Michael W. Higgins

The Fellowship of the Beatific Vision

Arts & Literature

“Chaucerian Norm Klassen notes that 'Chaucer's poetry is nothing if not hopeful [and that] he invites his audience and readers to share in the mirth of belief.' And this is also what Klassen does in this richly textured theological reading of the master pilgrim who leads us into strange lands, full of mystery, grace, and possibility. Theology and art conjoin in a luminous way through Klassen's imagination and the reader participates vicariously in a peregrination wondrous and surprising.”

Thomas Merton and the Celts

History & Biography

“Monica Weis quotes from a letter of Thomas Merton to Hans Urs Von Balthasar confessing that his own immersion in the study, scholarly and personal, of Celtic monasticism has become 'a real avocation with me. . . . I can think of nowhere in the West where monastic culture was so drenched in brilliant color and form, with such dazzled love of God's beauty.' It is the special gift of this book that Weis has captured the multi-textured dimensions of Merton's 'Celtophilia,' and in so unearthing the familial and intellectual roots of his love of the Celtic imagination has compellingly demonstrated Merton's realization that in discovering the Celtic world a whole new perspective had opened up for him--and for us as well, thanks to Weis's diligent and ardent labor of love.”

Thomas Merton and the Noonday Demon

History & Biography

“Donald Grayston's sensitive, inquisitive, and probing examination of the spiritual disorder at the heart of Merton's restiveness is a gallimaufry, a rich mosaic of psychologically penetrative insights, a tantalizing portrait of a modern gyrovague's disquiet, a potpourri of snippets and shards of sapiential quality.”

What Is This Prayer Stuff Anyway?

Prayer & Spiritual Formation

“This is an enchiridion or prayer manual unlike any I have read before and it is enticing, hospitable, and comprehensible. Eschewing dogmatic declarations, open to the multiple options for prayer, respectful of past practices and intrigued by new horizons, the book is a sweet compendium of ideas, experiences, and invitations to explore the rich terrain that is the divine. It is a portal to a deeper and unthreatening encounter to both the ordinariness and to the mystery of prayer.”