Uncommon Prayer

by Daniel Berrigan

Book Overview

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1570751935
• ISBN13: 9781570751936
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Orbis Books
• Length: 145 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

St. John the Baptist cries out again

Father Daniel Berrigan S.J., who needs no introduction--this living prophet (how much longer will he be with us? He turned 95 just recently) created with this book perhaps the most honest, human, raw and unsentimental reflection both on the Psalms ("The Prayer Book of the Bible", as Bonhoeffer titled his own perennial work) ever written. With illustrations by Robert F. McGovern, a professional artist who stood by the side of Berrigan and his brother jail in and jail out, they are epiphanies of painful hope from the inside of a cell which most clearly could not contain the faith of the author. Making his bed and then lying it with peace, Berrigan calls Catholics and people of all walks of life to look at the anguished cries of the Old Testament which as the author bluntly points out prophesized precisely that which happens when a Democracy turns into an economic system and then turns into a gigantic war machine which tramples as much on the feet of Christ as it does on the poor. My own words cannot convey the power of this book to the would be reader, so here are a few samples. On Psalm 127: "Faith is more tentative, shows more pain and less certainty. A faithful few refuse the national menu and are, of course, punished for bad manners. Not at all certain about "sides: God is on ours." Not possessing Him, not having the key to His conduct. Sensing obscurely indeed that such keys are usually in the hands of the mighty, the guardians of good fortune, the keepers of prisons, the nuclear juggglers. Please note, too, the geography of faith. The faithful do not hang around the banquet, tempted here, nibbling there, hoping to reform the institution of eating humans. Not trying to formulate Nine or Ten Conditions for a Just Cannibalism. The banquet not a good scene, such folk say stubbornly; they are intolerable spoilers, beyond converting. They keep saying things like, the banquet cannot really be reformed. The plan trouble is, human beings are the main course. And they shouldn't be. This is not a very exalted morality. We're not particularly proud of it. We ought to able in such an advanced century to go further than that. This is the predicament of a person of a real faith." (pg. 65) Psalm 22: "The ultimate scandal of human life is undoubtedly God Himself. He is the one who sticks in our throats, he it is who offers no relief, who lets the horror of life rampage onward: the great non-interventionist, the great refuser. This being true, an argument is inevitable. An argument called faith. Biblical faith is just such an argument; it includes a fierce refusal to be turned away, a cry for intervention. Step in! Save! Be yourself, for God's sake!" (pg. 21) This is a must read for anyone of the Christian faith who still wants to remain in contact with the real world, to which we were called in the Gospels. Father Daniel Berrigan S.J. is a living saint and he has not been given his due.

Uncommon Book of Prayer

I own this book, and recently bought another copy for a friend. While Daniel Berrigan is a Jesuit Priest, one need not be a Catholic Christian to appreciate his work. He has taken several chapters from the book of Psalms, and turned them into poems and prayers, each keeping the original meaning, but putting them into an entirely new form. Berrigan then follows with some of his own thoughts on the prayer, and his intentions; material that helps put the prayer into perspective, and helps the reader in his or her studies. I would recommend this book to any serious Bible reader, who wants to expand their understanding, theology students and ministers will all find something new and exciting here. Now, the bad news. Fr. Berrigan's book has been out of print for some time, and is rather hard to find, but well worth the search.

