The Voice the Church Forgot: Translating Ida Görres w/ Dr. Jennifer Bryson

Dr. Jennifer Bryson joins Christina to discuss her translation of Bread Grows in Winter, a collection of essays and lectures by the largely forgotten mid-20th-century Catholic writer Ida Görres. Together they explore why Görres's voice—marked by unflinching honesty, poetic depth, and a long view of the Church—speaks with remarkable urgency to Catholics navigating confusion and upheaval today.

What We Talk About:

• Jennifer's journey from a secular upbringing in the San Francisco Bay Area to entering the Catholic Church, sparked by an encounter with God in communist East Germany
• Who Ida Görres was—her life, her literary gifts, her marriage, and why her works were swept from prominence after 1971
• How Görres interpreted the post-Vatican II crisis: neither reactionary nor progressivist, but deeply rooted in love for the Church and a clear-eyed view of its problems
• The meaning behind the title Bread Grows in Winter and Görres's image of invisible martyrdom as seeds overwintering in the soil
• Görres's message for women, her fierce critique of feminism, and her effort to present a rich Catholic vision of womanhood through hagiography and literature

Chapters:

• 00:00: Welcome & Introduction
• 01:24: Opening Prayer
• 02:41: Jennifer's Yes: Faith Found in East Germany
• 05:17: Who Was Ida Görres?
• 13:53: Görres and the Post-Vatican II Upheaval
• 15:48: The Meaning of Bread Grows in Winter
• 20:08: Comparing Görres, Hildebrand, and Guardini
• 24:09: Ratzinger's Eulogy and Her Theological Influence
• 30:33: Insights for Catholics Facing Church Challenges
• 34:21: Görres on Women, Our Lady, and the Church

Resources Mentioned:

• Bread Grows in Winter by Ida Görres — Ignatius Press
• The Hidden Face by Ida Görres — Ignatius Press
• Jennifer Bryson's Website
• Paloma&Fig Blog Review

Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Thank you for joining us for Resounding Yes Podcast. Resounding Yes is a show centered around Mary's fiat and reflects upon how we say yes to the Lord. We are podcast by Creative Agency Plum and Fake. Visit PlumNFake.com to learn more about our creative agency, including lots of engaging creative content all through a Catholic and artistic lens. Welcome back, friends. I'm Christina Savo, and today we welcome Dr. Jennifer Bryson. Jennifer is a fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. She is currently translating and studying works by the Catholic authors Ida Goris, Joseph Goris, Joseph Ratzinger, later, as you guys know, Pope Benedict XVI, and Oda Schneider from German to English. Jennifer has served as an intelligence agent for the Defense Intelligence Agency, including two years as an interrogator at Guantanamo, and worked at several research institutes, including the Witherspoon Institute and Religious Freedom Institute. Jennifer has written extensively on foreign affairs, marriage, and other issues. Her articles can be found at jenniferbryson.net, where you can also read more about her beautiful, extensive background. Today we will speak with Jennifer about her yes and more specifically about her translation of Ida Goris's book, Brad Grows in Winter. So thank you for being on the show today, Jennifer. I'm so excited for this conversation and hearing from you speaking from the heart.

SPEAKER_03 1:29

It's a pleasure to join you and your listeners, and especially uh to share the work of Ida Goris.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Great. Well, before we begin, as always, let us pray. In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Merciful Father, we thank you for the many graces you so generously pour into our lives each day. Draw us even more deeply into a life of prayer and strengthen us to share your love in all that we do, in our words, our encounters, and even in the quiet moments that you may be glorified through us. We are grateful for this time together for Jennifer and for her faithful and generous yes. Bless the work entrusted to her each day, and may she all that she does bear lasting fruit, forming hearts to seek what is true, good, and beautiful, and drawing others closer to your son. We entrust all of this through you, uh, to you, through Christ our Lord, and through the loving intercession of our blessed mother and our patron, St. John Paul II. Pray for us. Amen. Name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

unknown 2:31

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

Amen. All right. So let us start with your yes. Uh, we always start there. It's always at the at the beginning. It's and it's always so beautiful to hear from guests on this. So we're excited to hear your story, and know I know listeners are too. So can you start from the beginning, maybe sharing your background and ultimately a time in your life when you said yes to the Lord, leading you to where you are today?

