About You:
Living Faith: Describe your vocation in life.
Melanie Rigney: To bring people closer to the Lord by sharing my witness and listening to theirs.
LF: Give a brief bio.
MR: I am the author of numerous books on saints and women’s faith. Originally from South Dakota, I live in Arlington, Virginia. My personal website is RejoiceBeGlad.com.
LF: Do you reach out to readers online via a website or social media?
MR: RejoiceBeGlad.com, Facebook and Instagram.
LF: Share a little about your ministry or daily work. (A day in the life looks like…?)
MR: I recently retired from a day job, so a day in the life is a bit in flux. The plan is: morning prayer and Compline, Rosary at night, hopefully midday prayer as well. Sunday Mass and one midweek Mass. Tuesday night Walking With Purpose Bible study. Physical activity, the type and intensity varying by the day. Writing or editing two or three days per week. Some courses through my county and school district. Time with my sis, with whom I live and who is still working. I’ve also scheduled 1-2 things per week with friends—lunches, recurring coffees or happy hours, etc. Some travel. And HOCKEY (Go Caps!)! I’ll incorporate regular volunteering in six months. Still listening to the Lord as to what that will be.
I’m a recovering perfectionist, passionate about encouraging people—especially women and mothers—to make peace with “good enough.”
LF: How long have you been writing, or when did you start?
MR: In fourth grade, I wrote a short story called “Amy’s Valentine” that has been lost to time but that my classmates and Ms. Minnie Moxness seemed to enjoy. I was managing editor for both my high school and college newspapers and was a journalist for many years.
LF: What is the most difficult part of your writing process?
MR: Listening to God as to the message I am to share rather than diving in on my own.
LF: How many books have you written, and which is your favorite? If you haven’t written a book, name a favorite that you’ve enjoyed.
MR: Six nonfiction and coauthored a seventh. My favorite is always the one I’m working on at the moment! Let’s go with the one that comes out in January, Unforgettable Women of the Gospels: 8 Unnamed Women in Scripture and Their Encounters with Jesus.
LF: Where do you live today, and is that different from where you grew up?
MR: I live in Arlington County, Virginia, just outside Washington, DC, in a neighborhood called Ballston. (George Washington’s mother was a Ball.) The county is 26 square miles, the smallest self-governing county in the United States geographically. There are about 240,000 residents. Ballston is a very vibrant, diverse, densely populated, walkable neighborhood—my dentist is across the street, one of the credit unions where I’m a member and the dry cleaner. The subway is two blocks away. I walk to Mass at my parish, which is six blocks away. My Bible study group, three grocery stores and I think seven coffee shops (that number is always growing) are less than a mile away. My doctor and the hospital with which she’s affiliated is less than two miles away. I have a car but don’t drive a lot.
I grew up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which was about 90,000 people at the time and has exploded in the intervening years and today is not much smaller in terms of population than Arlington. I still have extended family there, so I get back now and again. There are still some similarities downtown to when I was growing up, where my high school was, but that’s about it. Sioux Falls has a lot going for it, but I’m happy with my life today in Arlington.
LF: Three words your best friend would use to describe you.
MR: Intense. Spirit-filled. Organized.
LF: One additional thing you would want a Living Faith reader to know about you that we haven’t covered above. (A hobby, something silly or fun, an accomplishment, or an interesting fact?)
MR: I love doing research into my family history and could yammer on about it for days or years. The short of it is we are a mishmash: My maternal grandmother’s parents emigrated from Poland in the late 19th century; my maternal grandfather’s family, with the exception of one of his grandmothers, who was Swiss, have all been here since the very early 1700s. On Dad’s side, I have a great-great-grandfather who was born into slavery before the Civil War. To me, this is the United States at its finest—people from various backgrounds and traditions coming into contact with each other.
About Faith:
LF: When did you first know that God loved you?
MR: The fall of 2005. I had been away from faith since May 1973, and my life had fallen apart in the previous two years. That fall, I summoned up the courage to go to a program for returning Catholics called Landings at the neighborhood parish. Through that lovely program and the priests in the parish, I finally realized that I could do nothing that would make God give up on me.
LF: Describe a prayer practice that is meaningful to you.
MR: The Jesus prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” A friend and I read one of Rod Dreher’s books in which he shared that his spiritual advisor instructed him to pray it for an hour each day. We thought that sounded so extreme! We decided we’d try praying it 500 times. It turned out praying it 500 times took exactly the amount of time it took me to walk from my day job to the subway station. I still pray it if I am taking a walk alone or on the exercise bike, considering a different word each time. It challenges me. It comforts me.
LF: What’s something you’ve learned from the Bible or from the Mass or the Sacraments that has always stayed with you?
MR: The Eucharist. I missed it when I was away from the Church. It still stirs my soul each time to give my “Amen” when I receive it.
LF: What excites you about being a Catholic?
MR: The Eucharist. The tradition. The community. The love.
About the Bible:
LF: What’s your favorite Bible story, psalm, proverb or parable and why?
MR: Psalm 51. It was suggested reading before Confession the night I was absolved of my sins in December 2005 after 33 years away. I had not read it before. But I knew enough about David to know we had committed some of the same offenses…and marveled at his contriteness and his confidence that he could be forgiven. He sinned big and loved big, and so had I. I still find comfort and strength and faith in his words.
LF: Do you have a favorite Gospel? If so, which one? Elaborate if you wish.
MR: Kind of like a favorite Rolling Stone (Keef), Monkee (Micky) or Beatle (Paul, though I’m less passionate about him than I was about Micky and am about Keith Richards). I read the entire Bible on my own in a year when I returned to the faith, and Mark most resonated with me then—short, tight writing, concise, easy to follow. But now my Walking With Purpose group is studying John for the second time in eight years, and my, oh my, it’s hard to resist that lyrical, beautiful visual writing that is so different from the synoptic Gospels. I also appreciate Matthew’s Gospel as the conversion work he wanted it to be, and Luke’s meticulous tiebacks to the prophets.
LF: If you could spend a day with a person mentioned in the Bible (besides Jesus), whom would you choose?
MR: Andrew. His passion was introducing people to Jesus; he didn’t need to be the guy who got all the public glory. He is the apostle I most try to emulate.
About Living Faith:
LF: How long have you been writing for Living Faith?
MR: Since at least 2010! Best formation I get every quarter.
LF: Do you ever get to meet your Living Faith readers? What do you talk about?
MR: Yes, when I speak or exhibit at Catholic women’s conferences, I typically run into at least one reader. Perhaps the most unusual situation was when a coworker and one of his contractors were making life difficult for me at work (I prayed the Jesus Prayer before every encounter with them), and more than a year after the project ended, the contractor reached out to me and apologized because of one of my LF devotions he had read that day. (He thought I had written it about him; that truly wasn’t the case.)
Generally I say thank you, and ask them to share their prayer practice, if they start the day with LF, what comes next, etc. I want to know their stories.
LF: What is one thing you love about Living Faith?
MR: The very intimate experience of praying with God as I listen to the message I am to share.
*The interview was edited for clarity and conformity to style. No meaning was altered in the process.
