Love Unknown: The Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent Book 2012

by Ruth Burrows

Ruth Burrows is the author of numerous best-selling books, including Essence of Prayer . In this book, she distills the wisdom and experience gained from her life as a Carmelite nun into a vigorous, compelling presentation of what it means to be a Christian.

Ruth Burrows believes that many people, even regular churchgoers, miss the true meaning and joy of Christianity. God longs for us to know him as our Saviour, so that he can bring us to share in his own Trinitarian life and love. Burrows traces how God reveals himself to us through our personal lives, particularly our experiences of weakness and failure; through history and the natural world; through the scriptures; and above all, through his beloved Son Jesus. Encountering the living God revealed in Jesus Christ challenges us to face our own truth, and sets us free to receive the boundless love, the joy, fulfilment, and holiness, for which we were made.

Genres: Christianity, Theology

184 pages, Paperback

First published November 17, 2011

Reviews

[Toby · Rating 1 out of 5]

I do wonder whether this book would have been published had it not been commissioned as the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent Book. It is written in a conversational, devotional, style which I imagine would work well for a day's guided retreat but in print feels flat. The author writes from the perspective of her many years spent in prayerful service in a convent. This adds devotional weight to the topic but the lack of illustrations frequently makes it feel dull. The regular interjections of "O Divine Mystery" or "Such Love!" etc. add again to the sense that you are hearing a transcript of someone's inner musings. And at the risk of coming across as a pernickety puritan railing against rich Catholic Spirituality, when the question is asked "dare we say that God needs our love for his happiness?", the answer surely has to be "absolutely not!" - for how can God be "needful"?

Perhaps this book has finally convinced me that devotional and mystic writing is simply not for me.

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5

[Daniel Lavori · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5. Some heat but mostly mid

[Mary Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a series of essays by Burrows, a Carmelite nun, on the life of Jesus and our life with God. I love her perspective on prayer, both freeing and challenging. She calls for nothing less that total dependence on God and acknowledgement of our incapacity to merit grace on our own. Sounds stark, but it is not. Her initial, humble recollections of her difficulty with prayer, with the Carmelite life, are very encouraging, as they assure the reader that these essays are not the stern recommendations of a super ascetic, but shared, hard-won wisdom of a fellow-traveler.

[Harry Allagree · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've yet to find a book by Ruth Burrows that I didn't like. She has such great depth of spiritual understanding & wisdom. Her writing is a living testimony to the value of lectio divine - holy reading. I highly recommend the book.

[Andrew Marr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruth Burrows is one of those seasoned writers on Christian spirituality who strips away any pretensions any of us have that we have already totally given ourselves to Christ. Her meditations on Christ show us how deep the gap still is.

[Rebekah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deep reflection on Christ's love. It was a book written for Lent but I read it over the summer. I think it's a book you can read any time and the message will be just as powerful.