No Regrets

Whether to class it a transgression against Lenten sobriety or not, I don't know, but I just finished reading the most enjoyable book to cross my path in an awful long time:

Georg Ratzinger 

My Brother, the Pope 

As told to Michael Hesemann 

Translated by Michael J. Miller 

IGNATIUS PRESS    SAN FRANCISCO

(2012-02-17). My Brother, The Pope. Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.

Although my commitments would not allow me to read it through in one sitting, I confess I found the book hard to set down. Thrillers and who-done-it's can be so spell-binding I know, but what I found irresistible about the latest Ratzinger interview book was the finely drawn and over a lifetime family portrait which Michael Hesemann has helped Msgr. Georg Ratzinger gift to the world.

 As odd as it may sound, we can be very thankful that the youngest son of this family became Pope such that we could have occasion to know his world, starting from his lovely family. I cannot envy him his world, strikingly beautiful as it is; I can only thank him profoundly for sharing it with me.

I sure hope this book gets a wide reading. It can reassure the older of us and teach the younger of us about family, faith and friendship.