Late last year when we began reading The Radiance in Your Eyes for our School of Community assignments, I was very impressed by how clearly and beautifully written it is. My husband and I repeatedly said to each other, “Even someone who is not in Communion and Liberation would understand this!” Since it was December, my next thought was that the book would make an excellent Christmas gift, particularly for one of those “not in CL” people.

We have a friend of many years who serves as the Adult Formation and Social Concerns minister at our parish: he and his wife are the Baptismal sponsors of one of our now-adult daughters. This person leads our parish’s Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) program, and I attend the classes as a sponsor. In December I left a copy of Radiance at the parish office as a gift for this friend with a Christmas greeting and with a short note of explanation.

I was a little apprehensive about doing it; our friend has had negative experiences with the “movements” in the Church. But before the New Year arrived, he sent me an email telling us how very very much he had enjoyed the book, with a link to the 5-star review he had written for Amazon.

Once the RCIA classes resumed in the New Year, he began including quotes from Radiance on each of the weekly study sheets he sends out to the RCIA candidates. The astonishing result is that Father Carrón is quoted to our catechumens as frequently as the Scriptures, the Popes and the Catechism are quoted.

Maria, Derwood, Maryland