God's Healing Mercy

by Kathleen Beckman

Here retreat master, Ignatian trained spiritual director and author Kathleen Beckman offers a guide for a personal or group healing retreat based on Divine Mercy in Scripture and in the lives of the Saints. Beckman skillfully helps us to see how the "rays of divine mercy" heal families, marriages, the sick, poor, suffering, friends, enemies, laity, clergy, our vocations, doubters, believers, those with diabolical suffering, sinners, saints, the unborn, the elderly, children, the Church and the whole world.

Genres: Christianity, Spirituality, Catholic

208 pages, Paperback

First published November 10, 2015

Reviews

[Maria Vivekaviarti · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's about time. I was reading this book when I was mentally wounded, honestly speaking, at the lowest point of my life. This book is another attempt I took for healing spiritually along with medical and psychological treatment that I have been taking. Therefore, this book speaks to me when I most need it in the void of my heart. Otherwise, I assume those words might not echo as loudly as it does now.
(Even more special because I started reading on Maundy Thursday and finish it right on Easter morning).

Personally, I am not a frequent reader of theology books, so my review would be very basic and highly subjective.

This book is all about healing spiritually through Divine Mercy of the Lord. According to Beckman, healing is ressurection. Each chapter aims to explain healing through ressurection or transformation from a certain detrimental stage to the desired life of virtue (i.e Healing from Unforgiveness to Forgiveness, from Fear to Trust, etc.). She emphasizes the importance of prayers, the Sacraments under the openness towards God to heal our wounds. What I love is that Beckman doesn't undermine the importance of intervention by the hands of mental health professional as it should be integrated in our healing process as well.

Beckman delivers her narrative quite comprehensively, complemented with real-life experiences, profile of various saints or virtuous people befitting her narrative, quotation of other literatures and the Bible, prayers and self-exercise for readers.
I personally like her writing style as well, descriptive and very easy to read.

However, although she states her point gracefully and I love the concept on how she names her chapters, I somehow feel there is lack of prominence of some chapters. I mean, despite being important, some points can be repetitive. For example, I cannot distinguish the uniqueness of chapter 3 "Anxiety to Peace" and chapter 1 "Unforgiveness to Forgiveness". The state of anxiety is not yet clearly described while the narrative on unforgiveness is yet again repeated. I assumed Beckman wanted us readers to see the book as unison and emphasized the importace of Mercy as the highlight of both the book and Catholic life. Yet again, without certain uniqueness being added in her following chapters, the chapter title become less relevant or worse some readers may lose interest.

Anyhow, I still consider this book as significant part of my healing process... to forgive both myself and people for past mistakes and that we deserve to accept His mercy as long as we are willing to ressurect. Of course healing doesn't come instantly... there is a lot of prayers to do, lot of love to be shared, devotion to the Church and another professional treatment to attend. At least this books makes me aware of it.

Recommended to fellow lay Catholics, especially the ones seeking spiritual healing

Final Score: 3,8/5

[Hope · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. I had heard such good things about this book. But I was truly disappointed. The author admits writing it in a hurry and in a very short period of time. And it most certainly reads that way. The whole thing feels lacking in depth and rather contrived. That's not to say it is a worthless read. There are lots of great nuggets to be found, but on the whole it left me disappointed.

[Anjuli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book I've read! :)

[Ted Leon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Devoured this book! Beautiful flowing book. It made Divine Mercy come alive!