SPEAKER_03 2:52

Sure. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. Um, my mother took us to a mainline Lutheran church, meet us meaning me and my two brothers, um, when we were children, but it wasn't church wasn't really a part of family life, just something we did on Sundays. And I was a very um curious child, and I loved learning. And um, so I got in trouble in Sunday school for asking too many questions, and I thought this is elementary school already, and I just I just was like, I don't, this just seems ridiculous. But my mother wanted us to keep going. Um, I have to say, some seeds were planted, like in high school, we had an amazing youth pastor, and so I started to think, hmm, maybe there's something going on here. But by the end of high school, I had no religion at all. And I went off to college at Stanford. Um, and it wasn't that I was an atheist or an agnostic. I simply, I just wasn't thinking about these questions, and religion was just no longer part of my life. But my sophomore year of college, I studied in the former East Germany. Um, this was in the mid-1980s before the wall fell. Um, as I said, I was an adventurous one. Um, and I had already been in Austria in high school for a year, so I knew German. And while I was in East Germany, I had an experience of God. I would say God broke into my life. Um, and from that point, I it's changed my whole life, and I've never looked back. Um, my best friends that year were some amazing, wonderful students in Communist East Germany from Poland. And the Poles I was friends with were very faithful, and they loved patron saint of your show, uh Pope John Paul II. And um I was quite anti-Catholic, but there something really deep and beautiful and good was going on in their lives, and East Germany was a difficult place, so the light from their lives really was extra bright next to all that gray. Went back to college, uh, finally figured out how Jesus fit into uh the my experience of God, and a few years later I came into the Catholic Church, and I would say that was my yes. Um after learning and discovering and realizing Jesus didn't write a book, he founded a church. It was a yes to Jesus to come into his church.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

That's beautiful, and I love that connection to St. John Paul II, too. It's so so beautiful, so wonderful. Um so let's talk a little bit about um Edicoris. Um I uh many listeners know who she is, and then there are some that will not know who she is. So who was she, and why was has her work been largely unknown to English-speaking audiences until now?

SPEAKER_03 5:52

And I would not be surprised even if most of your listeners are like, who is this person? Um Ida Guris used to be a very well-known Catholic author in the mid-20th century. She was well known not only in Germany and Austria, but also in England and the US. She lived from 1901 to 1971. And um after a childhood in which she experienced religion as just a routine you go through, she described it being like it was she actually described it like it was like brushing your teeth. It's just something you did every day. Um she said there was lots of religion, but not God. However, at age 14, she discovered the saints starting with Saint Francis of Assisi. Her description of this discovery is beautiful. She's an amazing writer. And um, she in the saints, she says she discovered something that was real, a person who was having whose life was a conversation with God. And uh that was the turning point in her life that changed the trajectory, and she gave the rest of her life to the church. She was after um her schooling, she spent two years in the novitiate of the Mary Ward sisters in Austria, um, but discerned that wasn't her calling, um, and then spent the rest of her life as a Catholic writer. In the 1920s and 30s, she was very involved in the major Catholic revival that went on in German-speaking Europe. Um it's a period that's not very familiar often to American Catholics, but I encourage your listeners to look into it. It's a period of many, it's a treasure trove of great Catholic writing. And that um experience also shaped her life. She became well known as a writer then, and she uh wrote poetry, she wrote plays, and she's most well known uh for her nonfiction, um, especially about the saints. Um and she continued writing uh throughout the rest of her life. She did marry in the 1930s, which was culturally in Germany relatively late to marry, so it was a surprise to her. Um, and she and her husband um had a beautiful relationship and were married until her death. However, they experienced the pain of infertility. And uh she, however, um was not defeated by it. She poured her heart and soul into her role as a wife and as a Catholic writer, uh, giving to the church. She was very learned, but not an academic. Um, so she uh her audience is always the laity. Her heart always wanted to move the laity from, you know, being Catholic maybe as a vague cultural identity to experiencing faith alive.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

That's what I love most about her. Um, in in researching her and learning more about, you know, Ida's life. Um, that's what drew me close to her um the most was the fact that she could make that, you know, make the laity feel connected and more alive. So um I thank you for sharing all of that. What drew you personally to her writing and inspired you to translate Red Grows in Winter?

