For the First Time in English!

Well, a man can’t live on jam, and neither can a Christian society. Our Heavenly Father said mankind was the salt of the earth, son, not the honey. And our poor world’s rather like old man Job, stretched out in all his filth, covered with ulcers and sores. Salt stings on an open wound, but saves you from gangrene.’ (George Bernanos, The Diary of a Country Priest)

Taking his cue from this blunt but realistic statement of Bernanos, Fr Luigi Maria Epicoco accompanies the reader on a real rethinking of the potential of Christian life. He begins by challenging a ‘do-gooder’ view of the faith and reminds us that the believer depends on no other law than the charity of Christ given us in baptism.

It is no casual remark he makes when he writes that ‘the saints are those for whom baptism works’; and the potential which baptism introduces us to can be summed up in the three theological virtues – faith, hope and charity – which flow into life lived according to Christ: a joyful and free existence, because we are loved.

Luigi Maria Epicoco’s book, then, suggests that we reflect on and rethink these ‘three virtues’ beginning with life itself,  illuminated by some biblical stories which become something of a program and provocation for all our lives.

This is a strong and provocative book by one of the freshest spiritual voices of our time.

Luigi Maria Epicoco (1980) is a priest of the Aquila Diocese and teaches Philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University and at the ISSR ‘Fides et ratio’, Aquila. He dedicates himself to preaching, especially for the formation of laity and religious, giving conferences, retreats and days of recollection. He has a number of books and articles of a philosophical theological and spiritual nature to his name.