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PILGRIMAGE

Name: PILGRIMAGE
Author: Christine Sunderland
ISBN: 978-1-60290-051-6

by Christine Sunderland ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

A moving study of the healing power of religious devotion.

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A woman tries to exorcise her demons by exploring the ancient roots of her Christian faith in this heartfelt tale of remorse and redemption.

Middle-aged history professor Madeleine Seymour has an outwardly contented life, but she is still haunted, decades after the fact, by the death of her young daughter Mollie, who drowned in a plastic pool when Madeleine was momentarily distracted. Tormented by nightmares of Mollie and an irrational jealousy of other mothers, Madeleine seeks the counsel of her Anglican pastor Father Rinaldi, who sends Madeleine and her husband Jack on a trip to Italy to its Catholic shrines. Following Rinaldi’s itinerary around the country, from mighty St. Peter’s basilica to humbler country churches, they take in Catholicism at its gaudiest, with its miracle stories and relics and incorruptible remains displayed under glass. Along the way, Madeleine muses on the exploits of the saints, from St. Francis of Assisi’s reception of the stigmata, to the 13-year-old virgin martyr St. Agnes’ execution for refusing to marry a pagan, to St. Clare’s success in putting an army of marauding Saracens to flight by holding up the Reserved Sacrament. This might be mere colorful travelogue to another tourist, but Madeleine takes it very seriously. Alarmed at her growing obsession, a skeptical Jack introduces her to a psychiatrist, who turns out to be a shallow, condescending secularist who ridicules Madeleine’s â€œspiritual fantasies.” But as foreign as it is to modern sensibilities, and to her Protestant background, Madeleine finds that Catholic lore speaks to her. With its iconography of blood and sacrifice, its stories of suffering and death transmuted into hope and rebirth, it reveals lessons for coping with her long-festering grief and guilt. Balancing spiritual exaltation with psychological realism, Sunderland’s limpid prose makes Madeleine’s journey both gripping and believable.

A moving study of the healing power of religious devotion.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: 978-1-60290-051-6

Page Count: -

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2011

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

RELIGIOUS FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
INHERITANCE
by Christine Sunderland

- BOOK REVIEW
OFFERINGS
by Christine Sunderland

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THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS

by C.S. Lewis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1942

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These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942

ISBN: 0060652934

Page Count: 53

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943

Categories:

RELIGIOUS FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
ALL MY ROAD BEFORE ME
by C.S. Lewis

- BOOK REVIEW
PRESENT CONCERNS
by C.S. Lewis

- BOOK REVIEW
BOXEN
by C.S. Lewis

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THE CHOSEN

by Chaim Potok ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 28, 1967

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This first novel, ostensibly about the friendship between two boys, Reuven and Danny, from the time when they are fourteen on opposing yeshiva ball clubs, is actually a gently didactic differentiation between two aspects of the Jewish faith, the Hasidic and the Orthodox. Primarily the Hasidic, the little known mystics with their beards, earlocks and stringently reclusive way of life. According to Reuven's father who is a Zionist, an activist, they are fanatics; according to Danny's, other Jews are apostates and Zionists "goyim." The schisms here are reflected through discussions, between fathers and sons, and through the separation imposed on the two boys for two years which still does not affect their lasting friendship or enduring hopes: Danny goes on to become a psychiatrist refusing his inherited position of "tzaddik"; Reuven a rabbi.... The explanation, in fact exegesis, of Jewish culture and learning, of the special dedication of the Hasidic with its emphasis on mind and soul, is done in sufficiently facile form to engage one's interest and sentiment. The publishers however see a much wider audience for The Chosen. If they "rub their tzitzis for good luck,"—perhaps—although we doubt it.