Customer Reviews

Behold the Pierced One

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I took this book on retreat with me and it blew my mind. My perspective on my faith increased many fold. However, this book is not for everyone. This is not a light, warm and fuzzy spiritually book. This is a book for scholars. Cardinal Ratzinger goes into some deep theology, but if you can hang in there with him, you'll get a much greater understanding of concepts such as original sin, the Eucharist, Jesus' prayer life, the Easter Mystery, etc. If you're ready to do the work for the spiritual ride of your life, buy it!

A portion of this book was suggested as supplementary reading for a course I'm taking on Christology. However, when I finished reading the assigned section, I wasn't able to put the book down until I finished the entire thing. Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, is an extremely gifted author, and this book is one of his best. In it he presents the person of Christ, not the watered down Christ of some biblical scholars, but Christ in His divinity and His majesty, Christ as the Church understands Him, Christ as He is. Gathered into this are the concept of man's relationship with God, and man's ultimate end. Along with the main There is a devotion on the Sacred Heart, and a beautiful section on communio which further fleshes these themes out. The book is completed by three powerful homilies given by Cardinal Ratzinger, which again recapitulate many of the themes previously covered. As the previous review noted, there are some challenging concepts and deep insights here, but if you take the time to understand them, the reward is rich indeed.