SPEAKER_03 9:25

So I stumbled on her as an author. I'd never heard of her and her work in 2019. The first book I found by her was a book on marriage. The English edition of that, my translation is coming out from Ignatius Press in the fall on marriage and on being single, and it's from 1949. So when I saw a book on marriage from 1949, I was very interested because I thought, oh, this was before things went crazy. Um maybe, maybe, you know, there's there's wisdom in there that we need today, and there's wisdom in there in spades. It's a set of letters, correspondence with young women on marriage and on the question of being a single woman in uh a church and a culture that structurally is um focused on marriage and religious life. Um, so it'll also be very relevant in that way today. So the beauty of it and also the depth of her faith in that book is just so it radiates. Um, and so I tried to learn a little more about her, although it was hard to find information, but I found some and I was fascinated by her life. And for example, she's half Japanese, half Austrian. Very unusual. You know, in the 19th century already, her father married a Japanese woman when he was stationed as a diplomat in Tokyo. Um, but what drew me to her most of all is her love for the church, and my own faith life was so enriched by encountering her work. And I, with some of the books I found, I thought, well, how is this woman not already famous? And I discovered that she used to be famous. And um I wanted to make these works available to American and other uh English-speaking Catholics today. You know, so you'd mentioned earlier that she was largely forgotten, which is an important part of her life story and her role in the church. After she died in 1971, she died at a time when it was after the 1968 revolution. It was right in the depth of the period after the Second Vatican Council, when um those who favored an approach of um progress, progress, progress, progress, progress, um, who just wanted to throw out everything from the past. We don't need that old fuddy-duddy stuff. We're gonna make a new church, was the outlook. She was exactly the kind of voice they didn't want to hear. And also because she didn't have children, there was not somebody there to be a voice for her and carry on her legacy. Um and she, along with a whole some other amazing German-speaking Catholic writers from the same period, from the mid-20th century, just swept under the carpet. So her works were translated into English from 1932 until 1965. Most are out of print. Um, but for example, her masterpiece, um, The Hidden Face, which is about St. Therese of Lisieux, is still in print. But from 1965 until 1920, there were no more translations into English. And 1920 was when I published my first um translation of one of her works. And it the great, it's just been a joy to me to hear from readers. Um, oh, you know, she really helped me understand this. She helped me not to be so troubled in my faith. Uh, with Bread Grows in Winter, that we're gonna discuss an unexpected impact of it. Is I've heard from several different people that they've been buying multiple copies of it to give to seminarians, um, because in the sixth chapter chapters, it has a very important one on um celibacy in the priesthood.

SPEAKER_02 13:19

Well, that's beautiful about the yeah, connecting it to seminarians as well. Um, as I shared with Jennifer before recording, we we have our um our review on our on our blog that um we read the book and it's it's such a beautiful work. Uh it's such a beautiful book. Um, and I can't wait for more to discover it and read it um in English. So that's fantastic. Um Ida, so Ida lived through a time of great change in the church, as you mentioned. Uh, how did she interpret the upheaval following Vatican II? You know, kind of touching on that a little bit more, especially in books like Bread Grows in Winter.

