Images of Hope: Meditations on Major Feasts

By Pope Benedict XVI

Book Overview

In Images of Hope: Meditations on Major Feasts , Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) masterfully weaves together Scripture, history, literature and theology as he reflects on major... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0898709644
• ISBN13: 9780898709643
• Release Date: October 2006
• Publisher: Ignatius Press
• Length: 109 Pages
• Weight: 0.59 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.6" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Helping you dive deeper into Holy Days

This book is a collection of short reflections for major feasts throughout the Church's calendar. In each of them the Pope (then Cardinal Ratzinger), highlights a theme or two in order to draw the deeper significance of the feast into greater focus. He provides theological, and historical background, and rich mediations on how these holy days impact the lives of each believer. These reflections are easy to read but they are profound in what they draw forth. This book certainly provides an impetus for a fresh look at many days like Christmas or Easter which are rich in their spiritual treasures, but which may have become commonplace in our eyes because the world has run amok with them.

essays of beauty

This is really a very beautiful and elegant work. His observations and understanding of these Christian images and symbols is so moving that I was often overwhelmed with good feelings. Wonderful! -Jeremy

Easy Reading

This is a series of reflections that can each be read in a brief sitting, yet each conveys the remarkable breadth of knowledge and depth of understanding that Pope Benedict has developed. His writing is perhaps the most concise among modern theologians.

Genial Wisdom

Pope Benedict's longer theological works can be difficult to follow, not because the Pope is trying to be obscure but because he deals with realities (not opinions or moods) and never patronizes the reader. Images of Hope is more accessible because it is a collection of short essays, moving and even entertaining meditations on the Feasts of the Church. A great little book for the thinking Christian.

SCHOLARLY, SIMPLE, AND FAITH-FOSTERING MEDITATIONS

These thirteen short talks originated as occasional broadcasts on Bavarian Radio when the then-Cardinal Ratzinger offered meditations on the major feasts of the Church usually with reference to some work of art. About half had been published separately, and the book, first issued 9 years ago, has been translated and reissued following his election as Pope. Ratzinger is scholarly in his approach and sources, but offers his general audience a message that is both simple and profound. That will not surprise those who have listened to his recent talks. His reflections are mostly prompted and illustrated by images--artistic, poetic or symbolic--to touch the senses and heart as well as the mind. Developing the images and ideas with poetic fancy, professorial depth and patristic playfulness, he invites us to go beyond the merely aesthetic to the level of faith. While the themes are random because of the disparate occasions on which the talks were given, there is an inner harmony among them, and since all sacred images are images of the resurrection, the harmony involves hope and resurrection joy. The art is often an illustration of the material rather than its source, and hence is not in general as essential to the presentation as it is, for example, in the Archbishop of Canterbury's Ponder These Things or Henri Nouwen's Behold the Beauty of the Lord. But Ratzinger's historical facts and theological insights are striking, and those dealing with Rome and the papacy all the more interesting in view of his later election to the see of Rome. Beyond this the text opens the riches of the Christian faith in a learned but very personable way. It's a quick read, and would repay a prayerful rereading of each chapter on its corresponding feast.