Catherine McCann, New Paths Toward the Sacred: Awakening the Awe Experience in Everyday Living (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2008), ix + 233 Pps., $19.95; and Francis J. Beckwith, Return to Rome: Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2009), 144 Pps, $14.99.
How to approach and access the Sacred is a perennial question that humanity seeks to answer. The two texts currently under review take different, but complimentary approaches to this task. In what follows various points from the two texts under review shall be highlighted, with the concluding paragraph making the connection between the two texts more explicit.
Catherine McCann is a counselor, spiritual director, and gardener in Dublin, Ireland. Recently, McCann has completed a PhD from Dublin City University, the research for which finds its way into the volume under review. More pointedly, McCann herein examines people’s experiences while visiting her prize-winning Shekina Sculpture Garden. In this title, she uses Lonergan’s categories of experience, highlighting the intimate connection between human experience and an awareness of the Sacred. Throughout, she brings attention to life’s ‘ah’ moments arising from everyday experiences with nature that arouse our attention and curiosity. Notably, the first chapter lays the foundation of what human experience means, wherein the majority of dialogue with Lonergan occurs. The second moves further from Lonergan and examines the religious dimension of human experience, while the third attempts to delineate the core element of religious faith by describing it as an experience of the Sacred. The fourth and fifth chapters make connections between religious and aesthetical experiencing.
Chapters six and seven of McCann’s text explore the influence that culture has upon human experience. Chapter eight gives examples of how particular places – in this case gardens – evoke a sense of the Sacred. The personal experiences of thirteen different people that spent a reflective day in McCann’s garden are highlighted in chapter nine, which is drawn largely from her doctoral research. In her concluding chapter, McCann makes several reflections that are worthy of listing: for example, she contends that ‘place’ plays an important role in enhancing overall experiences, and that human experiences are enhanced when aesthetic awareness is awakened. Moreover, she deems the term sacred as more helpful than the terms ‘religious’ or ‘spiritual’ are in referring to the experiences of the Divine. In view of these conclusions, she suggests that people should attempt to find – and cultivate – new places to reflect upon the Divine.
In May 2007, the president of the Evangelical Theology Society stepped down as president and resigned his membership; his name was Francis Beckwith. The reason for Beckwith’s resignation was his embracing of the Catholicism of his youth. In this little book, Beckwith describes his journey back to Catholicism, chronicling his early days of reading philosophy and apologetics, as well as his graduate work at Fordham University. Through this process, Beckwith realizes that he is an evangelical insofar advocates the Gospel (evangel) and a catholic insofar as he believes that the church is universal. More than that, Beckwith claims that one can be both evangelical and Roman Catholic at one and the same time.
So why would I choose to review a personal reflection of one’s journey back to Roman Catholicism with another text that highlights new pathways toward the Sacred? My reasoning is simple: in order to gain the most potent pathway toward the sacred, it may be wise to return to the most primitive expression of Christian spirituality, a return, if you will, to the roots of the Christian church: Roman Catholicism. Within the early Roman Catholic tradition, one can find ample resources for all of the aesthetic dimensions of spirituality, from the various icons surrounding public worship facilities to the beloved liturgies where one can touch, taste, smell, hear, and see their way unto the holy One. Therein, one may also find symbols that convey the multidimensionality of God, in ways that mere words cannot. As I earlier pointed out, McCann suggests that people should attempt to find – and cultivate – new places to reflect upon the Divine. To McCann, I respond with Beckwith – that one can find ample resources to experience the Divine reality in the Roman Catholic Church.
Bradford McCall, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA