Description: People of God is a brand new series of inspiring biographies for the general reader. Each volume offers a compelling and honest narrative of the life of an important twentieth or twenty-first century Catholic. Some living and some now deceased, each of these women and men have known challenges and weaknesses familiar to most of us, but responded to them in ways that call us to our own forms of heroism. Each of them offers a credible and concrete witness of faith, hope, and love to people of our own day. Thomas Merton was the consummate post-modern holy one: flawed, anti-institutional, a voice for the voiceless.But he was also a classical traditionalist: centered, obedient, in search of stability. He was a religious thinker of remarkable insight, a social commentator of courage and conviction, and a writer of startling virtuosity. Michael W. Higgins recounts the life of this insatiable wanderer. He explores the various layers of influence and evolution in Mertons thought and spirituality. This book tells the remarkable story of a life that remains to be understood from its beginnings and long after its premature ending.
Brief description:
Michael W. Higgins is vice-president for Mission and Catholic Identity at Sacred Heart University, past president of St. Jerome's University in Ontario and St. Thomas University in New Brunswick, a columnist, editor, radio documentarist, and television commentator. He is the author and co-author of numerous books, including Thomas Merton: Faithful Visionary (published by Liturgical Press); Power and Peril: The Catholic Church at the Crossroads; Stalking the Holy: In Pursuit of Saint-Making; and Genius Born of Anguish--the Life and Legacy of Henri Nouwen.
Review Quotes: "Biography has been described as the conversation that those who are living have with their friends, the dead. In Thomas Merton - Faithful Visionary, Michael W. Higgins presents a lively biographical dialogue that is rich, and deep, and instantly engaging. Higgins reminds us that we rarely know even those people who may be familiar to us. In these pages, Higgins removes any superficial image of Merton to present a restless seeker, someone who could never fit easily into a formulaic biographical box. This Merton is complex, remarkably gifted, and deeply human because of his vulnerabilities. The gift of this short biography is the way Michael W. Higgins filters decades of scholarly material about Merton and effortlessly guides readers right to the heart of the matter: Thomas Merton himself, that truly faithful visionary and, through his books, a generous friend to all his readers." Kevin Burns, writer and producer, Ottawa