Reaching for Heaven: 14 Spiritual Goals as You Grow Older – In Conversation with Michael Amodei

Today, I continue my ongoing series of conversations with published authors as I’m joined by talented author and super cool Notre Dame superfan Michael Amodei. Mike joins me to chat about his newly released book Reaching for Heaven: 14 Spiritual Goals as You Grow Older. My personal journey over the last year saw me facing a cancer diagnosis and turning sixty years old. Either of these situations would have had me contemplating big thoughts. The two coming together helped me gain some greatly needed perspective on the gift and privilege of aging. Mike’s book has been a wonderful gift to me during this season of my life. Read on to learn about this terrific resource and how Mike Amodei is always standing on the sidelines for every Notre Dame home game. Regardless of your age, this book is a terrific primer for how we can live with our sights set on the things that matter most in life. Lisa

Q: Mike, congratulations on the publication of Reaching for Heaven: 14 Spiritual Goals as You Grow Older. Before we get started, please briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Thanks, Lisa! I am a Baby Boomer Catholic who grew up in Southern California and started Saturday morning CCD classes just as Vatican II was kicking off. Because of that, I’m kind of amazed that I’ve been a Catholic school teacher, DRE, and now in my fortieth year in Catholic book publishing, the last thirty-one at Ave Maria Press at Notre Dame. A lot of what I picked up about the faith seems to have been almost by osmosis. We went from reciting Baltimore Catechism questions in first grade in 1962 to cutting out photos from Life Magazine and making collages about nature in second grade CCD.

Q: This book is so wonderful, and especially so for folks at our stage of life! How would you describe your mission here? And why take on this topic at this time in your own life?

In the words of the Knights of Columbus motto: “Time flies. Remember your death.” The book is a pause in life to do that. My mission here is to get to heaven, hopefully bypassing purgatory. What we know as our particular judgment happens immediately at the time of death. There is no twenty-four bonus time to cram for it and get our ducks in a row like we once did for a test in college. I want this review of my life done in the presence of Jesus to be as comfortable as possible, maybe even congratulatory on a job well done. I want my family and friends in heaven with me and I hope the book will remind them of some of things they can do to prepare for death too. And then I want to spend eternity contemplating God’s mystery and love with them and Jesus, Mary, and the saints.

Q: In each of your fourteen chapters, you offer some terrific prescriptions for us to help place spirituality and preparation for a happy death at the forefront of our priorities. Can you mention a few of these topics and why they are so important to you?

All of the prescriptions are things most Catholics have already done or did in the past, like praying, going to Mass, caring for the poor, relying on Mary, and keeping our families and friends close. The book offers some ways to enhance some of these things both now and when we may have more time as the kids are out of the house and work slows down. For example, I’ve always mumbled some prayers at night before I go to sleep. But in these last years I want to increase the amount of time I pray and vary in the kinds of prayers I pray. Basically, everyone should do a morning offering and nightly examen and then fill in the rest of the day with more planned times for prayer, creating a kind of hybrid liturgy of the hours for themselves. Also, when I retire from work, I want to be a daily Mass-goer. Practically speaking it will be a way to get me out of bed each morning and go somewhere. Maybe I will even find a group of other daily Mass-goers to have breakfast with. Related to heaven, I kind of take to heart St. Pius X’s words: “Holy Communion is the shortest and safest way to Heaven. There are others: innocence, but that is for little children; penance, but we are afraid of it; generous endurance of trials of life, but when they come we weep and ask to be delivered. The surest, easiest, shortest way is the Eucharist.”

Q: One thing that I love about your book is that it’s filled with personal stories and reads almost like a memoir, but with an important teaching purpose. I see that you recently did a book signing with friends from your elementary school days. How have your friends and peers been responding to the book, especially given that they may recognize some of themselves in its pages?

I really do love my friends who I grew up with in my small town of Temple City, real-life Mayberry in the 1960s and 70s and just twelve miles from downtown LA. They know me and I know them. I can put on no fancy religious book editor/author heirs with my longtime friends in the same way I imagine there will be no faking it when I meet Jesus. My friends have been the best promoters of my book, sharing dramatic arrivals of the Amazon delivery of the book arriving at their houses on social media. It was so much fun returning to St. Luke’s, my home parish, and doing a presentation on the book. It was just as fun going out to lunch with my friends after the talk. We all went around the table and told stories about how our lives have gone since we were kids. I could have listened to them for hours. I think my friends like hearing how the memories we shared as kids have importance in the larger scheme of things.

