You know he's a Catholic bookworm when . . . your three-year-old pulls the biography of St. Fr. Damien off the shelf and asks his mama to read it to him.
I explained that it was a "grown-up book," but John replied that he still wanted me to read it to him. He began looking at the various pictures inside and asking me what they were showing. So I sat down on the couch and told him the story of Fr. Damien being a missionary-priest in the islands of Hawaii, how the people there got a terrible disease called leprosy and had to live alone so other people wouldn't get their germs, how Fr. Damien decided to go live with them so he could take care of their bodies and souls and bring them the Mass, even though this meant that he would get their germs and, indeed, some years later he died of leprosy, having given his life for them. John was hanging on my every word.
So, then I was done telling the story.
Right?
No, John then insisted I read him the book. "No, Mama, now read me the book." Alrighty then! As an experiment (to see how long he'd last) I began reading straight from the book, which led to a lively discussion about how the Hawaiian islands were formed by volcanoes, which were active when dinosaurs were around, and dinosaurs are a favorite topic around here . . .
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