The Messenger Advent Booklet 2021Author Donal Neary
Publisher Messenger €4.95
Format pbk
ISBN 9781788124904
This booklet provides short reflections on the weekday (Morning Prayer) readings during Advent.
Advent
My Words will not Pass AwayAuthor Martin Hogan
Publisher Messenger €19.95
Format pbk
ISBN 9781788125024
This is a substantial book of reflections for each weekday during the 2021-2022 liturgical year. However, these are based on the readings for the daily weekday Eucharist (Mass), not Morning Prayer (or Evening Prayer), and therefore only fully relevant for those attending daily Eucharists. Nonetheless, the reflections are comprehensive and imaginative and collectively they cover large tracts of Scripture, allowing dedicated readers to read, mark and learn significant Bible passages.
Reviewed by ELIZABETH HOGG
Advent
Sacred Space: Advent and Christmas 2021-2022Author The Irish Jesuits
Publisher Messenger €4.95
Format pbk
ISBN 9781788124782
A simple guide to the Advent/Christmas season in which each day is provided with a scripture reading with points for reflection. There is also a weekly theme, enhanced by prayer ‘pointers’ in six steps. handle as you re-enter Bethlehem this year.
Reviewed by ELIZABETH HOGG
Advent
Honest SadnessAuthor John Holdsworth
Publisher Sacristy Press £12.99
Format pbk
ISBN 9781789591613
We could be forgiven for thinking that lament does not have a place in our sophisticated society. It hardly appears in the New Testament, being more associated with the Books of Lamentations and Psalms in the Old Testament. However the author takes another view, one in which it is time for us to acknowledge the significant role that lament can play in allowing us to express our emotions. These can be personal, and the author vividly describes his grief at the slow and painful deterioration of his beloved wife, Sue, due to dementia. Emotions can be communal. In each chapter he describes events, for example, protests in Beirut, a family of refugees in Cyprus and the response of the public to the first lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic, which form the platform to explore our understanding of lament as Christians through the Bible, poetry, and song. We are challenged to reflect honestly on what emotions we have felt whilst reading each story, to think what the Bible teaches us about lament and to encourage openness in our own ministries.
Reviewed by PETER V DYER
Lamentation, spirituality
Not of this WorldviewAuthor Richard Briggs
Publisher Sacristy £9.99
Format pbk
ISBN 9781789591583
This poetry collection brings together attempts made over thirty years to communicate a perception of what its subtitle calls ‘the kingdom among us,’ as ‘Already here…/ And yet still at hand’ by ‘an Englishman who tried to write it all down’ – as a poem on the Vatican City humbly calls the author. This perception infuses poems exploring the experiences of a theological educator and minister reflecting on the journey of life; places (particularly Italy, USA and Durham) and the preoccupations people have in them; the mundane and the overwhelming; light’s penetration of darkness. An ineffable sense of the present and anticipated Kingdom is held in unstated connections between juxtaposed lines or verses, or in the gentle insistence of rhythm and form as they shape ideas, inviting readers to find searches for God in life and for the meaning of a poem parallel experiences. In Briggs’s best work a prayerful confidence lights his unworldly worldview, as in the conclusion to ‘A Light Psalm’: ‘So shine, Lord, shine . . . Be the headlight on my car/ And a streetlight on my way.’
Reviewed by JOHN MOSS
Poetry
Comfortable WordsAuthor Steven Croft
Publisher BRF £7.99
Format pbk
ISBN 9781800391055
With direct regard for our locked-down world and our emergence from it, this book, based on Isaiah 40-55, is right up-to-date. Croft has written nine compelling reflections on some of Isaiah’s warmest and most yearning prophetic messages. Beginning with ‘Comfort, comfort my people’, Croft follows the prophet through the words written some 2,500 years ago as God’s message to a subdued and exiled people whose identity had been stripped away, but whom God was calling to return and rebuild. The people then needed strength renewed, fears faced, hearts refreshed, and vision expanded. Croft brings light to these prophecies as they applied to the people of the exile, and, because the prophecies point to Jesus, to us – people of the Covid lockdown. The author’s style is inspirational and heart-warming. As I read it, I felt a sense of identity with Isaiah’s original readers, and that I wanted to respond for today. It is a fine read for any disciple, and will be a valuable resource to anyone preaching from these chapters of Isaiah. Recommended.
Reviewed by ROSIE HOWARD ROWE
Old Testament analysis (Isaiah)
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