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Vesper Time: The Spiritual Practice of Growing Older
From a writer, editor, and publisher in his eighth decade, Vesper Time addresses the yearning among elders for continued growth, expansiveness of heart, improvement of mind, and a meaningful understanding of our lives in our later years. As with Christianity’s age-old practice of Vespers, an hour of prayer observed at the lighting of the lamps just before darkness descends, Frank Cunningham views this time as one when the colors begin to deepen and our experience of growing older becomes our spiritual practice.
With both wisdom and humor, Cunningham explores the five facets of this integral spirituality—memory, intimacy, diminishment, gratitude, and acceptance. With a new Introduction and Discussion/Reflection Guide, Vesper Time provides expert guidance and gentle encouragement for those on this stage of their journey of life.
With both wisdom and humor, Cunningham explores the five facets of this integral spirituality—memory, intimacy, diminishment, gratitude, and acceptance. With a new Introduction and Discussion/Reflection Guide, Vesper Time provides expert guidance and gentle encouragement for those on this stage of their journey of life.
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Published January 1, 2017
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July 19, 2022
Read for book club. Would be better to read a chapter at a time to think about it rather than discuss it.
April 8, 2018
April 8, 2018
A review by Anthony T. Riggio of the book Vesper Time (The Spiritual Practice of Growing Older) by Frank J. Cunningham. My wife purchased this book and advised me she thought I would enjoy reading it. I waited for several months before picking it up and discovered it was about getting old, written by a man just about my age and I thought it might be a book I would not enjoy but continued and was surprised. It described many of the things I was experiencing but was too afraid to admit them to myself.
The contents of this book was divided into five subjects dealing with the aging process, namely: memory; intimacy; diminishment; gratitude and acceptance. Frank Cunningham deals with each of these troublesome topics, at least to me, in a very gentle and reassuring way and interspersed the spiritual comforts that must be considered.
I read the section on “diminishment” with some trepidation as someone in their seventies might be expected to feel. The reality is that we will die but Cunningham presents these experiences of diminishment with spiritual approach to comfort certain realities of what is coming. Life and its consequences can be experienced by several attitudes and if we are, in fact, spiritual beings, living a human experience, we can be curmudgeons or accept with a mature view of reality. Most spiritual leaning people will accept the latter, I believe. Nobody wants to become a crank. The author does not ignore those illnesses or diminishment that that are organic in nature but dwells on those conditions we can cope with and more importantly with others in our lives.
My favorite chapter was on “gratitude”, a virtue, I feel is so under utilized or appreciated. Of the prayers expressed to our maker, thankfulness is the least uttered. When we are grateful or have a grateful heart, we are experiencing a joy that is not easily describable but it is one of grate joy.
The last chapter is on “acceptance” something we humans must develop because certain things are inevitable and can easily be more comfortable if we can accept its reality. Accepting this reality as we grow older is the more healthy approach as opposed to fighting without any chance of changing circumstances.
I reserved reading the forward by Sister Joyce Rupp until I finished the book. Sister Joyce writes for a publication I read on a daily basis for meditative help and information and she is a great spiritualist. Her review of the thoughts of Frank Cunningham are complimentary and praise worthy of his skills as a spiritual writer.
I unhesitatingly give this book five stars out of five and would recommend its reading to all of my contemporaries. It is a well written and entertaining read without the plague of constant references.
A review by Anthony T. Riggio of the book Vesper Time (The Spiritual Practice of Growing Older) by Frank J. Cunningham. My wife purchased this book and advised me she thought I would enjoy reading it. I waited for several months before picking it up and discovered it was about getting old, written by a man just about my age and I thought it might be a book I would not enjoy but continued and was surprised. It described many of the things I was experiencing but was too afraid to admit them to myself.
The contents of this book was divided into five subjects dealing with the aging process, namely: memory; intimacy; diminishment; gratitude and acceptance. Frank Cunningham deals with each of these troublesome topics, at least to me, in a very gentle and reassuring way and interspersed the spiritual comforts that must be considered.
