aking place over the weekend, the congregation of the Church of St. Rita on 80th Street South held a book launch for a new book entitled ‘Cairns: God Moment Stories,’ detailing the times …
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aking place over the weekend, the congregation of the Church of St. Rita on 80th Street South held a book launch for a new book entitled ‘Cairns: God Moment Stories,’ detailing the times when parishioners have seen God at work in their lives.
Published through Amazon, the book project started 18 months ago, coming about from an assignment by Father Mark Joppa. Asking for 100 stories of times parishioners had experienced God at work in their lives, the parish received 142 submissions, including over 60 in longhand that had to be put in electronic form so they could be edited with the rest of the stories. Once the stories were edited each author was given an opportunity to review their story and then signed a waiver so that their story could be included in the book for the readers enjoyment and instruction.
Released over Gaudete weekend (“Gaudete” being a Latin word for “Rejoice!” which is the Third Sunday of Advent), the book’s main title “Cairn” refers to a hiking way sign, being a single pillar of rocks, each rock being placed there by individual hikers so that future hikers will know they are on the right path. Father Joppa shared at Mass on Saturday that he initially got the idea for the name while reading a reflection on the importance of cairns to hikers and it was revealed to him how important each of the parishioners stories will be to others as they go through their faith journey.
With 1,000 copies published for its initial run, each author received a copy of their own, with pre-ordered books from parishioners being picked up at the book launch Saturday and Sunday in Seton Hall.
With Bible verses added during editing to help provide the introduction to each story, several authors were available at Saturday night's book launch after Mass so they could share their stories personally.
“My story is about my annulment,” parishioner Sharon Hoffman said. “I got an annulment and it’s about that.” Annulments involve a church process that looks into whether a marriage as contracted matches a sacramental marriage of the Catholic Church, in light of Jesus’ teaching.
St. Rita’s parishioner Ken Dines, meanwhile, wrote about his conversion story.
“I was on my third year of Catechism and did a test on Jesus’ Bread of Life Discourse,” he said of his own experience at age 17. Receiving a call from the minister afterwards, Dines had a surprise: he had apparently answered in a way that was not in line with the confession he belonged to, but did align with the teachings of the Catholic Church. After some investigation of his own and attendance at Mass, he ended up converting. “It brings peace in my life,” he shared of his conversion story and the outcome.
Cheryl Spicer’s story involved an urgent health issue.
“The thing that inspired the story is that I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia at age 30 and my kids were 3 and 6,” she said. Receiving what she described as a “visit” at the hospital bedside, she knew everything was going to be all right.
With everyone on their own journey, parish faith formation assistant Stephanie Villanueva-Montoya said the book was about spreading positivity in a post-COVID world.
“We’d just like to remind everyone that we’re in this together,” she said at the book launch. “Just to spread some kindness and positivity.”
The book is now available by pre-order through the parish website www.saintritas.org. Depending on the demand Amazon is waiting in the wings to bring the book to a wider audience.
