The Our Father Do Not Heap Up Empty Phrases (HB) / Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini

The Theme of this volume is the Our Father, which Cardinal Martini tackles at a retreat he gave to priests.  The Archbishop of Milan offers a series of reflections to his retreatants on the Prayer which Jesus taught, seeing it, along with Tertullian, as the "summary of the whole Gospel."  Though it is true we are talking about a prayer everyone knows by heart, it should not escape notice that the Our Father is "ever new, mysterious, all-purpose".  It is indicative of a richness that only Christ could communicate since there we find "a correspondence, a perfect correlation between the Our Father, the teaching of the Gospel, the life of Jesus the Son of God who died and rose for us."  The pages are packed with thoughts intended to accompany the reader on a journey.  Step by step he reintroduces this journey to us so we can discover the inexhaustible treasures of the believers' best known prayer: the Our Father.

Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini (15 Feb 1927- 31 Aug 2012), Jesuit, and biblical scholar, was Archbishop of Milan from 1979 to 2002.  Considered by Catholics and non-Catholics alike to be one of the most listened to and followed voices there, Cardinal Martini resigned from his various responsibilities in 2002 and decided to retire to Jerusalem to resume his beloved biblical studies, but even from this ancient capital of Major Faiths, he ensured that his voice was strongly heard.  He returned to Italy for health reasons but even during his illness, he never ceased disturbing consciences with clarity and intelligence.  At his death, more than 150,000 people filed past as he lay in state in the Milan Cathedral.