Ten Women. Ten Lamps. Matthew 25:1-13

People Often Ask About The End Times

Poème de Maurice Carême: Plain d'hiver

Their Dispositions May Be Revealed

It's Monday

The Fall of Man Today

Sitting The Month by Clarissa Wei

About the book: In Taiwan and across the Chinese-speaking world, the transition period into motherhood is treated with such reverence that it has its own name: zuò yuè zi - to sit the month. 

When Clarissa Wei gave birth to her first child, she was living in Taiwan, where the postpartum period lasts four weeks and is considered one of the most important periods of a woman's life. The practice of "sitting the month" includes therapeutic herbs and warming meals-stir-fried pork liver, chicken simmered with rice wine and sesame oil, or steamed cod with goji berries-believed to help repair the womb and reenergize the new mom. 

There is not a lot of information in the English-speaking world about this practice, or its cuisine, and she set out to learn more.

In Sitting the Month: Postpartum Recipes For Rest & Recovery, through gorgeous photography, stories, and recipes, Clarissa Wei offers a holistic outlook on food specifically intended to nurture new mothers back to health. Any partner or relative (or a very tired mom) can navigate these 88 recipes. With guidance from Stella Wang, a second-generation owner of a Chinese medicine shop, she introduces three stages of recovery. Start with light, herbal soups such as Salmon Miso Soup and Egg Drop Seaweed Soup to detox the body. Advance to collagen and protein-rich dishes such as Scallion Oil Chicken and Black Vinegar Pork Knuckle Stew to support tissue repair, and build up to Ten Tonic Supreme Soup, packed with fiery herbs intended to combat deep fatigue and lingering weakness. Each recipe is designed for solo meals or for sharing with a partner. Freezing advice and notes on unique herbs make this ancient tradition accessible and doable for modern moms in the United States. 

There is an old folk saying that sums up the East Asian attitude toward postpartum care: During pregnancy, nurture the baby. After pregnancy, nurture your body.

Sitting the Month: Postpartum Recipes For Rest & Recovery (2026) returns care and love to the early stages of motherhood, promising nourishment for all stages of life.

About the Author: Clarissa Wei is the author of Made in Taiwan (cookbook), winner of an IACP Award and finalist for a James Beard Award. Her writing has been published in the New Yorker, New York Times, and Bon Appétit. The founder of single-origin soy sauce brand HEYDOH, she lives in Taiwan.

Blessed Karl Of Austria: Death Of An Emperor by Dr Hans Karl Zeßner-Spitzenberg

About the booklet: Over a century ago, the world received the sudden news of the death of the last Emperor and King of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. 

Forced to live the final chapter of his life in exile on the distant island of Madeira, far from his homeland and peoples, his passing sent waves of profound shock and sadness around the world. However, few in his beloved empire knew the full story of the conditions and circumstances that marked the final moments of this saintly ruler.

As a devout Catholic, grounded in devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Emperor Karl overcame the trials and tribulations of life with the greatest joy and bitterest of sorrow. 

Yet, he was never more noble than in his final moments, when he embraced a peaceful Christian death, living out the words, "The death of a just man is precious in the eyes of the Lord."

Blessed Karl Of Austria: Death Of An Emperor tells the story of Karl's last days and moments, offering profound insight into a life completely devoted to God, family, country, and peace.

Modern Man Calls Himself Free

Forsaking All Others (True Crime) by Loretta Schwartz-Nobel

About the book: Shortly before dawn on 5 November 1989, forty-two-year-old San Diego matron Betty Broderick entered her ex-husband's home and shot the powerful lawyer and his young bride as they lay in bed. 

To some, her action made the spurned wife a folk heroine: she had financially supported her husband through school, raised their children and helped him to achieve wealth and distinction as a San Diego, California, attorney, only to be cast aside when she lost her youthful good looks. 

Broderick's subsequent murder trial, which ended in a hung jury, was nothing if not controversial - inspiring national headlines and a top-five-rated television movie. 

Although a 1991 retrial resulted in a conviction on two counts of second-degree murder, the jury again violently disagreed over whether Betty Broderick had committed a crime of passion or an act of cold-blooded murder. 

Even now, despite years of media frenzy, few people know the real facts behind her harrowing ordeal. Loretta Schwartz-Nobel, award-winning journalist and author of The Baby Swap Conspiracy, gives us the untold story in a provocative, in-depth re-examination of the case - including startling evidence barred from the retrial. Hers is a three-dimensional portrait of a beautiful young woman who became a middle-aged throwaway wife - betrayed, then abandoned by her husband, systematically deprived of financial security, home, and custody of her four children, thrown into prisons and mental institutions and victimized by the unprecedented legal tactics of a husband who at the time was president of the San Diego Bar Association.

Forsaking All Others: The Real Betty Broderick Story including Prison Interviews was published in 1993. 

About the author: Loretta Schwartz-Nobel numbers among her awards the Columbia School of Journalism Award, the Robert F Kennedy Award, the Women in Communication Award, the American Bar Association Award, the Penny Missouri Award, and the National Society of Professional Journalists Award. A resident of Pennsylvania, she has authored the Edgar-nominated true-crime work Engaged to Murder, A Mother's Story (with Mary Beth Whitehead), Starving in the Shadow of Plenty, and The Baby Swap Conspiracy. 

Saint Dumitru Stăniloae (1903-1993), Romanian Christian Orthodox Priest, Theologian and Professor

Feast Day of St Alfred The Great

They Speak By Silences by A Carthusian

About the book: They Speak By Silences are a translation of two small books published originally in French by the Benedictine nuns of St Priscilla in Rome. The first, Silence Cartusien, was published in 1948, there being nothing to indicate its origin beyond a brief forward in Italian. This was followed in 1953 by a similar work by the same hand, Voix Cartusienne; and it is these two works which are now translated and presented in English for the first time. They were born in silence and solitude of a Charterhouse, and their very anonymity is part of that silence. 

It is due perhaps to the reader to say that the writer of these pages held for some years various positions of authority in the Carthusian Order, involving the direction of souls. The extracts here given were never in the author's mind intended for publication; only after his death in 1945 were they carefully collected and published as has already been told. Such in brief is all that is known to the outside world of the writer of this book. His life, like the life of any Carthusian, was not made up of external events, and we need to do no more than let his words speak for themselves. As he himself would be the first to admit, it is not what they say but what they leave unsaid that will probably influence other souls, seeking as he sought that union with God which is not peculiar to Carthusians or to any other religious, but is the end set before all men. 

We can only re-echo the hope expressed by the original editor of these works that the thoughts preserved and collected in this little book may help and encourage others to persevere in the ascent to that union. 

They Speak By Silences (1955, 2006) is translated from the French by a Monk of Parkminster.

When There Is Just Cause For Anger