SPEAKER_03 13:56

Sure. So that is specifically important for Bread Grows in Winter because Bread Grows in Winter has four essays and two lectures from 1967 to 1970. So this book is a window for us onto her ringside seat at that time. She was neither a reactionary conservative nor an enthusiastic progressivist. And so she went into the Second Vatican Council hopeful, um, because the Catholic youth movement had really wanted to revive the church and thought that some reforms in the church could help with reviving it. However, by the late 40s into the 50s, she started to see that there was a certain current of thinking that was very tied to the current spirit of the age, um, that was pushing for directions that were not coming from things that were Catholic. So she was already starting to be a little more cautious. But overall, she she went in hopeful. After the council, uh she was very concerned, not about the church per se, uh, but about what was happening. Um, she talks about weeds sprouting up. Um, she talks about efforts for change that um want to have no no boundaries and no sense of of wisdom in balancing the church as an institution that exists with past, present, and future together. Um and so she was critical specifically because of her love for the church.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

That's beautiful. Um, so reflecting on the title, The Bread Grows in Winter, if no, if the a listener hears that, it may be, you know, they aren't really sure what exactly the book might be about until they actually dive right in. So uh what does bread grows in winter mean exactly?

SPEAKER_03 16:10

Sure. So uh I'm just looking up the passage here that it comes from. So the title Bread Grows in Winter comes from chapter six of the book, which I view as sort of the crown jewel of the book. Although I love all the chapters, but chapter six, this lecture from 1970 called Trusting the Church, is really an extraordinary work. And this chapter is uh this lecture was addressed to lay people who were deeply concerned and disturbed and starting um to go beyond fear to panic. And so this lecture talks about many, many different things, but it's about why she trusts the church. And as one aspect of this, she talks about her trust in different aspects of the church, such as the praying church. And another one is the suffering church. So if I could read a short passage, would that be okay? Of course, yes. So this is in 1970. Ida Goris writes, quote, even more, I trust the suffering church. There is immense suffering, silent and down to the foundations. Above all, the suffering among the many, many good, faithful priests who hardly appear in the press and on television, but who, with the commitment of their lives known only to those close to them, are consumed for those entrusted to them, even if they themselves are externally the weaker ones and have to watch the debauchery defenselessly. Their bitter suffering, which goes as far as physical and mental breakdowns, is not in vain. It is invisible martyr's blood. It sprouts the seeds that grow in the winter's night. So she's referring there to the way that grains of wheat need to overwinter in the soil. And winter is a time when it appears nothing's happening. And in the bleakest times of winter, things can even just appear dead and they're not going to come back. However, as in our faith lives, at some of those times, there's actually something there that's happening underground, but we don't see it. And those are the seeds that need to go through a winter cycle that will then sprout in the spring and provide wheat in the summer. And it's also a Eucharistic image. That's beautiful. And with these suffering priests in 1970, um, she had also witnessed how priests who defended Humana Vitae in 1968, which was criticized brutally in Germany, even more so, I think, than in the US and North America and Canada. Um, they suffered for the criticism and pressure they received, including some that she knew of who ended up hospitalized with mental breakdowns, um, but who who persevered. And so she's talking about that type of suffering. It's not meaningless. And um, you know, whereas before the suffering in the church was physical martyr's blood, she now speaks of it as an invisible martyr's blood, but it's going to nourish the soil, and it that suffering lives in relationship to the seeds that are going to sprout and bring bread.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Hmm.

SPEAKER_03 19:40

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

I wish I I wish I could meet her. It's just such a I just like I in reading, you know, this book that we that we read and um and hearing you speak on her life and specifically on the title itself and where that comes from, just what a I mean, her heart and um and intel intelligence is just such a such an important voice to have to add to you know our modern times, um for sure. Um so speaking of you know her voice, how does uh um Ida's voice differ from other mid-century Catholic thinkers like um Hildebrand and Guardini? Um, and those listening that don't know um who they are, if you don't mind just sharing who they are as well.

