I write, speak, invest, network, and question to stimulate fruitful conversation. Let's talk about human flourishing! It begins with freedom. Holy leisure is the key to human being, freedom and generativity. Please join me in the adventure of realizing Christ!
Link to Catholics Communicate Christ on Amazon. Link to A Harmony of Healing on Amazon.
“I can think of no better guide for homeschooling parents than Charlotte Ostermann.”
Joseph Pearce, author of Literature: What Every Catholic Should Know
Link to Upschooling on Amazon.
Link to buy Full Spectrum Freedom on Amazon.
Link to the book on Amazon: You, Free
“Therein lies the nobility of the Faith: that we have the heart to dare something.”
Bl. Cardinal John Henry Newman
“Ostermann takes up Cardinal Newman’s challenge, giving readers the heart they need to live faith as a daring adventure.”
Link to the book on Amazon: 3 Dares that can change your life!
These poems grant deep access into the realms of contemplation, prayer, spiritual struggle and interior freedom. Many have appeared in St. Austin Review, Canticle, Gilbert and other magazines. Some have served as the core of the author’s talks at retreats and other venues. Essays accompany each poem to make it more accessible, allowing readers to understand allusions, invented words, spiritual ideas and the craft of poesis as they learn with the poet to read, hear and pray with poetry. The person of the poet emerges from the interplay between essays and poems, as a spiritual mentor and companion in faith. A Destiny to Burn invites readers to experience themselves as masterpieces – poiema – crafted by the hand of God.
Every poem in the book is available on this site as an audio file. Please listen…poetry is meant to be heard!
Link to the book on Amazon: A Destiny to Burn
Souls at Rest: An Exploration of the Idea of SabbathSouls at Rest is a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of Sabbath for contemporary readers; a restful, poetic counterpoint to the speed and noise of today’s world, and a cure for its primary woes.More
FREE Souls at Rest Study Guide – an excellent resource for Book Group discussions or personal reflection.
Link to the book on Amazon: Souls at Rest: An Exploration of the Eucharistic Sabbath
Souls At Work: An Invitation to FreedomSouls at Work is an invitation to reflect deeply on the processes of formation, education, intellectual growth, and spiritual maturation.
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FREE Souls at Work Study Guide – an extension of the spiritual and intellectual workout. Great for Book Group leaders or private journaling.
Link to the book on Amazon: Souls at Work: An Invitation to Freedom
Souls at Play discusses the cultivation of desire and imagination, the risks of creativity, and the need for a foundation in truly human leisure to support the promulgation of beauty in arts, relationships, cultural change, and evangelization. Coming Soon.
Elizabeth of the Epiphany is the story of one year in the life of Epiphany, a Liberative Arts University, where the best teachers are dead and the best students are backwards! See pdf chapters for free download at OurElizabeth.org
Catholics Communicate Christ: How to Serve the Catholic Church as a WriterEncouragement and practical help for emerging Catholic writers. Writers are needed in the New Evangelization!
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Making Sunday Special: The Lord’s DayStarting with the Sabbath in the Jewish tradition and exploring the Christian Sunday Sabbath on the day of Christ’s Resurrection, this booklet traces the importance of Sunday.
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How to Plan a Great Catholic Event90+ Pages of Good Advice from Catholic Event Planners
Free from Motherheart Press
Great advice for home educators. Free from Motherheart Press
B is for BrickGreat advice for parents. Free from Motherheart Press
This is my most-requested audio – about how we can educate our children well, despite our own inadequacies. The Problem – We must get kids from where they are, to where they need to be; from ‘uneducated’ to ‘educated’. Given the poverty of our own education, we feel asked to do the impossible: build a […]
Some audiences want to cut right to the chase: “Give us practical applications of all your ideas about Sabbath-keeping.” OK – here you go: In this talk I do just that – give concrete, practical ways to dip into the kind of leisure that brings interior equanimity and leaves you more whole, more human, more […]
I prepared this talk for the Heart of a Woman group, in Kansas City, shortly after the suicide of a Catholic mother of ten. It was a shock to me, but not entirely unexpected, as I had known her during the years she struggled with depression and disintegration, despite her devotion to the Church, Christ, […]
For an Apostles of the Interior Life Women’s Retreat, where the theme was “The King Desires Your Beauty,” I prepared this truly interesting talk. Will you believe me when I say that this is another of my favorites?!?! I know, I’ve said that about a lot of these talks, but revisiting them to give a […]
I once asked a friend who calls herself a Jewish-Catholic if it had been hard for her to accept Mary’s role in Salvation History. She laughed and said, “Heck no! Every Sabbath was begun by a Jewish mama’s prayers! I’d have been suspicious if Lord Sabbaoth hadn’t come through a woman.” Jewish women welcomed Sabbath […]
Differences between the original myth of Cupid and Psyche, and C.S. Lewis’ retelling of the myth in Till We Have Faces have the effect of revealing new dimensionality in the Christian understanding of both myth and of the human person. The pre-Christian myth, like the pre-Christian person, is veiled in a darkness that constitutes a […]
In “Stour Valley and Dedham Church” Constable has painted the Vale of Dedham – a familiar and beloved area of his native England.
“The Merry Drinker,” by Frans Hals This is a portrait of an unnamed man, called in the title only ‘a merry drinker’.
Giotto’s painting, The Wedding Feast at Cana, portrays the literal and spiritual senses of this story.
Berlinghieri’s St. Francis appears behind the altar of San Francesco in Pescia, Italy. It is an excellent example of art ordered to divine worship.
A mom is the caretaker of a huge, wonderful, potentially beautiful, critically important place! She, herself, this actual, unique person, is the single most important ‘environment’ in the lives of her children. Like Mary, like the Church, she is an atmosphere. She is an atmosphere of affection. This is not just warm, fuzzy feelings, but […]
Benedictine College hosted a Symposium for Advancing the New Evangelization in 2014. The theme was Transcendentals as Preambles to Faith, and I got to propose my take on that as a paper. Anyone who knows me could probably have bet good money I’d do something ‘three dimensional’ with that, and they’d have won those bets. […]
I once got a chance to do an all-day retreat with one of the sister Apostles of the Interior Life. Naturally, I wanted to discuss the role of leisure in the formation of persons! As usual, I prayed about the upcoming event, and God brought together several threads of my contemplation to weave this talk. […]
Did you know YOU are a poem? Check out Ephesians 2:10, where the Greek ‘poema’ is usually translated ‘workmanship’. I like ‘poema’ better, as it implies beauty and artistry, but ‘workmanship’ is nice. I’ve discussed the importance of poetry, poetic education, poetic imagination and poetic reading in many different venues (many of the talk topics […]
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