This year in Church School, I’ve been blessed to teach about the Liturgy from the wonderful book. Let us Attend by Father Lawrence Farley – it has been fascinating to really delve into the parts of the Liturgy, the development of it, and to discuss it with the kids.

To dovetail with this, I was delighted to get a copy* of the fabulous Jane G. Meyer’s new book, The Woman and the Wheat – it is a beautifully illustrated picture book about a woman who grows wheat, makes it into flour, and then makes the prosphora for church. The prose subtly echoes the Litanies of the Liturgy as well as the Praises. I am planning on reading it aloud to my church school kids and will recommend it for the other classes. Repeated hearings of this lovely book will help children to connect the world that we live in with the beauty of the Liturgy and what we bring to worship God.

Fabulous job, Jane! Thank you for writing the book. And, I encourage those who have children to buy for this Christmas season to pick up a copy.


*In the interest of full disclosure a free copy sent to me by the publisher (photo from the SVS site)

Pulled from the comments - Grace had some good questions:

1. The more I think of it, the more Frank Churchill seems like a thoroughly bad sort. There's a malicious quality to his immaturity that you don't see with Emma's. So my question is, what odds do you give his marriage to Jane? I think they'd have a rocky time of it.

2. In a chapter where Mrs. Weston and Emma let Mr. Knightly know they think he's smitten with Jane Fairfax, he responds that he could never love her because she lacks the "open temper" he prizes in a woman. (He says it again for emphasis, and it's one of those hints that Emma never seems to pick up on.) At the point that he reveals his feelings to Emma, he says, "But you hear nothing but truths from me. I have blamed you, I have lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have done."

It's incredibly romantic, IMHO. It's a hint of the true attraction between people that a male author probably wouldn't have gotten so well (at least in the 1700's). But ... what does Knightly mean by 'an open temper?' What is it about his lecturing and her bearing it that makes that such a strong bond, and one that blossoms into love?