The Book of Mystical Chapters: Meditations on the Soul's Ascent, from the Desert Fathers and Other Early Christian Contemplatives

The Book of Mystical Chapters wants to slow you down. Its 300 brief meditations, drawn from the writings of the earliest Christian contemplatives, are meant to be read over the course of 300 days. The book's translator and editor, John Anthony McGuckin, explains that this is how early Christian pilgrims learned the wisdom of the Desert Fathers, ascending through three stages of spiritual understanding, from the practical to the transcendent. Pilgrims repeated these meditations until each one broke "like a fruit on the tongue of the monk and revealed its inner flavor to the searching mind." The Book of Mystical Chapters suggests that readers ask of each aphorism, "How have we already experienced it; how could it illuminate a truth about our own heart or the troubles of our friends' hearts or the secret ways that God wishes to develop our seeking soul?" If you're sick of wasting time waiting at the bus stop, waiting between appointments, or waiting to go deeper in faith, maybe this is just the thing for you. --Michael Joseph Gross