I read the section on “diminishment” with some trepidation as someone in their seventies might be expected to feel. The reality is that we will die but Cunningham presents these experiences of diminishment with spiritual approach to comfort certain realities of what is coming. Life and its consequences can be experienced by several attitudes and if we are, in fact, spiritual beings, living a human experience, we can be curmudgeons or accept with a mature view of reality. Most spiritual leaning people will accept the latter, I believe. Nobody wants to become a crank. The author does not ignore those illnesses or diminishment that that are organic in nature but dwells on those conditions we can cope with and more importantly with others in our lives.
My favorite chapter was on “gratitude”, a virtue, I feel is so under utilized or appreciated. Of the prayers expressed to our maker, thankfulness is the least uttered. When we are grateful or have a grateful heart, we are experiencing a joy that is not easily describable but it is one of grate joy.
The last chapter is on “acceptance” something we humans must develop because certain things are inevitable and can easily be more comfortable if we can accept its reality. Accepting this reality as we grow older is the more healthy approach as opposed to fighting without any chance of changing circumstances.
I reserved reading the forward by Sister Joyce Rupp until I finished the book. Sister Joyce writes for a publication I read on a daily basis for meditative help and information and she is a great spiritualist. Her review of the thoughts of Frank Cunningham are complimentary and praise worthy of his skills as a spiritual writer.
I unhesitatingly give this book five stars out of five and would recommend its reading to all of my contemporaries. It is a well written and entertaining read without the plague of constant references.
January 2, 2023
Very accessible explanation of one man's discovery that aging is in itself a spiritual practice. I liked that idea and find it to be true. Aging raises unavoidable questions to oneself. A look in the mirror, the loss of friends, retiring from paid work, the frequency with which aching joints comes up in casual conversations, the looming fact of one's own dying. But this is not all that's there. Cunningham has some good tips on how to practice aging well.
This is a handbook, in that it probably should be revisited from time to time. It raises topics to reflect on: memory, intimacy, diminishment, and two more which I cant recall in this moment and am too comfy to go and get the book. These are topics that help us discern possible patterns that have helped to shape the person we have become, and to consider some ways of moving forward.
Recommended to persons of a certain age---
This is a handbook, in that it probably should be revisited from time to time. It raises topics to reflect on: memory, intimacy, diminishment, and two more which I cant recall in this moment and am too comfy to go and get the book. These are topics that help us discern possible patterns that have helped to shape the person we have become, and to consider some ways of moving forward.
Recommended to persons of a certain age---
February 14, 2026
I would have rated this book 3.5 stars if I could. It is above average. He has chapters on five aspects of growing older: Memory, Intimacy, Diminishment, Gratitude, and Acceptance.
To be honest, I was bored with it until I came to the chapter on Gratitude. This quote caught my attention: "Gratitude is the first movement of the spiritual life." He reflects on the word movement implying a hope for progress. He then list several exercise for fostering a sense of gratitude. I particularly liked this one:
"At the beginning of each week make a list of five or six things you are grateful for, and reflect on one each following day."
So, perhaps I wasn't paying attention to the first three chapters; I'll have to look at them again.
If you, like me, are rounding third and heading for home, this book gives you some good points for reflection.
To be honest, I was bored with it until I came to the chapter on Gratitude. This quote caught my attention: "Gratitude is the first movement of the spiritual life." He reflects on the word movement implying a hope for progress. He then list several exercise for fostering a sense of gratitude. I particularly liked this one:
"At the beginning of each week make a list of five or six things you are grateful for, and reflect on one each following day."
So, perhaps I wasn't paying attention to the first three chapters; I'll have to look at them again.
If you, like me, are rounding third and heading for home, this book gives you some good points for reflection.
