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Prodigal Daughters: Catholic Women Come Home to the Church

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Prodigal Daughters offers a new twist on the familiar tale of the prodigal son. It provides the stories of 17 women who for various reasons left the faith of their youth only to later return to the Catholic Church. Their stories are compelling, honest, and inspirational.

All of the women featured in the book were born during or shortly after the Baby Boom era. While the women themselves, and their stories, are quite diverse, they share a common pattern - their disillusionment with the Church, a replacement for the Church, and their eventual return to the Church.

Leila Habra Miller describes her sadness at being robbed of her faith. `How easily I could have lost it all! How easily my friends and contemporaries have lost or could lose a faith they have never really understood. Inoffensive, doctrine-free catechesis doesn't provide even a minimal foundation of faith, and faith built on so flimsy a foundation cannot withstand even the smallest challenge, (p. 263).' Miller writes. As interesting as their reasons for leaving the Church are the personal reasons for each of their returns.

The book is written as much for faithful Catholics as it is for those who have fallen away.

Reading such personal accounts, we are allowed to share in the pain and disillusionment of these women and learn from their mistakes. In their stories we are humbled and reminded of our own sinfulness. Like the story of the prodigal son, upon their return home, these women too, discover the loving embrace of a forgiving Father.

Cast in the mold of Patrick Madrid's collection of conversions to Catholicism, Surprised by Truth (ISBN 0964261081), Mrs. Steichen collects the honest, detailed, inspirational accounts of seventeen Catholic women who describe their journey back from the arid exile of feminism, libertarianism, and other spiritual wastelands, to full communion with the Church. A highly recommended tonic for those who cannot see how the Holy Spirit will ever reach the heart of someone in a situation like those portrayed here, and a source of guidance for those who might be in such a state themselves. And thank you, too, to each of the women who have opened their grace-filled stories to us!

My great hope for this book was that it might help me to see more distinctly the problems behind the lukewarmness and, often, apostasy of my cradle Catholic loved ones. In fact, I have received these realizations and much more besides. Baby Boomers and Gen X-ers have come of age in a world focused on the rights of the individual above all, and in this important new work we witness that within the ensuing wildfire of protest there have been deeply personal struggles to find the meaning and purpose of life; burning desires (often well-concealed by stubbornness) to encounter something greater than ourselves.

Prodigal Daughters is a collection of true windows into the souls of seventeen women who questioned the Faith of their youth. We find that they were, ironically, unwilling to accept that the Church is indeed that "something greater" they had so longed for. How glorious it is to share in their journeys home! My own eyes were opened in ways that surprised me, a convert to the Faith -- opened wide to reveal the real failings within myself which had, for so many years, obstructed my own search for God's truth. I had certainly not expected such an experience in introversion and I wholeheartedly welcomed it.

Powerfully hopeful in its forthright display of these inner journeys, Prodigal Daughters is an invaluable resource for those willing to face honest testimony regarding the terrible impact culture-worship, self-worship and complacency have on our faith in God and His Church.

A riveting collection of true stories from 17 women of the Baby Boom generation who have completed their search for meaning. There is much to learn from their mistakes as well as from discovering what they concluded at the end of their individual quests.

This book helps to explain the confusion in America's Catholic Church today. A must read for everyone: priests and pastors who are observing a 'graying of the Church' and don't seem to know why the young are leaving; those who are worried about loved ones who have turned to drugs to give meaning to their lives; those who are searching for love by involving themselves in a series of sexual relationships; indeed, everyone can benefit by getting into the thoughts and minds of those who have been there.

As a woman who has returned to the Catholic Church after having left and experimented with other forms of worship, including New Age beliefs, I found myself identifying strongly with the 17 women who have related their stories here. For a woman struggling with secular issues that have been misapplied to matters of faith, this is a particularly helpful read; it puts you in touch with matters of faith, rather than matters of political correctness, delivering an over-riding message that we only transcend the world by looking at things through sacramental, "godly" eyes, not worldly ones. I thought the first essay was rather weak, and the writer a bit full of herself, but after that each essay was more and more compelling. Highly Recommend.

