The Upward Arrow:
A Way of Holiness for Every Home
Fr. Colum Power
ISBN 9781594175350
eISBN 9781594175367
This book took me completely by surprise. I was asked if I wanted to give it a try. I gave it a cursory glance and said sure. But it is an excellent volume. It surprised me on many levels. I was surprised by Father Colum’s openness and transparency. It was nearly impossible to put the book down, and I must admit to staying up way too late one evening to finish it. Several years ago I was asked for a Top 10 Catholic Books; Top Ten Catholic Books; every now and again I add a title I find particularly good, this one has been added to that list! When you read the story behind the title you will be especially entertained.
The description of this book states:
“The subject of this book is, in Fr. Colum's own words, "holiness in the domestic battle," that age-old struggle to uphold the sacred amidst the secular.
At the center of his wisdom on the topic is his gifted ability to turn life experience into meaningful story. As the fifth of nine boys to loving "spiritual warrior" parents, as a novice in the religious life steeped in the teachings of the great spiritual masters, and as a priest who formed trusted friendships with many young people, he has been a witness to many souls searching for truth and beauty in the divine. His aptitude for absorbing life's moments and sharing them in witty and wise stories sets him apart as an extraordinary bestower of sage advice.
Not only will his words propel you forth in your upward journey, but so will his example as a perceptive Christian who never fails to see God's hand in all moments of life.”
About the author we are informed:
“Fr. Colum Power is a native of Cork, Ireland, and a Servant Priest of the Home of the Mother. He is the author of Honey from the Lion's Carcass, A Touch of the Gardener's Hand, and James Joyce's Catholic Categories. Currently living in Ecuador and serving the parish of Our Lady of Loreto in Guayaquil, he devotes much of his time to apostolic activities for the youth.”
The chapters in the book are:
Prologue
1: Introduction
2: King and Queen of the Castle
3: The Downward Trajectory
4: Satanic and Nathanic Moments
5: Bringing Up Christian Philosophers
6: Tactics for Teenagers
7: Conclusion
I highlighted a number of passages while reading this volume, some of them are:
“The Upward Arrow is a spiritual book, but not as we may imagine we know that category. I mean it in the best sense: that it places faith in the context of life in the world, which is where it must connect and be connected to, and in the most essential locus of all, which is the family.”
“The central motif of the book is the relationship of the author’s parents, Joe and Mary, who started off fighting always and worked their way to not fighting at all. From the Power hearth of his childhood, he strikes out to speak of the modern world and men and women within it, struggling to relate and remain, while struggling also with broken hearts and broken spirits.”
“This book is about as far from boring as it is possible to imagine a book about faith being. It demands your attention, but also earns it, and deserves it when it comes.”
“Spiritual books are often serene and cerebral. Serene is good, and cerebral is good, but in real life there’s also the rough-and-tumble, the tragic and the comic, heartbreak and bloodshed. In the Gospels, too; the Gospels are not only, or mainly, serene and cerebral.”
“Spiritual counseling must surely factor in the anxiety and even anguish of life, the existential vertigo, and the pull of despair, while at the same time celebrating the triumph of laughter. A cavalier playfulness on the brink of the abyss is characteristic of the true Christian spirit. Our hearts are full of battle scars of all kinds, which are useful experiences that enable us to listen and love and sometimes to speak, or, as in the case of this book, to write.”
“Catholic mothers are famously strong women. Even the secularist, anti-Christian culture often portrays them as formidable, while at the same time propagating the claim that Catholicism oppresses women. Irish Catholic mothers of that time had big personalities.”
“My mother, a dentist like my father, stopped working to be a full-time mother. Her dignity, personality, and authority were entirely undiminished by this decision. She was a strong woman.”
“They were great people because of their Catholicism, not despite it. Their testimony, along with countless other experiences and conversations with married couples and young people as a religious missionary priest, coupled with reflections on biblical episodes and Church teachings on marriage and the family, fill the following pages.”
“For Mary, Joe was the king of the castle; for Joe, Mary was the queen of the castle. The children were not little princes, and even less little princesses. They were subjects. There it is again, that other awful word, “subjects”: subjection.”
“Christ’s trajectory towards his Eucharistic Presence was downward, and ours must be downward also to meet him there. These ideas are not revolutionary, they’re counterrevolutionary: ¡Viva la contrarrevolución! We are born revolutionized, with the mark of Cain on our foreheads; we don’t need revolution, we need counterrevolution.”
“We talk about “raising” children, which of course makes sense, but maybe we should talk also about “subjecting” them, or at least about teaching them to subject themselves.”
“Children are truth-seekers by nature. That’s not something to squash, it’s something to stimulate. It’s about stirring in them the detective spirit. They take to it like a duck to water.”
“Christ did not say, “woe to the British,” or “woe to the Americans,” or “woe to the Russians.” He said, “woe to you that are rich” (Lk 6: 24), and elsewhere, “the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them” (Mt 20: 25). The Gospels recount Christ’s difficulties in the task of converting his people from tribalism to universalism, universalism being another word for Catholicism.”
“Callisthenes refused to kneel before Alexander the Great, and died for it; Queen Isabel the Catholic knelt gladly before Padre Francisco Jiménez Cisneros, and confessed her sins. Those are the options. You either kneel before the state, or you kneel before God.”
“A priest friend of mine, Fr. Jeff Langan, who for many years was a university professor of philosophy and politics, speaks of four categories of university students, all beginning with the letter “s”: the scumbags, the sharks, the scholars, and the saints.”
“To seek always to have the last word is a big mistake. Seek rather the deepest word, and then let silence do its work. The deepest word is this triple truth: Jesus Christ is the Son of God; he died on a Cross for love of you; one day you will meet him face to Face.”
“The gospel and the Holy Spirit already had their attention. I told them that I was not there to ask them to be believers. All I asked was that they be seekers, that they not live according to fashionable, cynical slogans, that they scorn the facile death-dealing lie and seek out the tough life-giving truth.”
“Those who refuse to kneel before the God who kneels before them are self-disqualified as Christian educators. They have no sense of the sacred. To kneel before God is to express awareness of being in the presence of greatness. To achieve a complete humanity, we must learn to kneel again before the God who knelt before us and before our neighbor, to wash his feet, to ask for forgiveness, and to forgive, because the act of forgiving also requires a bending of the knee, the will, the intelligence, and the heart. Modern education does not countenance this. On the contrary, it often militates against genuine education.”
“God’s victories are humble, elegant, and inexorable. I have a Mother to embrace. They give me heart for the long haul. All I need is to kneel.”
I hope those quotes give you a feel for this excellent volume. This was a very hard book to put down. Once I started reading I really did not want to stop. It was engaging, entertaining and inspiring. The examples he gives from his own life, his family and his years of ministry will draw readers in. It is easy to engage with the ideas presented and it is well worth the read.
I can easily recommend this volume, it is an excellent read.
Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2025 Catholic Reading Plan!
Books by Father Colum Power:
A Touch of the Gardener's Hand: You Have Leukemia!
Honey from the Lion’s Carcass: The Secret is Chastity
James Joyce's Catholic Categories
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