February 20, 2019
I was not excited about reading this book. I did not want to read a book about growing older. But this author was about the same age I am. I found that he expressed my feelings about a lot of things going on in my life now. He had compassion as if saying "I know what you are going through." He divides the book into five chapters. They are memory, diminishment, gratitude, intimacy, and acceptance. My favorite was gratitude, although they all were appropriate to our time in life. In gratitude he explored our thankfulness not only to God but to all the people who helped us along our way. A soul-searching book it was.
October 24, 2019
I am growing older. I've entered my seventh decade of life. I have a lot of memories, some are good, some are not. My body isn't what it once was, and though not retired yet, I wonder about what is next. Being in this place in life I found Frank Cunningham's book insightful and encouraging. He might be writing as one fifteen years or so my senior, but the wisdom present in the book is worth attending to.
Vesper Time was originally published in 2017 but has been re-released in 2019 with a discussion guide. As I didn't read it in 2017, I am grateful that I received a review copy of the book this time around. As for the author, Frank Cunningham is a Catholic layperson, a writer, editor, and former publisher of Ave Maria Press.
This is a spiritual look at the process of aging, written by what I would deem a progressive Roman Catholic. He suggests that this is not simply a spirituality of aging, but is an invitation to look at aging as a spiritual exercise. What he does here is, help those of us who are feeling the pinch of aging to "examine, perhaps expand, and surely make peace with our interior lives" (p. xvii). He writes from personal experience with the aging process, noting the blessings and the challenges. As he engages in this conversation about aging and spirituality, he notes concerning prayer that it is more than words spoken to God. "It means being open to God's presence in everything we do" (p. xx). Thus this invitation is both to the contemplative and to the active side of spirituality.
Cunningham invites to engage in five experiences concerning the intersection of aging and spiritual practice. He begins with memory, moves to intimacy, then diminishment, gratitude, and finally acceptance. With each experience, he dives deep, engaging life experience and the spiritual life. Being that I'm at the early stages of this process, not yet having retired from my occupational life, not all parts are fully applicable to my life, but I see the connectors.
Being a historian I was attracted to the discussion of memory. We all have memories, the question is what do we do with them. This is a reminder that our pasts form our present. He writes: "As a spiritual practice, aging is about living into our memories, about seeking their meaning, about accepting and being kind to them. We do this through story, determining how our story shapes us, and be understanding that we are more than the sum of our experiences" (p. 1). This isn't about getting lost in nostalgia, but finding meaning in the journey.
The experience of intimacy might not be first on my list of experiences, but relationships are central to life. There are different forms, beginning with ordinary intimacy, but there are other forms, spiritual forms, that is intimacy with God. I appreciated his word about the fact that "growing in intimacy involves risk, and we age badly when we stop taking risks."
That is "when we do not engage new experiences and make new discoveries when we fail to draw down our own treasury of knowledge and skills." Taking risks involves vulnerability and that involves intimacy. (p. 55).
The chapter on diminishment is especially poignant. I see this in my church members, some of whom have entered their tenth decade. They wonder what they have to contribute. Their bodies don't work as well as in the past. I'm seeing some of it in my own life, but as I watch others struggle with the facts of aging I see the challenges ahead. One anecdote from the chapter concerns his use of the movie "About Schmidt," which tells the story of a man who retires and then tries to make a new life, especially after his wife dies suddenly. That transition from vocation to retirement isn't easy. Thus, Cunningham gives us much to consider here, that can help us deal with the challenges and provide encouragement to continue with life.
Gratitude! It is key to this spiritual exercise. Cunningham shares a quote heard at a retreat: "Gratitude is the first movement of the spiritual life." Everything starts here. It is, he says, a "virtue to be practiced."It is a way of prayer nourished by wonder. The word that stands out to me here is this: "It takes work not to become a curmudgeon, to be like the one cured leper of the ten who returned to thank Jesus. Gratitude is an antidote to the increasing constrictions of old age" (p. 101). I believe he's correct. I see it in the elders in my own life. Hopefully, it will translate into my own life.
