Faithful Lines / Shirley Vogler Meister

Gentlemen: God created you in wondrous ways

Rarely do I come across a book that teaches me what I wish I had known decades ago.

Better yet is a book that I wish my husband, Paul, and I could have read together, absorbing and discussing the wonderful points being made by the author.

When Christine Schicker, a senior communications associate with Ignatius Press (www.Ignatius.com), sent me a book, I was recovering from travels to various states during October and November.

I set the book aside because I was overwhelmed with more travel plans and the upcoming holiday demands.

However, I finally read this book during a busy Christmas week, proving how interesting and powerful the book turned out to be.

Despite my gender, Be a Man! Becoming the Man God Created You to Be by Father Larry Richards, a popular Catholic speaker, kept my interest from the beginning to the end. After reading the book, I gave it to my husband to read.

The chapter topics are:

• Be a man who stays focused on the final goal.
• Be a man who lives as a beloved son.
• Be a man who repents.
• Be a man who lives in the Holy Spirit.
• Be a man who is strong.
• Be a man who is loving.
• Be a man who is wise.
• Be a man who lives as he was created.
• Be a man who is holy.
• Be a man who changes the world.

At the conclusion of each chapter, Father Richards suggests three tasks to be accomplished then offers questions for reflection and discussion.

At the end of the book, he lists 30 tasks to accomplish to help each man become the person he was created to be.

However, I believe women can also relate to the suggestions in this book. I certainly did.

Father Richards is the pastor of an inner city parish in Erie, Pa., as well as the host of a daily program on Relevant Radio and the founder of The Reason for Our Hope Foundation.

Readers can listen to his homilies and better understand his ministry by logging on to www.thereasonforourhope.org.

Where does Father Richards get his “world view”? He says his book looks at the biblical male role models of King David in the Old Testament, St. Paul in the New Testament and Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega of all men, who “reveals to us what it is to be a man.”

(Shirley Vogler Meister, a member of Christ the King Parish in Indianapolis, is a regular columnist for The Criterion.) †