My Secret is Mine
“Secretum meum mihi,” (“my secret is mine.”) was St. Edith's Stein's cryptic response when her best friend asked why she converted. We serve up interviews, historical sketches, Bible studies, book reviews and essays for Catholic women. MY SECRET IS MINE is for women with an audacious hope: that the Messiah makes all things new.
Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
Who Wants to be a Millionaire? by Kristen West McGuire Part Two of a nine part series on Mulieris Dignitatem (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women) by St. John Paul the Great. Well, shoot, who doesn’t? Occasionally, thanks to the lottery or some game show, one of “us” hits it big. Millionaire! It’s a really compelling story! It resonates with our hearts – we’re happy for the schmuck who won, and maybe a little envious. The larger context makes the ‘millionaire mirage’ look a little shallow. I...
NEW! Quirky Pilgrimage Column: ANDALUSIA
ANDALUSIA by Kristen West McGuire Stephen Matthew Milligan via Wikimedia Commons. Why visit Milledgeville, Georgia? If you have to ask this question, you need not bother – fans of Southern gothic writer Flannery O’Connor will know why. The antebellum capitol of Georgia, Milledgeville reinvented itself after the state government moved to Atlanta in 1868. The economic engines keeping the town from dying included a military school, a college for women, and the largest “lunatic asylum” in the...
History of the Rosary
HISTORY OF THE ROSARY by Kristen West McGuire Photo by Anuja Tilj on Unsplash St. Dominic did not “create” the Rosary. He died in 1221, and the earliest recorded rosary similar to what we know today was dated in the 1300s. It is possible that he taught people to recite the first half of the Hail Mary. St. Peter Damian (1007 – 1072) told the story of a priest with only one virtue – saying that Angelic Salutation daily. (Luke 1:42a) Soon, it was called the Psalter of Our Lady, with peasants...
Book Review: A Crazed Prophet in the Woods
THE VIOLENT BEAR IT AWAY BY FLANNERY O'CONNOR reviewed by Kristen West McGuire It’s my favorite first line in all the novels I’ve ever read: "Francis Marion Tarwater’s uncle had been dead for only half a day when the boy got too drunk to finish digging his grave and a Negro named Buford Munson, who had come to get a jug filled, had to finish it and drag the body from the breakfast table where it was still sitting and bury it in a decent and Christian way, with the sign of its Saviour at the...
Pray for Women Living in Chronic Poverty
Pray for Women Living in Chronic Poverty by Kristen West McGuire Photo by mark chaves on Unsplash Although the consumer price index spiked after the pandemic, inflation has slowed. Middle class households may be pinched, but families below the poverty line are squeezed. Yet compare the plight of the poor in our country to the desperate situation of victims of chronic poverty resulting from war, famine, natural disasters and dictatorships. The order to help the poor in Matthew 25 is not to be...
Bible Study: Song of Songs 8:6-14
HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW? by Kristen West McGuire Song of Songs 8:6-14 Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy as hard as hell, the lamps thereof are fire and flames. Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it: if a man should give all the substance of his house for love, he shall despise it as nothing. Our sister is little, and hath no breasts. What shall we do to our sister in the day when she is to be spoken...
Interview: Dr. Cindy Jones-Nosacek - 2025 edition
Dr. Cindy: Mother, Grandmother, Prolife Doctor, Bioethicist, Medical Missionary & Wife of a Deacon! by Genevieve Kineke (SHORT BIO: Dr. Cynthia Jones-Nosacek is a retired family practice physician in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is a respected pro-life bioethicist in addition to doing medical mission work in Uganda with her husband, Deacon Gary Nosacek of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. She and her husband have five children, and live in a multigenerational household. This interview was completed...
Dignity? Vocation? Huh?
An Essay on Mulieris Dignitatem, On the Dignity and Vocation of Women. by Kristen West McGuire You've Come a Long Way Baby! (National Archief on Unsplash) If you’re old enough to remember this was a cigarette slogan, you know a lot has changed in fifty-plus years. But, according to some, not enough has changed in the Catholic Church. They point to the work of Saint John Paul II with contempt. He did not advocate ordaining women, nor did he re-jigger a single word of Humanae Vitae. Is it...
Historical Sketch: Hospital Scenes, 1996 and 2005
HOSPITAL SCENES 1996 AND 2005 by Kristen West McGuire Both Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa were hospitalized several times in their final years. Their distinctive spirituality in embracing their frailties inspired millions. Calcutta, India “Mother had the grace in the latter years, to have the Blessed Sacrament in her hospital room, and she always wanted it with her…[In August] She had another heart failure right before our eyes. A tube was put down into her lungs to assist her breathing...
Book Review: Dear James by Jon Hassler
DEAR JAMES by Jon Hassler Reviewed by Kristen West McGuire (Chicago: Loyola Press, 1993, 2007), 384 pp., $13.95 Ah, the Church Lady! Every parish has one, and many times more than one. Miss Agatha McGee spent her entire adult life as a teacher and then principal of St. Isidore Catholic School in the northern hamlet of Staggerford, Minnesota. When the parish council voted to close the school and Miss McGee involuntarily retires at the age of seventy, Fr. Francis Finn fears she will take on...
“Secretum meum mihi,” (“my secret is mine.”) was St. Edith's Stein's cryptic response when her best friend asked why she converted. We serve up interviews, historical sketches, Bible studies, book reviews and essays for Catholic women. MY SECRET IS MINE is for women with an audacious hope: that the Messiah makes all things new.