Finally, there is acceptance. It involves recognizing the truth of our experiences with aging. I am not the person I once was. That's not a bad thing. There are things we can't do as we age, while there are others we can do. He invites to reflect on three forms of acceptance -- our story (that involves looking back while recognizing the story is not yet complete), our brokenness (looking at our failures in life, using them as a measure of our lives), and finally, reconsidering cultural norms regarding death (dealing constructively with end of life issues). This doesn't mean we allow our life situation to paralyze us, but rather to find the right path. There is he suggests both the active and the passive component to this spiritual exercise. Accepting is the passive side of things. Both are needed.
In our current context, the actuarial tables suggest I have quite a few years left. That's good news. The question is, how will I experience what lies ahead? Frank Cunningham, in Vesper Time, offers us a means to reflect on these questions spiritually. For that I am grateful.
Vesper Time was originally published in 2017 but has been re-released in 2019 with a discussion guide. As I didn't read it in 2017, I am grateful that I received a review copy of the book this time around. As for the author, Frank Cunningham is a Catholic layperson, a writer, editor, and former publisher of Ave Maria Press.
This is a spiritual look at the process of aging, written by what I would deem a progressive Roman Catholic. He suggests that this is not simply a spirituality of aging, but is an invitation to look at aging as a spiritual exercise. What he does here is, help those of us who are feeling the pinch of aging to "examine, perhaps expand, and surely make peace with our interior lives" (p. xvii). He writes from personal experience with the aging process, noting the blessings and the challenges. As he engages in this conversation about aging and spirituality, he notes concerning prayer that it is more than words spoken to God. "It means being open to God's presence in everything we do" (p. xx). Thus this invitation is both to the contemplative and to the active side of spirituality.
Cunningham invites to engage in five experiences concerning the intersection of aging and spiritual practice. He begins with memory, moves to intimacy, then diminishment, gratitude, and finally acceptance. With each experience, he dives deep, engaging life experience and the spiritual life. Being that I'm at the early stages of this process, not yet having retired from my occupational life, not all parts are fully applicable to my life, but I see the connectors.
Being a historian I was attracted to the discussion of memory. We all have memories, the question is what do we do with them. This is a reminder that our pasts form our present. He writes: "As a spiritual practice, aging is about living into our memories, about seeking their meaning, about accepting and being kind to them. We do this through story, determining how our story shapes us, and be understanding that we are more than the sum of our experiences" (p. 1). This isn't about getting lost in nostalgia, but finding meaning in the journey.
The experience of intimacy might not be first on my list of experiences, but relationships are central to life. There are different forms, beginning with ordinary intimacy, but there are other forms, spiritual forms, that is intimacy with God. I appreciated his word about the fact that "growing in intimacy involves risk, and we age badly when we stop taking risks."
That is "when we do not engage new experiences and make new discoveries when we fail to draw down our own treasury of knowledge and skills." Taking risks involves vulnerability and that involves intimacy. (p. 55).
The chapter on diminishment is especially poignant. I see this in my church members, some of whom have entered their tenth decade. They wonder what they have to contribute. Their bodies don't work as well as in the past. I'm seeing some of it in my own life, but as I watch others struggle with the facts of aging I see the challenges ahead. One anecdote from the chapter concerns his use of the movie "About Schmidt," which tells the story of a man who retires and then tries to make a new life, especially after his wife dies suddenly. That transition from vocation to retirement isn't easy. Thus, Cunningham gives us much to consider here, that can help us deal with the challenges and provide encouragement to continue with life.
Gratitude! It is key to this spiritual exercise. Cunningham shares a quote heard at a retreat: "Gratitude is the first movement of the spiritual life." Everything starts here. It is, he says, a "virtue to be practiced."It is a way of prayer nourished by wonder. The word that stands out to me here is this: "It takes work not to become a curmudgeon, to be like the one cured leper of the ten who returned to thank Jesus. Gratitude is an antidote to the increasing constrictions of old age" (p. 101). I believe he's correct. I see it in the elders in my own life. Hopefully, it will translate into my own life.
