WASHINGTON –– Here is a selection of recent releases that might be suitable for your spiritual reading during Lent, which [...]

This is the cover of "On the Threshold of the Future: The Life and Spirituality of Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, Founder of the Maryknoll Sisters" by Claudette LaVerdiere, MM. The book is reviewed by Rachelle Linner. (CNS)"On the Threshold of the Future: The Life and Spirituality of Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, Founder of the Maryknoll Sisters" by Claudette LaVerdiere, MM. Orbis Books (Maryknoll, N.Y., 2011). 160 pp., $20.

This year the Maryknoll Sisters celebrate the 100th anniversary of their founding, making it a particularly appropriate time for the publication of this study of their foundress, Molly Rogers (1882-1955).

Maryknoll Sister Claudette LaVerdiere, a former president of the congregation who has worked in both East Africa and Myanmar, offers a concise portrait of this remarkable woman, known in religious life as Mother Mary Joseph.

The book opens with a biographical section that illustrates the family and social environment that formed Molly Rogers. Most Catholic children were educated in parochial schools, but because Molly and her seven siblings attended Boston's public schools, she was "relatively untouched by the Catholic culture of the time." This would have a significant impact on her vision for Maryknoll, a congregation "shaped more by the resilience needed in foreign mission than by traditional expectations of religious."

Molly wanted to be a nurse, but her father insisted she get a college education and during her junior year at Smith College she experienced her decisive call. "She had just witnessed the vibrant 'mission sending' of the Protestant Student Volunteer Movement. 'Something – I do not know how to describe it – happened within me,' and she proceeded directly to St. Mary's Church. Kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, she pledged herself to the mission of the church, having no idea how she might follow through on this commitment. She simply believed that divine providence would show the way."

I know I have talked about it before, and highlighted the fact that the library has not one but two [...]

Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams star in a scene from the movie "The Vow." The Catholic News Service classification is A-III – adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 – parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. (CNS photo/Sony)NEW YORK  –– Poor Channing Tatum! Though he isn't gone, he is forgotten in "The Vow" (Screen Gems), director and co-writer Michael Sucsy's well-intentioned but flawed love story based on real events.

Tatum plays Chicago recording engineer Leo, whose romance with -- and marriage to -- artist Paige (Rachel McAdams) have made him a happy man. That all changes, however, when a car accident injures them both, and leaves Paige stricken with partial amnesia.

She awakens from a coma with no memory of their idyllic courtship or successful life together. Instead, she has mentally reverted to her pre-Leo days as a law school student engaged to go-getter ex-fiance Jeremy (Scott Speedman).

Josh Hutcherson, Michael Caine and Dwayne Johnson star in a scene from the movie "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island." The [...]

Denzel Washington stars in a scene from the movie "Safe House." The Catholic News Service classification is L – limited [...]

This is the cover of "A Convenient Hatred: The History of Antisemitism" by Phyllis Goldstein. The book is reviewed by Eugene J. Fisher. (CNS)"A Convenient Hatred: The History of Antisemitism" by Phyllis Goldstein. Facing History and Ourselves (Brookline, Mass., 2011). 405 pp., $17.95.

Phyllis Goldstein's "A Convenient Hatred" is a major work of history that illuminates perhaps the most persistent and tragic source of hatred and violence in the history of Western civilization. It has behind it the resources of a major international research and educational organization, Facing History and Ourselves. A substantive foreword is provided by Sir Harold Evans, head of the Reuters news agency.

Goldstein aims for and achieves an admirable objectivity, which makes the study accessible for readers of all faiths and backgrounds. She begins in the centuries before the rise of Christianity, with anti-Jewish canards in ancient Greek and Roman literature stemming from the Jews' refusal to worship pagan gods (and the Roman emperor as a god) and their persistent revolts against Greek and Roman domination, revolts which ended only with their decisive defeat in the second century of the Common Era.

As the church gradually separated from the synagogue during the patristic period, Christians, most notoriously St. John Chrysostum, picked up the nergative stereotypes of Jews common in ancient literature, adding to them the notorious "deicide" charge – the absurd notion that Jews were collectively guilty for the death of Jesus. This despite the fact that, as the Gospels record, only a few Jews, mainly the chief priest of the temple, were actually involved and the fact that Jesus' crucifixion was extremely unpopular in Jerusalem, and unknown to most Jews in the then-known world until centuries later.