatherhood

Dappled Things (a Catholic quarterly of ideas, faith, and art)

Brandon’s book:

The Joys and Challenges of Family Life

Connect with Brandon:

And don’t forget that you can get Haley’s ebook Making Big Life Changes Together: Pursuing Your Dreams as a Couple for 97% off as part of the 2017 Ultimate Homemaking Bundle! (As well as the Literary Medicine Cabinet printable.) The sale ends Monday, May 1st at midnight so be sure to check it out before it’s gone!

Come hang out with us!

The Fountains of Carrots Raspberry Cordial Social Club on Facebook (our Facebook group)
Connect with Haley on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and her blog
Connect with Christy on Facebook, Instagram, and her blog

You can listen to us on iTunes, and we’d love a quick rating or review. If you have an android device we’re also on Stitcher. And as always, you can find all links, show notes, upcoming guests, and listen to all episodes at Fountains of Carrots.com.

This post contains Amazon affiliate links.

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We’ve been big fans of writer Laura Kelly Fanucci for years. Haley and Christy have had the pleasure of meeting her in person and she’s been on our list of folks we’d love to interview for ages. Our conversation with Laura was beautiful, poignant and compelling and we know you’re going to be inspired and moved by her story.

Laura, her husband, and her three little boys live in Minnesota. In addition to her vocation as a wife and mama, Laura is an author and theologian and blogs at MotheringSpirit.com. So many people have been touched by her vulnerable writing about her family’s journey in grief after the death of Laura’s newborn twin daughters early last year. Laura generously shares that story in this episode and how she and her husband Franco experienced something very supernatural in the NICU as they were saying goodbye to one of their daughters. It’s truly amazing.

While there is plenty of heavy material in this episode, we did a lot of laughing, too. We discussed the idea of vocation or calling. We confessed how different the reality of motherhood is from how we imagined it would be. And we talked about the intertwining of love, grief, and joy and how Christ is present with us in suffering. So grab a basket of laundry (and maybe a box of kleenex) and listen in!

Links to what we mentioned in today’s episode:

Bridget Jones Baby

Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl

Shadowlands (film about C.S. Lewis based on his experience shared in A Grief Observed)

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

Laura’s books: