Vincent Pizzuto - Contemplating Christ: The Gospels and the Interior Life

Until the Christian world begins to read its own sources with the contemplative mind that is offered here, I see little hope for its in depth renewal. The argumentative mind that has dominated so much of our recent past has not served history well. Vincent Pizzuto is offering us both inspiration and very readable scholarship here. This is the Great Tradition!

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM

Center for Action and Contemplation

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Denizens of the land of silence owe a debt of gratitude to Vincent Pizzuto for the gift of this book. Clearly written and based on solid scholarship, grounded in Scripture itself, the author clarifies the simplest of truths: to become a contemplative is quite simply a matter of becoming fully normal. Paradoxically our becoming natural involves a lifetime of loves soul-sifting. As Meister Eckhart puts it: The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me. One seeing, one loving, one knowing.

Martin Laird, OSA

Professor of Early Christian Studies

Villanova University

A magnificent, nutritious book of spiritual counsel, both visionary and compassionate! Contemplating Christ patiently trains us to rethink familiar texts, feelings, and attitudes by recovering the grandeur of the cosmic Christ from the Gospels, the hymn of Colossians 1, and the teachers of ancient Christianity. This work of mystagogy grasps anew the transgressive power of the Incarnation that has made mystics of us all, and offers practical ways to live into our wondrous divinized identity after baptism. At the same time, it performs microsurgery upon our spiritual practices and predilections (its rethinking of asceticism and of demonic power is particularly fine). Like an ancient painting restored, vivid colors burst anew from the countercultural beauty of the Gospel. A feast for the spirit!

Michael Cameron

Professor of Historical Theology

University of Portland

Author of Christ Meets Me Everywhere: Augustines Early Figurative Exegesis

Cover design by Monica Bokinskie.

Cover art: White Pine, mixed media on wood, by Jennifer Williams. Used with permission.

Excerpts from the English translation of The Roman Missal, Third Edition 2010, International Commission on English in the Liturgy Corporation (ICEL); excerpts from the English translation of the Antiphon from The Liturgy of the Hours 1973, 1974, 1975, ICEL; the English translation of Rite of Baptism for Children 1969, ICEL. All rights reserved.

Carol by Thomas Merton, from THE COLLECTED POEMS OF THOMAS MERTON, copyright 1946, 1947 by New Directions Publishing Corp.

God is Born from THE COMPLETE POEMS OF D. H. LAWRENCE by D. H. Lawrence, edited by Vivian de Sola Pinto & F. Warren Roberts, copyright 1964, 1971 by Angelo Ravagli and C. M. Weekley, Executors of the Estate of Frieda Lawrence Ravagli. Used by permission of Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Excerpts from THE NEW JERUSALEM BIBLE, published and copyright 1985 by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. Reprinted by permission.

2018 by Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, microfilm, microfiche, mechanical recording, photocopying, translation, or by any other means, known or yet unknown, for any purpose except brief quotations in reviews, without the previous written permission of Liturgical Press, Saint Johns Abbey, PO Box 7500, Collegeville, Minnesota 56321-7500. Printed in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Pizzuto, Vincent, author.

Title: Contemplating Christ : the Gospels and the interior life / by Vincent Pizzuto.

Description: Collegeville, Minnesota : Liturgical Press, 2018.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018005338 (print) | LCCN 2017048253 (ebook) | ISBN 9780814647295 (ebook) | ISBN 9780814647059

Subjects: LCSH: Mysticism. | Contemplation.

Classification: LCC BV5082.3 (print) | LCC BV5082.3 .P59 2018 (ebook) | DDC 248.3/4dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018005338

To
Forrest
who loves to fetch sticks

My dog is better than I am,
because he loves and does not judge.
~ Abba Xanthios, Sayings of the Desert Fathers