Contemplating the Trinity

This is the first book I've read by Fr. Cantalamessa but I intend to read many more. He is well known as the official preacher to the papal household for the last 27 years. One would think in such a position his presentations would be exceedingly conservative and perhaps somewhat stodgy. Instead, they are refreshingly new and insightful. He presents these seven meditations on the Trinity to overcome the unhappiness, divisions, hypocrisy and false beauty of the world, to teach us to pray, build communion and raise our minds to our final destiny. He takes the most profound and ultimate mystery of the Christian faith and leads us to concrete implications of that faith in our everyday life. Immanuel Kant asserted in his Conflict of the Faculties that the doctrine of the Trinity has no practical relevance at all. Had he read Cantalamessa, he might have thought differently. The author is obviously widely read, well informed, and deeply thoughtful, but his presentations are accessible to the general reader. He draws on his various philosophical, theological, literary and artistic sources for quotations and examples that are very apt and appropriate, but wears his learning lightly. He is careful to balance the western church and the eastern so that the strengths of each might supplement the other. This book was a pleasure to read and provided much food for future thought.