Father Livinus Donohoe, O.C.D.
The author has spent a long life time in the sacred ministery. His work has been mainly giving spiritual direction, especially to the Secular Order. In this book he proposes the example of the Holy Family, who lived on earth in closest union with God and yet went about their daily tasks with the utmost simplicity.
These reflection on the Prayer of Jesus,, Mary and Joseph are intelligent, serene, discreet, and wonderfully familiar - the three protagonists are family, Fr. Lavinus' family. They have becom that,during these hours of personal prayer over these 40 years. In sharing the reflections, the author makes a priceless gift.
The pages needed to come from that kind of long term meditation if they were to have any hope of measuring up to the proposal which the author sets himself: "to look at leisure, at the life of the Holy Family who lived an ordinalry human life and yet were continuously in the highest union with God....to look at the life of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in their personal communion with God as they lived their lives in the daily round of their hidden life" (p. 1). How could anyone do that? By looking at the gospels, yes; but more, by inhabiting them, making the gospels one's daily living space, and so resonating with what is present but unsaid.
Carmelite Book Service, 2008, 115 pages, Soft Cover |