Latest read – Praying Self-Abandonment to Divine Love

This book was given to me by my friend Theresa Bonopartis. The actual title in the United States edition (the one I have) is In the Arms of Mary, but the title in all the other countries (45) where it’s been published is Praying Self-Abandonment to Divine Love. That’s an awkward but much more accurate description of the book. I don’t know why they changed the title for the U.S. edition (Mary sells?).

The author, Slawomir Biela, is involved in a worldwide group called the Families of Nazareth Movement. I had never heard of them – I gather there are only about 3,000 members in the United States. But they must be having an impact elsewhere – there are five different forewords in the book, written by five different Cardinals (from the U.S., Spain, South Korea, Mexico, and the Philippines).

Biela seems to be an interesting guy – he is Polish and earned a Doctorate in Physics, before studying the Theology of Spirituality and becoming involved in the Nazareth Movement.

The introduction gives a famous Karl Rahner quote to the effect that the Christian of the 21^st century will be a mystic, or will not be a Christian at all.

I read the book over the time I was here in Sloan Kettering – besides the forewords and introduction, there are fourteen chapters and I read one each morning. My experience has been that it’s much more profitable to read this type of book slowly over a period of time, rather then in a few days.

It is an excellent book; like many books of this type, a call to self-confrontation and conversion. And of course, in many ways that makes it a very “tough” book. Not tough to read, per se. It’s actually an easy read. Just tough to buy into.

For example the first chapter in entitled “to Pray with the Attitude of the Tax Collector”.

(Remember that story? The Pharisee and the tax collector? Lk 18: 9-14). Other chapters have titles like “the Lost Sheep on the Shepherd’s Shoulder’s” and “To Trust in the Example of the Canaanite Woman”. The last chapter is “In the Arms of Mary”.

So I found it to be a fine work – thank you Theresa for the gift. I am going to look into other books by the author, and his collaborator in the Nazareth Movement, Fr. Tadeusz Dajczer.

Here are two websites, the first the Families of Nazareth Movement in Ontario: http://www3.sympatico.ca/familiesofnazareth/Index.htm

and the In the Arms of Mary Foundation in Colorado Welcome to In the Arms of Mary Foundation