MAKING ROOM

Hackard offers a spiritually informed memoir that draws upon his Catholic faith.

The author has spent more than 50 years working as an attorney specializing in elder law in California. This book focuses on his religious journey, namely the roles that faith and spiritual encounters have played in his life. He notes that he was a devout Catholic from an early age and that he first encountered his guardian angel in 1956, when he was 6, after learning the traditional Guardian Angel prayer in the Sacramento Catholic school he attended. The author goes on to write of the power of prayer during his upbringing, which he says served as a firm foundation amid life’s challenges and inevitable losses. He also writes of the many tragedies faced by his Irish family and the resilience they’ve shown in the face of struggle. Through joys and sorrows, his family has shown great determination, he says, as well as an uncanny ability to foresee future events. One relative, he writes, accurately prophesized the early deaths of multiple siblings from various causes in the early 20th century. Faith also served as a rock in his life during other crises that didn’t involve his family; he writes, for instance, of the fear he felt during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962: Hackard prayed by himself in church, asking for divine intervention to keep the world from being destroyed. When the Soviet ships turned around and headed home, his deep belief in the power of prayer during moments of danger was strengthened.

The author also describes the fear he often felt as an attorney during his career; he played a minor role in the Charles Manson case, which led to a break-in at his offices by people looking for the Manson files, among other threats. His fears for himself and his wife led him to lean even more firmly into his faith as a source of stability. In his discussion of his legal career, Hackard writes of the importance of having a firm sense of justice, as well as a desire for truth. He also delves into other crises, including near-financial ruin during the 2008 financial meltdown, but the minutiae of some stories make them less compelling than other parts of the book. The work concludes with several sections focused on Hackard’s prayer life. He discusses the role of praying the rosary on a daily basis and writes of another prayer by the famed Trappist monk Thomas Merton on the uncertainty of life; a prayer of St. Francis of Assisi’s calling for love and light in the world receives significant attention as well. Overall, the book will appeal most to readers interested in the intersection of devotionals and memoir. Hackard writes explicitly for a Catholic audience, making use of the language of the Church in much of his writing, which may create a barrier to entry to other readers. Still, it’s a mostly engaging remembrance whose sections about the author’s life as a lawyer offer notable excitement.

A sometimes-compelling, if occasionally uneven, personal faith history.