The Journey to Peace: Reflections on Faith, Embracing Suffering, and Finding New Life [Paperback]

Cardinal Joseph Bernardin (Author), Alphonse Spilly C.P.P.S. (Editor), Jeremy Langford (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 18, 2003

Joseph Cardinal Bernardin (1928-1996) touched millions of people through his passionate witness, humble wisdom, and spiritual writings. In the final months of his life he shared his personal reflections in The Gift of Peace, a modern classic about finding inner peace in the face of life's greatest trials. As part of his rich legacy, The Gift of Peace has become an international bestseller and has brought courage, healing, faith, hope, and love to people of all backgrounds throughout the world. Cardinal Bernardin's legacy is continued here in The Journey to Peace, a special collection of his previously unpublished spiritual reflections.

Using the Stations of the Cross as a framework, The Journey to Peace reveals the extraordinary faith, wisdom, and compassion of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. Through these excerpts from his homilies, Cardinal Bernardin helps readers understand the relevance of Jesus' suffering, death, and resurrection to their own lives, inviting all to join the journey that leads to peace.

Written with eloquent simplicity, and elegantly designed and illustrated with specially commissioned contemporary artwork, The Journey to Peace reaches people of all faiths for reading throughout the year.



From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Journey to Peace: Reflections on Faith, Embracing Suffering, and Finding New Life is a posthumous collection of previously unpublished excerpts from the homilies of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. Like Bernardin's autobiography, The Gift of Peace, much of this new volume has an elegant and simple style. ("When Jesus invites us to join him, the Cross is embossed at the very center of the invitation," he writes.) These sermons, however, may be even more direct than his memoirs. Their organization, according to the 14 stations of the cross, underscores Bernardin's constant focus on the most basic aspects of the gospel stories and spotlights his ability to draw contemporary lessons from these ancient stories. Even more impressive is the trustworthy tension between confidence and humility that characterizes Bernardin's messages to his flock. One sermon concludes, "Accepting the fact of alienation is the equivalent of embracing the Cross each day, as Jesus himself did." The Journey to Peace is full of such forthright, realistic, and faithful reflections. --Michael Joseph Gross --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Bernardin (1928-1996) touched the hearts of many with his bestselling book, The Gift of Peace, released two months after his death from pancreatic cancer. Here more than 30 of his unpublished homilies have been carefully edited and framed in the context of the Stations of the Cross, allowing readers "to enter more deeply into the mystery of Jesus' suffering, death and resurrection." Editors Spilly and Langford perceptively connect the Sixth Station (in which Veronica wipes Jesus' brow) to a homily on personal service, and interpret the Tenth Station (in which Jesus is stripped naked) to Bernardin's poignant reflections on the Holocaust. This short book is a perfect aid for meditation during Lent or any time in the liturgical year.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Image (February 18, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385501021
• ISBN-13: 978-0385501026
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.4 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,158,789 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific companion to 'The Gift of Peace', December 24, 2002

By 

"jjkestel" (Schaumburg, IL

Schaumburg, IL, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Journey to Peace: Reflections on Faith, Embracing Suffering, and Finding New Life (Hardcover)

Whatever your exposure to the late Cardinal, you must admire his example of the Christian life. In the Gift of Peace, he invited us to walk beside him during his final months. In this volume, Spilly & Langford have artfully woven together extended excerpts from his homilies while Archbishop of Chicago. The book is divided into chapters identified by the Stations of the Cross -- a device that both illuminates the Cardinal's own words, as well as the putting the Way of the Cross into a contemporary context, thus reminding us that the Cross itself is as real today as it was two thousand years ago.

If you loved Cardinal Bernadin as we in Chicago did, you will of course love this book. But even if this is your first encounter, you will come to know him like a dear friend -- and learn much from his humility, his prayerfulness, his humiliation and exoneration, and his very public suffering and passing.