Winds of Life

The Benediction of Paul #1

by Patricia McClure

Karl Mackenzie Knows the Song became a Benedictine monk in Montana by default after a drunk driver took the lives of his wife and children. Now known as Father Jacob, he hasn’t quite forgiven God and is not ready to love again. When an orphaned boy, Paul Warner, is adopted by St. Alberic’s Monastery, he and his best friend, Father Joannicus, find themselves face to face with a job neither of them is ready for. God and their contemplative life are overshadowed by headstrong women and the raising of a child.

290 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 6, 2024

About the author

I live in the wet, green Pacific Northwest. When not writing, I love to research family history, dabble in art, and garden. I volunteer as an Oblate of St. Martin’s Abbey, am a retired counselor and boutique day care owner. I am a parent, grand parent, and great grand parent.

When I first started writing this series, it was in the middle of a personal crisis and writing was a way of healing. The theme that men can raise children also weighed heavily on my heart. If it weren’t for my belief in families, the unlikely family of monks at St. Alberic’s Abbey raising a child could not have blossomed into the Benediction of Paul series.

Reviews

[Susan Nieves]

I enjoyed this read. I loved the characters. I love Father Jonah as Paul does, and Jacob is the friend we all need in our life! I look forward to the next book by Patricia Mcclure!

[Linda]

It takes a village

This is a great story that shows how raising a child in a non-typical setting can be successful when all parties work together for the good of the child. The bonds formed, and the love expressed for all involved was heartwarming.

Not only was the story good, but I also learned so much about life in a monastery. The rules, clothing, and differences between priests, monks, and Abbotts. I look forward to reading the rest of this series and following all the great characters I met.

[Joanne Spiek]

Strange book. Very hard to get into; was rambling every where. Unrealistic for today's world. Tried to say something about parenting, Catholism, teaching techniques, monasticism, and human attraction and did a poor job on all aspects. Gave it 3 stars for benefit of the doubt.

[Joanne West]

Paul and the Monks

Took me awhile to get into it but once I did I enjoyed it. As a Protestant it’s hard for me to understand that way of life.

[Donna]

Did not finish

[Pamela Chaplin]

Life takes an unexpected turn for a young boy named Paul when he very suddenly comes to live in a monastery. I felt very emotional as I watched Brother Jonah struggle with the role of parenting. Although the setting was far from a realistic one in today’s society, I was championing for them both. It gave me hope that unique relationships can succeed.

[Michael Kramer]

Patricia McClure builds a simultaneously fascinating and entertaining novel set in a Montana Benedictine monastery but featuring a precocious boy, Paul.

In this post-Covid world of political anger, social unease, and changing values, the attractions of the contemplative life become more and more appealing. Over the past months, with no concerted effort on my part, I’ve run into historical novels, mysteries, and works in other genres all set amidst or somehow involving the monastery, the convent, or some other cloistered community. Adding the adventure of raising an orphan from toddlerhood into the primary grades, McClure reveals a great deal of human truth. The men in St. Alberic’s Monastery, all monks and priests, despite their diversity in personality and purpose, cannot escape what they begin to see as a God-driven responsibility to Paul, entrusted to them when his mother dies.

Father Joannicus seeks contemplation of God and deeper understanding of what constitutes “holy.” A scholar, he first is annoyed by the interruptions of the clingy toddler. He comes to realize that Paul’s incessant questioning, his desire to belong, and need to be loved may teach Joannicus more than any study of the early Church fathers or commentaries on Scripture. Others in the community, the prankster Bother Mellitus for certain, simply find in Paul a playmate.

McClure builds reality in the form of Mrs. Carr, representing social services, at first nothing but suspicious of these men’s interest in this little boy amidst the molestation scandals sweeping the Roman Catholic Church. As she becomes more aware of the balance and wisdom of the Benedictine Rule and finds more and more appeal in the spirituality inherent in a good monastery, she and the reader see more and more just how beneficial this relationship becomes to both sides.

Profound in its depiction of what spirituality needs to be truly meaningful and what a little boy needs to become spiritually and intellectually healthy, Winds of Life: The Benediction of Paul, Book I operates on many pleasing levels. The reader can only look forward to what promises to be a profound and pleasing series filling out the growth of a most promising set of characters.

[Laura Swan]

A must-read for lovers of The Mitford Series. Instead of Father Tim, we have young Paul and a monastery of monks whose lives will change forever. Well-written, lovely use of language, she has a good sense of monastic life. I hope it's not a long wait for book 2!

[Bookworm]

Fascinatingly wonderful story of communal living in which an innocent child enters and stirs up varied emotions in everybody involved!

[Kirsten Winter]

Winds of Life tells the tale of a boy and his monastery. It pulled me in from first and illuminated the lives of monks, a boy and his caseworker. The story taught me about monastic life and Catholic faith. Through twists and turns, every character’s emotion is described in such detail that I felt joy, frustration, surprise and confusion right along with them. Dynamic characters drive the plot and I look forward to visiting with them again in the next book.