Our 2025 Summer Read Along Book

drum roll 🥁

Something I love doing so much is hosting our summer read-alongs. I prefer to call this a read-along vs. a book club because you don’t have to participate in the chat, you don’t have to stick to our suggested timeline, and you don’t have to hop on Zoom and make conversation. It really is just a bunch of people reading a book together, pure and simple.

My method for choosing our summer read-along book is always simply choosing a book that I think everyone should read. I genuinely ponder, wouldn’t the world be a better place if everyone read this book? In past years we’ve done:

• The Genesis of Gender by Abigail Favale

• The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day

• The Rights of Women by Erika Bachiochi

This year, I’m over the moon to announce that we’ll be reading Mary Magdalene: Prophetess of Eucharistic Love by Fr. Sean Davidson.

For the past year or two, Mary Magdalene has been gently sitting with me, gifting me with a gentle presence that’s sturdied my heart. It’s why I planned out our autumn pilgrimage to her final resting place in France, and why I’ve been rocking her tiny saint keychain on my car keys. I chose her as one of my 2025 patrons¹ and I’ve been turning to her in times of joy, sorrow, grief, hope, stress, and everything in between.

But finding Mary Magdalene books isn’t easy. A lot of them are straight up blasphemous, and the others are just…weird. I’m so glad that I finally stumbled upon one that simply makes the case for why Mary Magdalene is so important in our church history, and treats her with respect, honor, and awe. I can’t wait to dive deeply into the life of this great feminist saint with you!

If you’re signed up for the 2025 Catholic Feminist Pilgrimage and would like to join the read-along, let me know in a reply to this email and I will comp your paid subscription (I should mention that pilgrims who travel with me get free lifetime access to Letters—I’m always so bad at reminding people that! If you’re a pilgrim who currently pays, message me so I can move you to our comps!) I’m highly, highly recommending all pilgrims read this book before we travel. I think it will enrich our experience so much.

This book is quite a bit shorter than our three previous read-alongs, making it a great spiritual read for summer. Our schedule:

• June 13: Forward, preface, introduction and chapter 1

• July 11: Chapters 2-4

• August 6: Chapters 5-7 and conclusion

Each read-along email will include my own musings on the work, as well as background information/art that it made me think of. We’ll also, as always, have a robust comments discussion! If you do not want to join the read-along or receive the read-along emails while still receiving usual letters, you’ll need to unsubscribe to that specific section. (I’m not able to provide tech support—please reach out to support@substack.com if you need.)

These read-along emails will only be available to our paying subscribers. That affords me the time and space to craft this content for you. Thank you for understanding and for prayerfully considering joining us. You can certainly feel free to join us in the summer + hop off in September—lots of people choose to do so! You’re also obviously free to just read the book on the same timeline and be with us in spirit without the emails. :)

Happy reading!

In Him through Her,

Claire

1. Along with St. John the Evangelist and St. Bernadette