Spirituality

Dorothy Day is perhaps the most important figure in twentieth century North American Catholicism.A layperson, a mother, a grandmother, a worker, a revolutionary and a deeply religious woman, Dorothy offers us a new way of life for these difficult times at the start of the twenty-first century.

Four individuals recount their experience of returning to the faithafter years spent drifting away from the Church. Nowadays, this is notan isolated phenomenon, but is instead an example of how unfathomablethe ways of God are, and how such great goodness can be found in eachone of these personal quests. These four testimonies only require thatthey be heard without bias: they are not claiming to represent anyform of proselytism or polemics.

Believers or non-believers, we all should make an effort to oil the joints of our common existence, if we want to avoid sliding down a slope that could end in an unprecedented catastrophe. This booklet describes the privileged place that the encounter with God has in our relations with others, since contemplation is at the heart of interhuman relations and so is one of the chief characteristics of Christianity.

In this Booklet the author sets himself a daunting objective: to delve into the diverse spiritual experiences—or “mysticisms”—that are at the base of the different world religions, with a view to allowing the various experiences to complement and cross-fertilize one another. It is only by entering into the heart of the mystical experiences that the way can be opened up for dialogue among them.

At a political and cultural moment like ours, with its all-pervasive mediocrity, the figure of Tolstoy, at once revolutionary and spiritual, may serve as a stimulus for a generation of citizens who are perplexed, indignant, and rebellious. The present booklet captures the genius of this great moral teacher, the likes of whom are only too rare in our present day.