Book review: Eight Spiritual Heroes

August 14, 2003

This is the first in a series of book reviews to be featured monthly in The Globe. The review is sponsored by the Religious Education Media Center as a service to those interested in developing their own spirituality. The books reviewed in this monthly column can be borrowed from the center. Deacon Larry Sitzman, director of the media center, thanks the dedicated people who take the time to review these books. A resource booklet containing a list of many other titles and authors is available upon request. This week's book is available by using the code number pr 2053.

You may requests books by writing Deacon Larry Sitzman, Religious Education Media Center, 1821 Jackson St., Sioux City, IA 51102, e-mail him at larrys@scdiocese.org or phone (712) 255-7933.

Sister Kevin Cummings offers this review:

Eight Spiritual Heroes: Their Search for God
By Brennan Hill
St. Anthony Messenger Press 2002
Includes bibliographical references and index

Eight Spiritual Heroes... is one of those books that it is important to note the subtitle before one decides to reject it, thinking the title could not possibly be true.

Because each of the eight person's search is related by the same author, rather than theirs being told by several authors, there is a more even treatment of each individual's story. Also, because of this, the author can note connections and influences which affect more than one of the book's heroes.

Each chapter is about one of the searchers for God and the aspect of God that Hill sees as relating to that search and the chapters are so named. So there is Mohandas Gandhi searching for The God of Truth, Dorothy Day for The God of the Homeless, Martin Luther King, Jr. for The God of the Mountain, Pierre Teilhard De Chardin for The God of the Cosmos, Oscar Romero for The God of the Prophets, Edith Stein for The God of the Cross, Daniel Berrigan for The God of Peace, and Mother Teresa [of Calcuffal for The God of the Abandoned.

Perhaps a book to read as a follow-up to this one is God of Many Loves by Max Oliva, S.J., for Oliva takes various aspects of God's love for each chapter. For example, God's Personal Love; God's Merciful Love, and God's Protective Love. At the end of each chapter are helps for us in our search for God

Readers often jump right into chapter one of a book and some never bother to read the introduction. That might be of little or no consequence with some books. It is important for a clearer understanding and appreciation of Eight Spiritual Heroes, to read the Introduction. All of it.

This book will be one that some will want to own so they can highlight or otherwise mark sections that strike them. It is a book that opens the door to the life of eight striking people and that will push the reader to go to the writings cited in the many sources given for each chapter. Because they are given as endnotes, rather than as footnotes, it is good to have a bookmark in the section where the sources are listed so it is easy to see the source of each quotation at the time one is reading the quote.

It will be a good idea, before reading Hill's conclusion, in which he notes patterns or themes that emerged in the lives of these eight, to draw your own conclusions. Sometimes we quit drawing our own conclusions once we have learned another's.

Perhaps we shall find that the most important words of the book are in the conclusion's, closing question, an echo of sorts, of the question Jesus put to Peter, "Who do you say that I am?" As Hill puts it, "What face has my God shown to me?"

(Sister Kevin Cummings, PBVM, recently retired as archivist for the Diocese of Sioux City.)