Archives: Product Reviews

“For anyone wishing to explore Evelyn Underhill’s personal evolution of mind and spirit, these retreats provide major insights. As contemporary spiritual reading, they provide still valid formulation of the perennial concerns regarding the quest for God.

Evelyn Underhill is worth rediscovering.”

In conducting research for her thesis on Underhill, editor Brame discovered four unpublished “retreats” given between 1924 and 1928 by this famed writer of mysticism. These, in addition to an excellent introduction, constitute the present work. In the introduction, Brame outlines Underhill’s pioneer position as a woman in the Church of England and skillfully combines a summation of the major themes in the retreats with Underhill’s life experience and thought at the time. Each retreat is divided into several themes, which are preceded by carefully selected hymns and prayers. Underhill’s characteristic clever use of language, wide knowledge of Western spirituality, practicality, and balance are evident in each address along with an urgency and desire to inspire that are not found in her more academic works. Her main theme is holiness through prayer and inner transformation, which naturally expresses itself in service to others. Some readers may be put off by her use of the masculine pronoun for God and other dated idioms. But those who probe deeper, will find much wisdom, inspiration, and profound understanding of the workings of the spiritual life. The book is a must for theological and religious libraries and highly recommended for all who are interested in the spiritual life.

“The von Balthasar Reader performs signal service, for it presents well-chosen, systematically arranged selections from the whole of the Balthasarian oeuvre, in passages of from two to seven pages brimming with theological and spiritual nourishment. The Reader, prefaced by an excellent and helpful essay-portrait of the theologian and his work, will certainly introduce the Swiss theologian to a wider public in a format attractive and accessible.”

“We are singularly fortunate in having in one volume the key texts from [von Balthasar’s] writings, spanning almost all the major themes and questions of the Christian tradition. These selections not only cover virtually every major concern of his theology, but they also disclose the loveliness of style, the suavity of approach and the intuitive-contemplative passion which makes his work so distinctive and valuable.”