The conversion and re-conversion stories in this book were quite moving. Don't you just love it when reviewers here slam a book without seeming to have read it? Like the reviewer who called it a "shallow treatment" and then proceeded to bring up the standard Liberal (NON-Catholic) criticisms of the Catholic Church. Catholicism is a clearly defined system of beliefs. Those who CHOOSE to believe it do not have to worry about "Gender issues" because the Catholic faith lies at a much deeper level of belief than modern politics does. Catholicism teaches that truth comes from God's revelation of HIS self rather than from some kind of left-wing political consensus. This book does a good job of displaying this truth in lives of real women.

I am myself a woman who has returned to the Church, and have often referred to myself as a "Prodigal Daughter," so I was delighted to see this book. But it soon became clear, a few pages into the first story, that this book is not so much about the joy of returning to Christ's family as it is about how awful those "other people" are--those other people being feminists and liberals. In other words, it is a book of polemic, not spirituality. I was sorely disappointed. Though there are some uplifting stories, overall it reminds me more of a rather snarky right-wing blog than anything else. I quit reading it, frankly, because it failed my basic test for spiritual reading: Does this increase my faith? Or does it make me feel like an outsider? I am not particularly liberal or conservative, but polemic from either side just irritates me rather than making me feel closer to God. Save your money and read freerepublic.com, if you want diatribes against the left. If you want a book that will bring you closer to the Lord, I suggest "The Interior Castle" or "Introduction to the Devout Life."

Prodigal Daughters: Catholic Women Come Home to the Church is collection of coming home stories that is open, honest, well-written, and hope-filled. These seventeen women with a variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds, life experiences, and levels of faith formation discuss in detail how and when they strayed from the Catholic faith, and how God eventually guided them back to the Church.

Some of these women came from very devout Catholic families and drifted from the faith, as so many do, once they were out on their own at college or in the world without anyone checking to see if they were going to Mass, participating in the Sacraments, making time for personal prayer, and thereby growing in holiness and closeness to the Lord.

Many were disillusioned by the watered-down version of the Catholic faith they received growing up after Vatican II at a time when women's rights and sexual freedom were being heavily promoted. In most cases, God worked through a friend, spouse, child, family member, and/or a clergyman to guide these prodigal daughters back to the loving Father, the Blessed Mother, and the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

The most prevalent reasons for these women to abandon their faith for a time were that they got caught up in sensual pleasures espoused by the sexual revolution and feminist movement, became focused on winning worldly success, embraced New Age thought and practices, and/or were disillusioned by religious men and women who made the mistake of adopting ideas from popular culture and passing them off as Church doctrine, though they were and are clearly against the Magisterium.

This book gives me hope for the many Catholics who have fallen away from the faith and may even condemn the Church and its teachings. These stories prove, yet again, that God doesn't abandon His Children, not even when we turn our backs on Him. He remains faithful to us always. He is the loving, enthusiastic, warm father who welcomes us with open arms however and whenever we finally hear His call to return home.

One of the most poignant observations made by Archbishop Fulton Sheen which sums up this book so very well is that there are millions who hate what they think the Catholic Church is, but not a handful who hate the real thing.

Lord, thank You for loving us so much that You never give up on us. You are always inviting us home and rejoice when we finally accept Your invitation.

I love hearing and reading about conversion stories. These stories have helped me to greater appreciate my Catholic faith, and to realize that I should treasure it and learn more about what I believe in. The women in the book share a wide range of life experiences, from having had abortions to having been involved in the New Age movement, these women all eventually, through the grace of God, came home to the Church founded by Jesus Christ himself. A common theme in the book is the damage caused by misinterpretations, etc.. of the Second Vatican Council. Many of the women describe how the "watered down" faith being taught by abusers of Vatican II, caused them to fall away from the true Church. Thanks be to God, Pope Benedict is calling the Church back to tradition! :) I recommend this book to mothers and fathers especially, since they are called to be the primary educators of their children. These stories may open the eyes of many lukewarm or complacent Catholic parents, hopefully giving them a good wake up call to put their Catholic faith first, for the sake of their children. I know it really made me think as a parent of 6!

A previous reviewer was angry that this book did not show the way to go home. Actually, what it shows is that the way to go home is to go HOME, and not try to tear down the house and build a new one just because you don't like some of it. This is a wonderful book. I identified with almost every woman's story!!