the passion of berrigan

To begin with, a caveat: do not be deceived by the seeming brevity of this slender volume. More than the days we are alotted here will be needed to digest it all. The book is indisputably a masterpiece, the poetic art at its most vital, most piercing, most agonized, most revelatory. We know Berrigan as an activist, a teacher of political philosophy, a devout follower of Christ, and a leader, because without reservation he walks his talk. Thus, he is among the first to bear witness to the too often awful truth of our times. But we are only beginning to recognize him as a poet - probably the most underrated and under-read literary poet currently writing in English. He gazes long where most disdain, fear to look. Secondly, Berrigan analyzes, with Psalter in hand, the crushing, unbearably oppressive weight of the injustices and brutality of the contemporary human condition impinging on him as he writes. I find that I need to have the Psalm actually open before before me as I'm swept along the torrent of pain in which these passages immerse us. Berrigan has the Psalms encrypted deep within - contemplated in hard times and dark, searching hours - but the common reader will have to directly refer to the Bible to begin to get what's going on in this complex and deeply felt journaled commentary. The woodcuts, closer in spirit and style to the school of Ward rather than Kent in their roots, but wholly distinctive and evocative in themselves, round out the sublimity of this overlooked but profound work of art.

If you find not here hope, you may at least capture a caring counselling companion for our dark hour

yet I pray you may see the great hope and may uncover the good and holy true friend at heartfelt prayer here within these welcome pages of psalms sung for these dangerous times of imperial warfare. Here lies a friend so very good to us as to open for us the divine mystery of these eternal heart and soul songs, the psalms selected in this priceless book, releasing unto us who are its meditators comfort, lamentation, consolation, gratitude, worship, declamation, and prophecy for our time of unjust and profitable war. This hearty book brings hope to the present lonely, dark night of the soul we pass as nation and as individuals. Written thirty years ago and beautifully published then by the Seabury Press for the great Catholic Crossroads Books, we find this essential reading and praying reissued ten yeares ago by the great Catholic Publishing organ Orbis Books with a new cover. We must take now this book of power and we must arise in our churches and streetcorners and halls of temporal powers and call out these psalms with the wise, powerful and prayerful commentary of our prophet of peace Father Berrigan, God Bless Him and Keep Him! Speak Truth to power. Out of the depths we cry unto you, my Lord of justice, mercy and of Peace. Read this beautiful book and weep no longer alone, and grow strong for the hard road to peace ahead which leads us altogether unto the Kingdom. The Afterword by Berrigan buddy, Buddhist Thich Naht Hanh, calls to us today across the decades, who has the weary spirit of confusion speak these words: "People of our times need to fight evil more than any other time. If they find no evil to fight they will have to invent it. They point to something, call it evil, call it the enemy, create a feeling of fear and hatred for it, and fight. Many 'civilizations' have been founded on this kind of fighting." Gotama's earlier comment: "It is better not to fight evil than to fight it and have to kill people."

If you find not here hope, you may at least capture a caring counselling companion for our dark hour

yet I pray you may see the great hope and may uncover the good and holy true friend at heartfelt prayer here within these welcome pages of psalms sung for these dangerous times of imperial warfare. Here lies a friend so very good to us as to open for us the divine mystery of these eternal heart and soul songs, the psalms selected in this priceless book, releasing unto us who are its meditators comfort, lamentation, consolation, gratitude, worship, declamation, and prophecy for our time of unjust and profitable war. This hearty book brings hope to the present lonely, dark night of the soul we pass as nation and as individuals. Written thirty years ago and beautifully published by the Seabury Press for the great Catholic Crossroads Books we must arise in our churches and streetcorners and halls of temporal powers and call out these psalms with the wise, powerful and prayerful commentary of our prophet of peace Father Berrigan, God Bless Him and Keep Him! Speak Truth to power. Out of the depths we cry unto you, my Lord of justice, mercy and of Peace. Read this beautiful book and weep no longer alone, and grow strong for the hard road to peace ahead which leads us altogether unto the Kingdom. The Afterword by Berrigan buddy, Buddhist Thich Naht Hanh, calls to us today across the decades, who has the weary spirit of confusion speak these words: "People of our times need to fight evil more than any other time. If they find no evil to fight they will have to invent it. They point to something, call it evil, call it the enemy, create a feeling of fear and hatred for it, and fight. Many 'civilizations' have been founded on this kind of fighting." Gotama's earlier comment: "It is better not to fight evil than to fight it and have to kill people."