Magnificat: A Devotional (The Pocket Devotional Series) [Hardcover]

Peter M. Blaiwas (Designer)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 72 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co; 1st Henry Holt ed edition (April 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805046496
• ISBN-13: 978-0805046496
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 5.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,526,216 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A MARVELOUS MAGNIFICAT AND MUCH MUCH MORE: A LATE MEDIAEVAL CHAPEL IN YOUR POCKET, February 20, 2007

By 

C. Scanlon "least helpful reviewer" (among us humans) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Magnificat: A Devotional (The Pocket Devotional Series) (Hardcover)

You may wonder why the amazon product detail page here lists the major Publishing conglomerate as author. A search of the copyright page (after a good search FOR the copyright page, which is found on the last and final page) reveals no author nor editor. This comprehensive yet compact collection of verse and painting is as anonymous as a miniature mediaeval Book of the Hours, and as beautiful. The only indication of an individual we receive is the information that a Peter M. Blaiwas is the designer. No indication is given as well about who wrote the extensive and excellent endnotes regarding each of the well-chosen paintings and their early artists.

The copyright page also fails to indicate the source of the well-chosen Gospel verses from the beginning chapters of Saint Luke, including not only the Magnificat, but also the Annunciation and other events at the Visitation. The style certainly resembles the Catholic Douay-Rheims or the early King James, although accessible to anyone familiar with early English scriptural translations, with only one true archaism. Nevertheless the complete verses of the Magnificat with all of its epiphanal and revolutionary verses are presented, a promise and a warning and a joy.

Beginning at the beginning of this small yet substantial book feels like taking part in a religious procession through the joyful mysteries of our Faith in the Nativity, through beautifully presented verses, both in the completeness of their selection and the calligraphy of their display, each phrase accompanied by a beautiful and appropriate and iconic detail from a great painting from the western Europe of the fifteenth and sixteenth century of this Christian era. We see works of the major painters of that period from Brueghuel to Botticelli, Titian to van der Weyden, with wonderful and succinctly revealing anonymously written biographies in the endnotes. This truly is a book of prayer, to bwear with you everywhere, a true pocket sized book. When on pilgrimage, this is one book that humbly yet fully justifies its space in your bag.

Highly recommended as a gracious gift, and as a gift to yourself, like a gift of the Magi.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificat Pocket Devotional, May 11, 2011

By 

G. P. Holt (Palmdale, California) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Magnificat: A Devotional (The Pocket Devotional Series) (Hardcover)

Very nice, small pocket devotional. My wife carries it in her purse so she can pause during the day and meditate. She loves it.