Description
You can tell when a spiritual author has authentic insights into the life of grace, when he truly has a religious experience to share, you know it. Fr Holland has without a doubt captured the quintessence of that unequalled hallmark of Catholie spirituality that are the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. Any presentation of Ignatian spirituality is good on the condition that the Exercises be explained in all their purity, that their demands be not watered down, but put forward with the greatest clarity. This is what we see happening in this little book.
With St Ignatius and the entire Catholic Tradition, Fr Holland is clear about what’s at stake in this life. We are all placed here for a short period of time, we will all die and be judged, and then there is Heaven or Hell. Not being in a state of grace, that is to say, not keeping the commandments or receiving the sacraments, means Hell for all eternity. There is no conversion after death, and the path you are on when you die is the path you stay on forever. A truth rarely heard today, but one of the most fundamental ones in our faith. If it is lost, morals disintegrate, society collapses, and souls perish.
Fr Holland has also captured the heart of the unavoidable question facing everyone who has come to understand who Christ really is and what He wants to do in the world. His call is radical, it leaves no place for compromise. The mighty thrust of the Spiritual Exercises which Our Lady inspired St Ignatius to give us is felt here with all its acuteness. Let yourself be moved by the Person of Jesus and join His divine conquest for souls, fearlessly, unapologetically, with all the boldness of the Holy Spirit.
In an age abandoned more and more to the deadly vice of acedia, that is to say, the disgust or disdain for spiritual realities, this little book will certainly be a clarion call for those who sit down with it and are ready to let themselves be challenged. Tolle et lege—take and read! If you want God, this book is for you.
— Dom Pius Mary Noonan, O.S.B. S.T.D.
Notre Dame Priory, Tasmania
