Peter Costello
Deeper into the Mess: Praying through Tough Times
by Brendan MacManus SJ and Jim Deeds (Messenger Publications, €9.95 / £8.95)
This little book is the follow up to the authors’ earlier title Finding God in the Mess. It answers the question readers might have posed: having found God in the mess of life, what do to then? The answer is quite simple, the authors suggest. It is to go even deeper into the mess.
Both books propose a pattern of exploration of ones self and the spiritual nature of what surrounds one.
However, like all sequels it might be as well to go back to base with the authors and read their first book first. Then the fullness of their approach will open up for the readers an approach based on years of works in pastoral life and spiritual accompaniment in Belfast.
How to Pray: A Simple Guide for Normal People
by Peter Greig (Hodder & Stoughton, £13.99)
Peter Greig is a well known writer who is both a theologian and senior Pastor of Emmaus Road in Guilford, a lively evangelical group. He inspired the 24-hour prayer movement. But in this book he deals with the ways of prayer which may be more approachable for many hurrying to live ordinary lives.
Using the Lord’s Prayer – surely for all Christians a foundation prayer from which all others could be said to flow, a special gift as the Gospels make clear – he breaks the movement down into some nine aspects or themes: stillness, adoration, petition, intercession, perseverance, contemplation, listening, confession and spiritual authority.
This may sound like quite a programme, but just as the words of the prayer are themselves simple but profound, so his insights will prove to be for his readers?
This may prove the stimulus that many Christians need for establish something in their lives.
Hope in All Things
by Peter O’Reilly SJ (Messenger Publications (€12.95 / £11.95)
This is a book written from an unusual perspective. Author Paul O’Reilly is a GP who works with street homeless in the Cardinal Centre in London.
This for many people would fully occupy mind, body and imagination. But he is also a Jesuit and the director of the Mount Street Jesuit Centre. So he brings to his outlook an appreciation of the sitaution today, and experiences more varied and penetrating than most people can manage.
He follows the Ignation bailiff that people can find “God in all things”. This may seem easy enough in encounters with the pleasant sides of life, but he had pursued into more difficult areas.
This is a brief book, but an inspiring one, which will open new perspectives for many readers.
