Reading together – How to Be His”

Denise Scott

Honestly, How to Be His by Fr Jesse Maingot is probably not a book I would have picked up and read on my own. It seems as I grow older, all my books are for decorations. It would have found its rightful place on my beautiful bookshelf among my collection of religious books, admired more for its presence than its pages. At best, it might have rested on my nightstand with the familiar promise: Tonight will be the night I start reading it.

But God, as He often does, had other plans.

Through what I can only describe as divine orchestration, I was invited to join the book club at Take Five Health Bar cafe in Woodbrook. On the last two Saturdays, I was even blessed to have someone pick me up. Looking back, I realise that every detail seemed arranged so that I could be part of this journey.

What I expected was a book discussion. What I found was a community.

Gathered around the table were Catholic women from across Trinidad and Tobago.  Though we are a small number, we are women from the Laventille/Morvant Pastoral area, Couva, Chaguanas and Diego Martin. We came from different parishes and different walks of life. There were catechists, youth coordinators, acolytes, lay ministers, children, teenagers, middle-aged women and younger women. On paper, we looked like a collection of strangers. In reality, we are pilgrims travelling together towards Corpus Christi.

The sessions have been deeply interactive, refreshingly honest and surprisingly personal. We do not simply discuss the words on the page. We discuss our lives, our struggles, our doubts and our relationship with God. We wrestle with real questions about faith and discipleship. There is no pretending, no performance, just people trying to understand what it means to belong more fully to Christ.

One of the most significant moments for me came while reading Day 8. As I reflected on the chapter, I was confronted with a feeling I had been carrying for some time; I confessed that in my faith journey, I struggled most with ‘hope’. It was not a dramatic revelation, but a quiet one. By naming what I was feeling, I began the process of healing. Sometimes grace enters our lives not through grand miracles but through the simple act of acknowledging the truth.

Then, last weekend, I had another startling realisation.

I discovered that I do not pay enough attention to the Gospel reading at Mass.The awareness hit me like a bolt of lightning. I am present every Sunday. I hear the words. Yet, if I am honest, I am not always truly listening. Why? Because I convince myself that I already know the story. I know the Gospel passage. I know how it ends. The book shared with me that I cannot truly appreciate the Eucharist if I do not appreciate the Gospel.  Now I listen to the homily and I appear to be piously praying throughout Mass but many times during the Gospel reading my mind strays.  Last Sunday, I made an extra effort to pay full attention and i was amazed at my own ah-ha moments during the listening of the Gospel.

But, the truth be told, it was while sitting in that room and listening to others share their insights, connections and encounters with the Word of God, I realised how much I have been missing. The Gospel is not simply something to know; it is something to experience anew each time it is proclaimed.

Perhaps the greatest gift of this book club has been discovering my tribe. A group of women of every age, shape, background and personality who understand the beauty and complexity of trying to live a Catholic life. We laugh together, challenge one another and sometimes even complain about Catholic women (like you). Yet despite our frustrations, not one of us would trade being a Catholic woman for the world.

Through How to Be His, Fr Maingot has given us more than a book. He has given us a reason to gather, to reflect and to journey together. And somewhere between the pages, the conversations and my chai latte, I am learning not only how to be His, but how to walk with others who are trying to do the same.

If you haven’t started reading it yet, find a friend and begin! You will thank me later.