SPEAKER_03 20:24

Sure. Dietrich von Hildebrand was um an important Catholic intellectual, um, also already in the 30s, uh 40s. Um he was a philosopher, um, and he um something all three of them shared was opposition to the Nazis. Um but uh Dietrich von Hildebrand also wrote on on beauty and ethics. Uh his you know, distinction, he's more intellectual than Gurus in that he's in in the as I said, he's he's a philosopher and he's approaching things through um philosophy. Um Guardini, Father Romano Guardini, um, was a Catholic priest. Um, although his family was from Italy, he uh grew up in Germany. He played a key figure in the Catholic revival I mentioned in the 1920s, and um as a priest, also he had a simply a different role, a pastoral role. Um he wrote a great deal. His work is uh a bit more academic, I would say, although he's writing for a broad, educated Catholic audience. Um whereas Ida Gurus, um something that just several things that distinguished her work was one, uh she had a special concern for girls, young ladies, and women, and helping. To support them with a Catholic sense of womanhood in distinction to the new images of woman that were being pushed for one thing through the Nazi period, but also through the secular ideology such as feminism. And she also has a very tender approach to writing, a very poetic sense. And something, you know, one of her unique contributions was her renewal of hagiography in the 20th century, where some academics were saying, oh, hagiography is just like old fairy tales, those are fake stories, that's just some old-fashioned thing. For her, the saint is she writes this in um her book, The Church of the Flesh, she speaks of the saint as the most important person in the world because the saint helps us to understand what a human being is. So she takes um our spiritual relationship to understanding the saints and the role of writing about them very seriously. Um all three of them offer so much. They didn't conflict with each other, but they each had a different forte. And something else with Ida Goris, although I think the works of von Hildebrand and Guardini are wonderful today for Catholics, um, something that astonishes me in Goris's work is how relevant it is right now. And I think it's because she had such a deep understanding of the church across history that she's writing as a modern person, experiencing the onset and expansion of modernity in the 20th century. But when I read Bread Grows in Winter, like I need this right now in 2026 as a Catholic. Um, and so it was a reason I wanted to translate it right now and get it out. It's it's not only a historic book, as I said, giving us a ringside seat to what was going on. This is helpful right now, day to day in our spiritual lives.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

100%. Yes, absolutely. I encourage anyone and everyone that's listening to read it. It really truly is a remarkable, um, remarkable book. Um so uh at the time, so Father Joseph Ratzinger at the time gave her eulogy in 1971, uh, which is fascinating to me. What did his words reveal about her influence on theologians of this generation?

SPEAKER_03 24:37

So in Bread Grows in Winter from Ignatius Press in the English edition, I asked Ignatius Press if they would please try to get copyright permission to so that I could include my translation of Joseph Ratzinger's eulogy from 1971 in this book. And that's because in his eulogy he draws extensively on one text by Edigoris, and that is chapter six of the book, Trusting the Church. And the way he highlights her courage and contrasts her courage with what he calls, quote, embarrassed silence, unquote, in the church in 1971. Um I think says a lot because she was viewed as somebody who was not a timid wallflower, and somebody who was going to call a spade a spade when there was a real problem. Um and also we know a little a bit about her relationship to intellectuals like Ratzinger and Joseph Pieper from private letters that have come out. Um, and some that haven't been published yet, but I recently got Joseph Ratzinger's letters to Ida Goris, and now I'm trying through an archive to see if there are letters remaining that she wrote to him. Um and the influence is commenting on each other's works as intellectual partners in the church. Um, but also we find from Joseph Ratzinger and Joseph Pieper that there were particular works by Ida Guris that they badly wanted to get into the hands of more people. And one thing that's been amazing to me to see is that those works were essays by her that are in Bread Grows in Winter.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

That's fascinating. So incredible. And what an amazing um, you know, a journey, I'm sure, that this has been for you to experience this and really reliving parts of her life and kind of putting the pieces together. What a blessing. And so great.

SPEAKER_03 26:48

Well, and I also view translation in the church as a Catholic as something that's particularly important for the body of Christ, because I think that translation for Catholics helps us avoid silos in which different parts of the church and different parts of the world and different language groups are somewhat separate. So it's really a joy for me to share some of these riches from these amazing German-speaking Catholics like Ida Guris for Catholics in another language group. And like I've said and I've emphasized, and I say this just because I experience it by getting to spend time with her work, how helpful she is for today because she had decades ahead of the time when other, you know, problems and issues and how to deal with them started to become public. She saw problems developing and early on has advice and guidance on how to navigate all of this. And that's what Bread Grows in Winter is a guide for navigating times of turmoil in the church. Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

So relatable to today's time for sure. Um, to speak about her as a person. She was known for her candor and humor, which I love. Can you share an example from her essays that captures her tone, or that that is an example?