Finally, there is acceptance. It involves recognizing the truth of our experiences with aging. I am not the person I once was. That's not a bad thing. There are things we can't do as we age, while there are others we can do. He invites to reflect on three forms of acceptance -- our story (that involves looking back while recognizing the story is not yet complete), our brokenness (looking at our failures in life, using them as a measure of our lives), and finally, reconsidering cultural norms regarding death (dealing constructively with end of life issues). This doesn't mean we allow our life situation to paralyze us, but rather to find the right path. There is he suggests both the active and the passive component to this spiritual exercise. Accepting is the passive side of things. Both are needed.
In our current context, the actuarial tables suggest I have quite a few years left. That's good news. The question is, how will I experience what lies ahead? Frank Cunningham, in Vesper Time, offers us a means to reflect on these questions spiritually. For that I am grateful.
May 1, 2020
Frank Cunningham shares his life experience of aging inVesper Time. One that especially net rested me was that he and a few friends walk the 500 mile pilgrimage of el Camino in Spain. Virtues to grow old with are gratitude and acceptance. The book is short enough to keep my interest. A very good read.
October 18, 2017
This was a find at the cottage we are renting in South Haven. We too are in our 8th decade and so could relate to much of what Cunningham said. I appreciated his honesty about not being particularly pious and finding doubt to be a part of faith--but also thinking of a life without God as tragic.
May 8, 2019
This is such a delightful book! Describes in an enlightening way the journey of aging and provides practical prayerful disciplines to navigate this last time of life on earth. A keeper at a time I’m culling my library!
September 19, 2025
it was ok. I did enjoy chapter 2 on intimacy. The other chapters never really grabbed me. There Washington any practical help with a spiritual walk. It was more of a collection of observations on growing old and how that could be applied towards spiritual growth.
September 15, 2017
Wonderful and thoughtful book for those of us marching on in years. Along with spirituality there is humor. Lots of food for thought. A must read again book.
April 4, 2018
Something to ponder as we travel on.
A time in life where many fear going forward, the author's insights are comforting and, in a sense, rewarding. Read it and then reread it!
A time in life where many fear going forward, the author's insights are comforting and, in a sense, rewarding. Read it and then reread it!
October 12, 2022
Small but mighty. Cunningham talks about growing older with wit and wisdom. Tells how everything we do can and should be a prayer. Good to use as a meditation.
January 7, 2023
A great book on the spirituality of aging. I will definitely cherish theses writings as I grow older.
February 21, 2025
Finished this book on aging Christians over a 6 month period and used it as a monthly book discussion. Raised good issues for aging people of faith.
July 9, 2019
This short book offers plenty of material for reflection and prayer. It was a delight to read.
January 21, 2023
this book provided much to think about as I contemplate the fact that I am moving into “old age”.it helps to gather ideas and even what shaped who I’ve become.. It also frames the experience as “diminishment’s” that we endure as we age...the sense that become more and more invisible. often raising the question of how to craft a meaningul life in the here and now and not get lost in trying to control or forsee how much time is left.... a time to gather successes and let go of what did not work out so well. to look at what remains of one’s life without becoming overwhelmed with grief. so many passages were exactly what I needed to hear.
April 5, 2019
A wonderful book sharing advice on growing old with chapters on Memory, intimacy, diminishment, gratitude and Acceptance. I’m in my late 70’s, a widow for four years and live apart from my children and family.
I will read this book again and I’m sure learn how to “grow old gracefully “. 😊
I will read this book again and I’m sure learn how to “grow old gracefully “. 😊
December 15, 2018
Thoughtful and example-filled for the aging religious.
March 13, 2022
Each chapter each week during lent for book discussion has provided good discussions.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews