April Publishers Newsletter

Dear Friends,

               In a recent interview with Publisher’s Weekly I spoke of the ways the Orbis Books program seeks to respond to the challenges of our time, especially in the area of social justice. But I also said, “We know that readers are concerned with the world and want to engage in ways that are spiritually and morally healthy. Facing these perennial issues, they are asking themselves, How do I hold on to my humanity? How do I not get ground down by all that is happening? How do I sustain myself for the long haul, because these things will not be solved in a few months or years.” Our program of spirituality titles shares that intention: a healing message that doesn’t foster escape or distraction from the realities of the world. 

               Thomas Berry: A Book of Hours offers a unique encounter with the spirituality of Thomas Berry, a priest, ecological prophet, and self-described “geologian,” who recounted the “universe story,” described our place in the Earth community, and defined the “great work” before us: to develop a consciousness capable of sustaining life on this planet. Edited by Sister Kathleen Deignan, this devotional work  follows the format of previous breviaries drawn from the writings of Thomas Merton (Sorin Books) and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin  . The book is divided into eight days, each including prayer, hymns, and readings for the four moments of the day: Dawn, Day, Dusk, and Dark.

               Amy Frykholm describes her new book, Journey to the Wild Heart: Four Invitations to Contemplative Living, as “an invitation to a journey on the rocky trail to contemplative living. If you’ve picked this book up, you’re likely in search of a richer, fuller, deeper spiritual life, and you know that within you there is a wild heart that yearns for this life. Every pilgrimage . . . sends us on a treasure hunt through our own souls. This book is meant as a guide for that hunt.” The meditations and exercises in this book show you that every ordinary aspect of life offers (as William Blake said) a “golden thread” that leads to “Jerusalem’s wall.” I very much enjoyed my interview with Amy.

               There are circumstances and times when the effort to live a contemplative life in friendship and solidarity entails mortal risk. Christian de Chergé: Spiritual Writings shares the wisdom of the French Trappist prior of a monastery in Algeria, who, with his community, was martyred in 1996. These selections from his writings, many never available before in English, show how his message is much wider than the circumstances of his death. His was a spirituality rooted in hope, conversion, constancy, and what he called “the martyrdom of love.” He lived in the confidence that love is stronger than hatred, fear, and death.

               In a letter to be opened in the event of his death, Fr. de Chergé ended with words of forgiveness for “my friend of the last moment, who will not have known what you were doing. . . May it be granted that we meet again, happy thieves in paradise, if it pleases God, the Father of us both. AMEN. AMIN. Insh’allah!”