SPEAKER_03 28:12

So, one um that comes to mind is a book by her about marriage. This is different from the one I mentioned earlier. This second book by marriage that she wrote in 1971, sent it off to the publisher only eight days before she died. So it's kind of amazing that we have it. Umissolubility of marriage because she sees that the sexual revolution is no longer outside the walls of the church, but there are there are individuals who are eager to smuggle smuggling inside. And there was already a full-blown campaign underway to uh change the church's teaching on marriage by 1970 to allow divorce and really alter our essential concept of what marriage even is. And so this book called What Binds Marriage Forever, she is responding to those critics. And one of the ideas that's become a modern, cool idea at the time, as more as new research is being researchers are looking at the sexual lives of animals, is um some Catholic had commented on an article about you know the sexual lives of apes. And well, you know, they do this, so you know, we humans should be able to just change partners, you know, whenever we feel something different. And she sees this as so ridiculous that she jokes about it. Um, she criticizes it and points points some things out, but then she says, Oh, well, gosh, you know, gee, thanks. At least we humans finally have a you know role model to look up to. So that's just one example. But in Breadgrows in Winter, there are occasionally here and there, it'll be very most of it is um her poetic, deep, thoughtful writing, and then occasionally there'll be this little zinger.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

Yeah, I I love that about her. And again, another surprise for me just as I researching more about her and learning about her life and and reading her work. Um, yes, there's just it makes it even more enjoyable than it already is when you when you find those little moments there from her. Um, what insights does uh Agoras offer Catholics who struggle with the church's current challenges and doctrinal confusion? I know we we you talked a little bit about this, but I'd love to hear more.

SPEAKER_03 30:36

Sure. So in the first chapter of Bread Grows in Winter, um, she's addressing the topic of who Christ is. And and our the title of the chapter is Our Image of Christ. And she's responding to a letter she's received from a younger Catholic who's very upset and is starting to experience his faith, starting to become shaky, even unravel, because of things he's hearing, and especially from academic professors in the newest cutting-edge research about Jesus. And she tells him look, they can say whatever they want, but who Jesus is doesn't change. And that's where we've got to root ourselves. And she also talks about how getting to know Christ is such a huge endeavor, not over just the lifetime of one person, but over the centuries of the church, that we need to accept that it has many, many, many aspects to it. Some that we may not see at a given moment, and we've got to trust just who Jesus is. She also talks about the importance of truth. Um, and this is in a chapter in Breadgrows in Winter called Faith, Skeleton, or Body. And that was the chapter that I um found in a letter that Joseph Ratzinger said to her, I just read your essay, and I wish I could get this into the hands of seminarians. Um, she has two chapters on uh specifically on difficulties in the church, and an example of her not being a wallflower. One is titled Demolition Troops in the Church. And then the second is Trusting the Church. And in both of those, um she has really beautiful guidance on being able to have a long view of what the church is. Also, for me, something that gives her a great deal of credibility is when there are troubles, she never says, no, no, no, don't worry, everything's fine, you know, just relax. That's never her approach. She um, when there's a problem, she names it and she describes it. And some of the problems she describes are harrowing. But she talks about how the church is so much bigger than those problems. And that some of these problems, and this has helped me, you know, right today when we see some of these problems unfolding, she reminds us that some of these problems may not be solved in our lifetime. You know, she sees the church across generations. Um and and another way that she helps with difficulties in the church is in that chapter that is leading some people I know to buy the book for seminarians. The chapter is called Remarks on Celibacy. It's a long chapter because she thinks it's such an important topic. And part of her approach in that chapter is to write about what the priesthood is and explain that confusion about celibacy often comes not from questions that have to do with celibacy and sex and sexuality, but from a misunderstanding of what the priesthood even is. And because we've um you know experienced vocational crisis here and there in the church, and the special role of the priest in the Catholic Church, that chapter to help us understand a better, more solid understanding of what a priest is, uh I found also helped me feel like I was on more, you know, solid ground instead of shaky ground with what the church is.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

I agree. Um you spoke earlier on um women in the church a little bit. So how do you see her message speaking specifically to the women in the church today?

