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Being Here

Oct 7, 2024 | 2024 - Winter – Free, Book Reviews

Being Here

Author Pádraig Ó Tuama
Publisher Eerdmans £17.99
Format hbk
ISBN 9780802883476

At the core of this book are 31 days’ worth of reflective material with some additional essays. Each session has the same opening prayer and a short literary extract balanced by verses from a Gospel. The reader is then invited to keep silence before using the collect of the day that reflects on the readings. Finally, there is a repeated closing prayer. This latter might work better in the evening. Read the introduction to this book to loosen your mind and to receive permission to interact with the texts in the way that is right for you. Read the short essay on the structure of a collect. Then plunge in. This book would be a stimulating choice for someone wanting to take a month’s holiday from saying Morning or Evening Prayer while continuing to keep a regular time of prayer and reflection. It might be helpful for someone starting out on daily meditation. The range of literary texts was intriguing and, having used the book for a month, I found myself pondering on the material throughout the day.

Reviewed by RONA ORME

Spirituality

 

Letters from Nazareth

Mar 27, 2024 | 2024 - Summer – Free, Book Reviews

Letters from Nazareth

Author Richard Carter
Publisher Canterbury £18.99
Format pbk
ISBN 9781786224910

Written against the backdrop of Covid-19, the invasion of Ukraine and the death of Queen Elizabeth II, this book is part spiritual memoir and part manual for spiritual reflection and development. Across sixty letters originally written to fellow members of the Nazareth Community, the author illuminates their simple rule of life: Silence, Service, Scripture, Sacrament, Sabbath and Staying With. We accompany him from hospital bedsides to a Scottish bothy, from a Crown Court where he serves as a juror to a holiday in Greece, and on a notable pilgrimage to Nazareth and the Holy Land. We are invited to look for ‘home’ within ourselves and others as we travel and where we hope to arrive. It is a book that will gently unsettle the reader and then suggest ways to re-settle in a more God-centred way. It is a book that made me weep and one that has burnished my hope. I will promote this book to spiritual directors and accompaniers. I will offer it to anyone who longs to know God, and themselves, better. This book is a blessing.

Reviewed by RONA ORME

Spirituality

 

Celtic Prayer

Aug 16, 2022 | 2022 - Autumn - Free, Book Reviews

Celtic Prayer

Author David Cole (ed.)
Publisher BRF £12.99
Format pbk
ISBN 9781800390539

This engaging book of essays has been written by members of the Community of Aidan and Hilda, a dispersed ecumenical body which gains inspiration from the ancient Celtic saints. The contributions are thoughtful, well-written and accessible, and collectively they explain and promote the benefits and strengths of Celtic spirituality, especially through prayer. The aim is simple: to seek God within everyday life, in the landscape and through the seasons, for we have a God who cares for both the cosmos and the ordinary. The great truths of the Christian gospel are woven together in practical and usable prayers, like the characteristic Celtic knotwork. Individual essay themes include contemporary cultural thoughts on unity, inclusion and disability as well as the ‘eternal’ issues so familiar to the early saints, including meditation, healing, justice, pilgrimage and the Holy Spirit. There are many new and relevant prayers within the text, as well as practical creative advice on liturgy and finding God in art and music. All readers should find new inspiration here to strengthen their prayer lives, so I warmly recommend this book.

Reviewed by ELIZABETH STEPHENSON

Spirituality

 

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