First published in 1994 this book is still available new. Written by a Canadian Roman Catholic member of the Oblates of St Mary Immaculate it is a helpful book. The author is handling the subject of the absence of the sense of God and His presence in our busy, fragmented world. Why is this absent so commonplace? Is there a remedy to this emptiness? These are the central questions the author seeks to answer. He first identifies the significant obstacles to the experiencing of God in our day in our personal lives. Self preoccupation and the emphasis upon the useful and efficient and the busyness of our age are specifically analyzed as being the central issues and he regards the necessity of a return to a contemplative life style as being curative of these ills and a recovery of an awareness of God in all things will be the result. There is much help in this book, it points in vital directions and exposes underlying issues in a straightforward and quite exhaustive way. However, there is a serious absence of anything that points to the place of the revelation of Jesus Christ and His dealing with our sin which is the real source of our deadness towards God and there is no mention at all of the ministry of the Holy Spirit Who is sent to make God in Christ known to us. Rolheiser believes that the road back to a lively faith is not a matter of finding right answers but in learning to live contemplatively. He examines three contemplative traditions, including the Protestant that centers upon the holiness of God. These three chapters are instructive in both their exposition of methodologies and the lack of answers being found in method alone. The burden of the book is the rediscovery of God’s presence in everyday life. That this is a vital need is incontrovertible. There are pointers in these pages, signs that direct us to where the spiritual battle-grounds against are to be found. A sense of holy wonder is dreadfully absent in the lives of many in today’s churches, even those who claim to be full of spiritual life. People are rarely truly contemplating God at work in all things and see Him as the One from Whom, through Whom and to Whom are all things and this book will help to illuminate reasons why this is not so and if you bear in mind its limitations concerning the Person and work of the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit you will be instructed by reading it.
