Jesus, A Pilgrimage – We Have A Winner!

Congratulations to Ellen Rowe, whose name was drawn from the many names of those who submitted a comment to my review of Jesus, A Pilgrimage, by James Martin, SJ. Thank you for reading the post and entering, one and all. Many of you came to the blog through the posts and tweets by James Martin and America magazine, please keep coming back! All are welcome here, and I do run frequent book reviews and giveaways. That is to the joy of some and the dismay of others! (I am not renumerated for these reviews, in the majority of cases, I initiate the process.)

A book review of Dan Horan OFM’s latest book, The Last Words of Jesus, A Meditation on Love and Suffering (Franciscan Media) will run on Tuesday, April 8, and a copy of that book will also be given away. Please read and comment on that post to win a copy! I like to say that I knew Dan Horan before he was Dan Horan, because we met before his blog Dating God became a hit, and before he was a widely published author. He had not yet become ordained as a priest at that time either. He’s a great guy and a wise scholar and author at a young age. If you don’t know him, you will want to, so please stay tuned.

You can learn a little more about Dan and his book in this video:

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Jesus, A Pilgrimage – Book Review and Giveaway

In November 2004, I had a chance to visit Israel, a place that I had longed to see. At the time, the  Second Intifada was in full swing, the Carmel market in Tel Aviv had been hit with by a suicide bomb two weeks before I was to go, and Yasser Arafat died two days my prior to my arrival.  It was an uncertain time, but I was not afraid. It turned out to be the trip of a lifetime, and one that truly impacted my faith. Before going, I read so many books about the Holy Land and about faith, although no book at that time could have prepared me for my journey.

In his new book, Jesus, A Pilgrimage, (Harper Collins, 510 pp, $27.95) Jesuit priest, author, and commentator, James Martin SJ writes about his own journey to Israel, his life of faith, and about Jesus. My initial reaction? Where was this book when I went on my pilgrimage?

Whether you are about to go to Israel or not, this book is a journey of mind, body, and spirit. With his deft writing skills well honed from years of working his craft, Fr. Martin leads us on a pilgrimage like no other. Weaving stories and anecdotes from his own recent visit to Israel, along with a remarkable breadth and depth of scriptural reflections and insights, he takes us on a journey to know Jesus.

It is the rare gift that someone can take scholarly material and make it accessible and easy to understand, without dumbing it down. Fr. Martin possesses this gift in abundance!  Whether examining scripture,  historical context, or a spiritual kernel of wisdom, the author takes us higher and deeper at the same time,  satisfying the intellect and the heart at once. He cleverly uses anecdotes from his own travel experiences and often in humorous ways, to illustrate a point, and Martin’s scholarly references provide a solid foundation for the conversation.

Whether or not you have ever been – or ever want to go to the Holy Land is not important. If you have an interest in Jesus, from any perspective, this book has something to offer you. For those of us who follow Jesus, we will find an invitation to deepen that knowledge through not only what we read, but because of the ways that this book invites one into prayer and reflection.

Smart, funny, inviting, engaging, wise, and deep, Jesus by James Martin is a pilgrimage like no other. You don’t have to leave your chair, but you must open your mind and heart, your transformation is optional, but it would be hard to imagine reading this book, and not being transformed in some way.

Jesus, A Pilgrimage. The journey awaits you- are you ready?

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Would you like to win a copy of this book? Here’s how… Please leave a comment on the blog; it needs to be a full sentence, not just a word. This post will appear on multiple blog platforms, but there is only one drawing. Multiple comments does not mean multiple entries. Deadline for leaving comments that will be entered into a random drawing is Friday, April 4, 2014, 11:59pm. Winner will be informed via email no later than Monday, April 7, 2014.

Laetare Monday

It has been a long winter, hasn’t it? And a long Lent, or so it seems to me. The weather was a real challenge this year; recent milder winters had lulled me into a cheery complacency about what snow and cold truly meant in upstate New York. And I say that knowing that those in the the mid-Atlantic states further south had it much worse! Hard to think about rejoicing, right?

Add to that, starting in October, and never (gratefully) with anything life-threatening, but I have been in the near constant care of doctors for one thing or another. I get it, I’m 56, and I have not always taken care of my corpus very well, but much like the winter, this all came as a startling and repeatedly disturbing challenge. Let it suffice to say that I think that I may finally be turning the corner into, God willing, some better health. That’s why I am calling this Laetare Monday!

Our Lenten journey is meant to be one of the kind of serious prayer and introspection that leads to change. This is not the navel gazing of my earlier years, when a faux seriousness pervaded my being, but was not very deep or authentic; I was