Prayer in Action – ‘Read all about it!’
As part of their commitment to one of the four Jesuit Universal Apostolic Preferences announced in 2019, To collaborate in care for our common home, Messenger Publications continue to include books on different aspects of caring for our common home among its new titles. 2022 saw the reprint of Brian Grogan SJ’s hugely-popular Finding God in a Leaf. This best-selling booklet serves as a daily invitation to observes in physical world around us God’s invitation to love and care for all God’s creation.
Finding God in a Leaf can be ordered here.
And don’t forget Brian’s recently-published Creation Walk: The Amazing Story of a Small Blue Planet. This inspiring book reveals the divine orchestration of the Creation story in a dramatic, fresh and appealing way, merging the insights of science with the wisdom of scripture. The Irish Catholic says that it’s ’packed with information and insights’. And The Methodist Recorder says it is ‘strongly commended as a means for Christians to explore the cosmological context… of vital issues’.
Creation Walk is available here
The Parish As Oasis: An Introduction to Practical Environmental Care by Kevin Hargaden and Ciara Murphy is an exciting new book, just published, that picks up on the theme of ‘prayer in action’, mentioned by Pope Francis in his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’. The book offers a practical and accessible introduction to how local churches can contribute in concrete ways to healing the environmental crisis. Itpresents a practical array of experiments and actions that congregations can undertake that can make a tangible impact in caring for our common home. While hands-on, with real-world examples, the book also plants these initiatives within a coherent eco-theology.
The Parish As Oasis is available to order here
Nature Praising God: Towards a Theology of the Natural World by internationally-respected theologian Dermot A. Lane takes a more theoretical approach to our relationship with God through our treatment of the natural world. Lane says that we need to flip the way we regard nature–traditionally as a resource for human needs–and embrace a new way of praising God through an appreciation of and care for the myriad of life forms on earth. This book has been widely acclaimed and has received many glowing reviews: ‘a book which sparkles with delightful thoughts inspired both by nature and by humanity.’The Irish Catholic
‘written with verve, challenge, coherence, clarity and zeal.’ The Catholic Post (UK)
Nature Praising God Is available to order here
