Welcome to the Behind the Catholic Counter podcast. I'm Ian Rutherford, president of aquinasandmore.com. I interview catholic authors, publishers and manufacturers to give you the latest news about great new catholic books and gifts. You can listen to this and past episodes at aquinasandmore.com/podcast.

 

Before we get to this weeks interview, I wanted to mention two new books that you're going to want to check out. The first is Redeemed by Grace from Ignatius Press, this is the heart wrenching but redemptive story of Ramona Treviño, a former planned parenthood worker who had a reversion to the catholic faith, and is now an international pro life speaker. The second is Hints of Heaven written by Father George Rutler and published by Sophia Institute Press. Father Rutler takes the deceptively simple stories in the parables, and delves into their deeper meaning.

Since Lent is almost here I also wants to highlight our Stations of the Cross chaplet made by a friend of ours right here in Colorado. Help her put her kids through college and get a special devotion for Lenten reflection. All of these gifts can be found at Aquinas and More.

If you haven't send up for Brandon Vogt's email list for addicted readers like me, you really should take a look at catholicbookdeals.com. Every week Brandon shares information on catholic book specials from all over the internet. You will usually find some from us in there as well.

Alright, lets go on with our interview, stay tuned afterwords for a special on our interview topic.

Ian: Today I am joined by Rita Ford, she has written a retreat guide and study guide for the book I Believe in Love, a personal retreat based on the teaching of Saint Therese of Lisieux from Sophia Institute Press. Thank you for joining me on the show today Rita.

Rita: Thank you Ian, thanks for having me.

Ian: My wife and I are both big fans of Saint Therese, we opened our store on October 1st and have always looked for roses as signs when we're trying to discern things and my wife has a particular to devotion to her. When I showed her the book I Believe in Love she was really excited about it and now that there's this whole study program that you came up with, we think this is just great. Can you tell us a little bit about your interest in Saint Therese and how you came to write these books?

Rita: Sure sure, I'm a Catholic wife and mother of four children, of varying ages between 11 and 22. A stay at home mom and have been involved a lot in my kids' Catholic school education and volunteering here and there and a few years back I was the president of the Parents Teacher Club at our elementary school, and before i'd have started in my term I thought, you know we really should have a patron saint for our organization and in the next moment I knew it needs to be Saint Therese because of her little way and doing small things for great love and that's really what volunteers of the school do,

Ian: hahaha! definitely

Rita: a lot of helping out here and there and just doing it because we love our children and we love our school and, so you know that was sort of the first step and so then I told our pastor and princi...