LOVE IN THE LITTLE THINGS:
Tales of Family Life
By Mike Aquilina
St Anthony Messenger Press, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2007; pb, 130pp; $22.95.
All books on this page available through Rainbow Book Agencies, 303 Arthur St, Fairfield, Vic 3078. Telephone: (03) 9481 6611. Email: rba@rainbowbooks.com
Reviewed by MARILYN RODRIGUES
In this book Mike Aquilina tells a wonderful story about his daughter Grace, and the time his family had an opportunity to meet Pope John Paul II in Rome after a Wednesday audience.
“He hugged each of the children,” writes the father of six.
“But none of us had the courage or presence of mind to say anything, except, of course, Gracie, who hugged him tight and said, ‘I love you very much’.”
Musing on his youngest child’s effervescent love at age five as a reflection of the life of God, Aquilina adds: “God gives us the grace we need when we need it. He gives us the children we need just when we need them. He has given me Grace, amazing Grace, abundantly.”
Grace, gratitude and sacrifice are recurring themes binding the short, uplifting stories in this book about finding God’s love through everyday family life.
Aquilina draws lessons and inspiration out of tales of the courtship of his wife Terri, of pregnancies, kidney stones and kindly neighbours; even a conversation with a Muslim taxi driver.
With gentle humour and humility he encourages readers to exercise their faith and make their family an “outpost of his paradise, havens of charity and happiness.”
“The family is the great catechism God has given the world. The work of our lifetime is to learn how to read it and then study it prayerfully,” he writes in the introduction.
The book is not all sweetness and light.
Its stories encompass the tragedy of miscarriage, the death of loved ones, the daily pitfalls of impatience, anger and exhaustion, and the constant need for forgiveness.
Aquilina explains in the introduction his understanding that family life is God’s way of creating perfect living sacrifices out of “people, like me, who are not very quick on the uptake”.
Life as a spouse and parent involves a gradual growing into the life of the domestic church.
Well-known Catholic author Scott Hahn has contributed the foreword.
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