The book I was looking for was blue, slim, and frayed at its spine, but despite its recognizable features, I could not put my hands on it.

My mother was brought up in confessional Lutheranism, and despite losing the habit of churchgoing after marrying my wonderful but religiously indifferent father, she never forsook her private faith or the books that bespoke it: the Bible, the 1941 Lutheran Hymnal, the Lutheran Book of Prayer, and Dr. Martin Luther’s Small Catechism—the last of which was the book for which I was so eagerly, even desperately, searching not long ago.

In every house in which we lived, I had made note of the presence of these volumes. They were tokens of her religious heritage, one that I, not having been brought up in the church, mostly stood outside of. My mother unfailingly kept her hymnal near her piano, where it would be meaningfully and regularly put to use, but when my father was alive, she generally kept the Bible and catechism in a neat stack in their closet—not because she did not value them but because they were far too important to her to carelessly (or, worse, boastfully) display. I myself was only reminded of their existence when I was recruited to help pack before a move. Today, I see her secreting away of these books as in keeping with the spirit of those words spoken by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: “But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

In the nearly two years since my mother died in September 2023, though, I was unable to find her well-worn copy of Luther’s Small Catechism. The matter had become rather urgent since I had, not long after her death, joined the Lutheran Church myself. My mother and I now shared the same confession of faith, but I could not share that extraordinary change with her. I was unable to tell her about the things I had learned—about justification, sanctification, the sacraments. I thought of her copy of the catechism as the one concrete thing she had left behind that reflected this great thing we now had in common. She would have learned it, studied it, and committed it to memory in preparation for her confirmation examination, which, she never tired telling me, was conducted, rather intimidatingly, by her uncle, a deacon at her home church in Sioux City, Iowa. 

My mother’s things are everywhere in my house: in boxes, in bins, in stacks, but, vexingly, none seemed to contain Luther’s Small Catechism. I emptied out a chest with fifteen drawers and an armoire with seven shelves—no luck. I had all but given up when, several weeks ago, I found myself looking through a cabinet in the basement in search of something entirely unrelated—undoubtedly a book of mine that I had placed down there in my perennial shifting around of books that I had read, reviewed, or otherwise momentarily discarded. There, nearly invisible between heavy tomes, was a small blue volume with a recognizably ragged spine. After I took it from the cabinet, I had to focus to make out the faded red lettering on the cover: Luther’s Small Catechism.

When I opened its pages, I recognized at once an early version of my mother’s distinctive cursive: “Property of Diane Mary Kruck”—her maiden name. Then, on the opposite page, I encountered someone else’s handwriting—as it turns out, her Sunday school teacher, who wrote: “Diane Kruck has satisfactorily completed the six chief parts of doctrine.” I flipped through the pages of the book, which, to my joy and amazement, my mother had covered with notes or exhortations to herself. She had written “Learn” or “Say” beside numerous questions and answers, and check marks and circles were everywhere—general all over the catechism, as James Joyce might put it. I discerned meaning from passages she seems to have circled with especial enthusiasm, such as 1 John 2:15: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.” Why, in the catechetical text that read, “We love God above all things when with our whole heart we cling to Him as to our God and gladly devote our lives to His service,” did she single out to underline “with our whole heart we cling”?

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On the basis of her numerous jottings, my mother had truly made an effort to engage with the text. When the catechism said that God gave man a “rational soul,” she wrote, evidently to clarify for herself, that this phrase meant a “thinking soul.” She wrote, in a section on the Resurrection: “Christ stayed here 33 years.” Easter, she wrote beside a nearby drawing of an Easter cross, “is when we rejoice.” Perhaps some of these sayings were influenced by what her Sunday school or confirmation class teacher had told her, but knowing my mother, she would have put anything she heard into her own words. 

Even if I had happened upon a previously undiscovered note that my mother had written to me—one that I had somehow missed until now and that thus represented a kind of final communique to me—I would not have treasured it as much as this marked-up copy of her catechism. I confess that this arguably aligned me with Thomas, to whom Christ said: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

I will now put away my mother’s copy of Luther’s Small Catechism. When I take it out again, I will do so not looking for proof of her faith but for encouragement in mine: If one so young can be so secure in her belief, so can each of us—even me.