SPEAKER_03 34:36

She for well, she loved Our Lady. Um I have uh an ambition, not time yet, but a hope and ambition to do a collection of her essays on Our Lady. Um, because in the 1960s, one of them that she wrote was called Um, I can't remember exactly, I'm paraphrasing here, but it was um The Crisis in Marian Devotion. So one of the examples she has in Trusting the Church was a situation in a children's school where the children were told to bring their rosaries to church, to I'm sorry, to school one day. And the reason for it was the children were then told um, and they had the children put all the rosaries in a pile and burned them. And the message of the children was, oh, we don't do that old fuddy-duddy stuff anymore. And Ida Gurus saw um this effort to sideline and push aside Our Lady and to treat the devotions to Our Lady as, oh, that's just old-fashioned, you know, old wives' tales stuff. She saw that as a crisis because of the special role that Our Lady has. Also, she was very critical of feminism. She wrote um a scathing review in the early 1950s of the book The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. Um but she's also writing, you know, this very important criticism of what she calls an atheistic view of woman. Um, she even calls that view of woman satanic. Um, she's writing that from a perspective of somebody who is an expert in the lives of the saints. And so she has spent her life exalting and sharing with us the lives of saints such as Elizabeth of Hungary, um, Saint Barbara, Saint Therese. Uh, she's from a milieu of um educated, intellectual, influential Catholic women writers. You know, she's in this milieu of um Edigurus, Gertrude von Lefort. Also, you mentioned the introduction, I'm doing some work on Oda Schneider. She's not known yet, but she was a great woman, Catholic writer of the era, and I'm gonna have some translations of her work coming out. Um, and so this rejection of feminism is not something like we sometimes see today on social media of some very, very uh narrow stereotype of um what a woman is. She understands that God has created man and woman um as very rich partners to each other. Um so I don't know, I'm excited to share more about her work on this as time goes on. And she especially used uh her literary gifts to write short stories for girls and young women to help present to them a healthy view of what a woman is.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

That's amazing. We have to have you come back on and talk about that when that's um all completed. That's so exciting. Um, it just really just I mean, it's such a beautiful uh thought. And really, again, just like bread grows in winter will be much needed today. Um so you spoke about the translation that you're working on that's coming out, but beyond Bread Grows and Winter, what other works by Gores would you like to see translated next?

SPEAKER_03 38:11

I'd love to see more of her work on the saints translated. She was a prolific author, and there's a lot that she wrote that has not been translated. However, because she was neglected for so long and with the current difficulties with the situation of the church in Germany, she's still the kind of author. She's not well known there. She's actually more well known today in the US than Germany. Um there's a great deal of need for just solid archival work and getting a complete bibliography of her work, so for real nuts and bolts stuff before some of these translations can be done. And I've also um almost finished a collection of 20 essays by her on the church and the question of what the church is, and I'll be excited to share those. When she died, a man who uh was a great fan of her writing wrote in and recommended that the epitaph on her gravestone should read, She loved the church. Oh. Which I just think speaks volumes. That isn't on her gravestone. She wanted um an image of St. Michael the Archangel to whom she had a special devotion. Um, but those are some of the topics by Ida Goris that I'd love to share. And some of her short stories.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

But all these surprising. Right. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah, it's not not an overnight thing to get those completed. Um, so looking back in 2025, or around I think October timeframe, uh, Pope Leo said that by clothing ourselves with the with the sentiments of Christ, we expand the ecclesial space so that it becomes um essentially welcoming. This will enable us to live with confidence and a new spirit amid the tensions that run through the life of the church between unity and diversity, tradition and novelty, authority and participation. What would uh Goris have said about that reflection? Do you feel?