Q: I’d love to see a second book based on the ten experiences you recommend in your appendix. Can you briefly talk about a few of these?

There are a lot of meaningful things to do when we have more time. I already participate in a Catholic Relief Service chapter and coach Little League baseball. I would like to increase my participation in these type of volunteer service organizations and do more. Also, I’ve never really blocked out time for an overnight retreat. I’d like to do that. One of the “bigger” suggestions in the appendix was to run for an elected office, like on a school board or a city commission. Why not? All the politicians I see are ten years older than me!

Q: A few of us–especially the Notre Dame fans out there–might envy some of the life experiences you’ve had in your life such as standing on the sidelines at Notre Dame football games or editing the work of Lou Holtz or Muffet McGraw. What experiences and/or people have really impacted you spiritually and how?

I’ve got to say my friendship with Coach Holtz, working with him on three books, and having him endorse my book are highlights of my life. I also loved editing Coach McGraw’s book and learning how she managed people. Both were no nonsense coaches which I appreciate. And, yes, I’ve been on the sidelines of every Notre Dame home football game for the past twenty-nine years! I am the field supervisor of ushers. At the end of each game I stand on the 50 yard line and always say a prayer of thanksgiving to be in that position. I grew up in one of those Notre Dame families that everyone has in their neighborhood or workplace. I always knew Mary loved Notre Dame football and was intimately tied in with each game. I can’t believe she worked it out so that a kid from Southern California who suffered through a few brutal USC losses at the LA Coliseum growing up can do my part on the ND sidelines all these years. By doing my part, I can say I was a strong advocate to move the USC band from the sidelines up to the seats near the Jumbotron so they can barely be heard. Full credit to Our Lady for all of it!

Q: How has writing this book helped you to be better prepared in your own life as you enter the years ahead?

I am glad I put this plan down on paper. I catch myself especially in the time since I wrote it distancing myself from trivial stuff: routine family drama, politics, car repairs, and the like. The spiritual goals are more at the forefront. And my wife and I have done practical things like creating a living trust and purchasing our burial crypt—at Cedar Grove Cemetery at Notre Dame (nearby Rockne, Parseghian, and Holtz by the way). I’ve always realized that this part of life on planet earth is only the beginning of something that lasts forever and outside of time that we work in now. Besides just preparing for heaven, I look forward to heaven. Great meals, friends, playing baseball, all in the presence of God.

Q: Although you’re an experienced author, you are an awesome editor as well. How is it to turn the tables, to put on an author’s disposition, and to be edited on a topic as personal as this?

Good question! I thought it would be harder because I tend to be “hands on.” But my two co-workers Kristi McDonald and Heidi Saxton are pros. Once I let go and listened to them things went smoothly.

Q: Do you have any additional thoughts or comments you’d like to share?

Yes, three selling points! First, the book is a quick read. A fun part about it is that it will help you to look back fondly on your own memories of growing up Catholic in the post-Vatican II Church, which I don’t want to insinuate is something deficient from what it was before. We Baby Boomer Catholics are a generation who got to know Jesus personally by reading Scripture more than those Catholics who came before us. Second, the book will give you some ideas about what you can do now and in the near future, despite any limitations that older age brings. For example, you might be able to go on a pilgrimage to Lourdes in the next few years. If not, you can take a pilgrimage of religious sites in your own area or even online. Finally, I am out and about talking about the book. I’m also doing Zoom presentations. The presentations are a good way to start a group discussion on these goals at your parish, club, or with friends. Contact me at Ave Maria Press if you are interested in a presentation. That’s it! Thanks, Lisa, for offering me the chance to share.

Find Reaching for Heaven: 14 Spiritual Goals as You Grow Older at Ave Maria Press, Amazon, or your favorite bookstore.

A question for you: Regardless of our age, we are all “aging”. What priorities are most important to you as you advance through life?