SPEAKER_03 40:05

There's a lot there. The first thing that comes to my mind is the way she helps us understand that truth itself is can is what is most welcoming and is of service to others. So, for example, when she writes about marriage, um, she's very clear about how trying to obfuscate the truth or even deny it that nobody's helped or aided by staying in sin. Um, and so we need to understand being a welcoming church in a Christian sense of authentic, true welcoming. Um also the you know, the breadth of the church that Pope Leo talks about there. In Ida Gurus, we see that breadth in her work on the saints, the saints across the century speaking to us today in ways that we need to hear right now, today. And such as St. John Henry Newman, who was one of her favorites, and she wrote a book on him.

SPEAKER_02 41:06

That's amazing. Um, well, my last question is always a fun one that we do at the end. This one's about you. So, what brings you, if you're to think about, and then whenever I ask this question, I guess it kind of takes a minute because there's so many ways you can answer this. Um, what brings you the most joy in your day-to-day? And that can be in your vocation, it can just be whatever comes to your heart first that you'd like to share. It's always so nice to hear from guests on what brings them joy. What brings you the most joy, Jennifer?

SPEAKER_03 41:35

So uh because good things come in three. Um, can I share three things that came to my mind? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

We get more than one, of course. Yes, all you'd like to share. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 41:47

One, honestly, and I'm not saying this because we're talking about a book today by Ida Goris. One is the work of Ida Goris. I feel so blessed right now getting to um translate her work and you know, try to edit it and study her life. And just being able to share her life and work with others brings me incredible joy because I think she is a voice that can help the church. And two other things that came to my mind are my garden. I love gardening. Um and I'm amazed by God's creation. Um, and my dog.

SPEAKER_02 42:22

Oh, what kind of dog do you have? I I'm a dog lover myself. I have a Pekinese. Oh, little dog. It's that's cute. Oh, that's so fun. Dogs really do make, I mean, just there is never anytime that it's funny because that's been brought up other another time, which is not surprising because job dogs just bring joy. Um, there, they you can, no matter what you do, they love you unconditionally. Um, they may be in a mood every now and then, but um at the end of the day, they love you unconditionally, which is such a, yeah, such a again, a joy uh for sure. Uh well, thank you so much for sharing, and thank you uh for you know being on the show. Um, it was such a such a joy to have you today, uh Jennifer.

SPEAKER_03 43:02

I love getting to talk with you, and thank you for the work your Catholic apostle is doing.

SPEAKER_02 43:07

Oh, thank you so much. Uh, if you'd like to learn more about Jennifer, the life and work of Ida Goras and a bread uh or bread grows in winter, you can click the link in our show notes. To purchase this book, you can visit ignatiuspress.com. You can also click it uh in the show notes for the direct link to our review of this beautiful book on our blog at Plumanfig.com slash blog. As we close this episode today, we especially encourage you to spend time with your friends who knows you best, Jesus. Go to adoration, daily mass, talk or sit with him, even if it's just 10 minutes. Go for a walk outside, meditate on sacred art, stay a decade of the rosary, or simply venture to sit among God's gifts in nature and pray. I challenge you to go out into the world and add more prayer into your day today. You'll be amazed at how your heart will sing. Know our team will conclude this episode silently praying for your intentions you hold in your hearts. I invite you to do so as well. Let us also pray for those who may be in need of God's mercy or who may be on the peripheries and needing guidance back into the Church. May we all seek the light of Christ in all things, walking with him hand in hand through the great adventure of life. And may our words, our choices, and our actions reflect that light so clearly that others are drawn toward him through us. Thank you so much again, Jennifer, from all of us that are resounding yes. We pray that all listeners have a joyful day and week ahead full of miracles. We ask that you please prayerfully share these episodes with family, friends, your community, and parish to continue to spread Christ's light to the world. I'd like to mention that following us is easy and free. Just click follow on your favorite listening platform to receive alerts when we publish new episodes, or you can subscribe to us at Paloma and Fig through our email bulletins at Palomaandfig.com for even more faith-filled content and a creative evangelization of the faith. Thank you for your continued support as we could not do this without each of you and your prayers. God bless.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Bless the time of your glory, and blessed that who I mean's death. Amen. Amen.