Drinking from the Hidden Fountain: A Patristic Breviary

The selections are excellent and thought provoking--sure to lead you to want to explore the original works quoted. This is a great book for those who wish to grow in their relationship with Christ. It is very practical and would make a great gift for any Christian.

This book was originally published as Breviario Monastico by Tomás Spidlík in Italian in 1971. There is a brief biography of Cardinal Spidlik on http://www.centroaletti.com/en/e-spidlik.htm . The Italian original I think is out of print. Sometimes one wishes to give a friend a present, but wonders what one should give. This small but meaty book from Cistercian Publications could be the answer. For a start, it is not a Breviary (in the English sense, although it is a Breviario, in the Italian sense of a compact work), but actually a collection of short passages - one for each day of the year - from the major Early Church Fathers, those great Christians from the early centuries, who by their lives, examples and writings were not only an inspiration to their contemporaries, but whose wisdom is still in print and valued today. They are all here: Basil the Great, Augustine, Clement of Alexandria, Isaac of Nineveh, John Chrysostom, Gregory the Great and many more and ideal for lectio divina. You don't know who these people are, what lectio divina is, or why one should bother? No problem. William of Saint Thierry (one of the early founders of the Cistercians) takes a page to explain to you what lectio divina is, and how to do it to advance your spiritual life, there are potted biographies of a paragraph on each of all the authors quoted. Dr. Spidlik, for 38 years the Spiritual Director of Nepomuceno Seminary, and an accomplished broadcaster and author, provides a clear and concise introduction. As Fr. Spidlik puts it in his introduction "[The Fathers'] spiritual wisdom has penetrated the Word with a joyful labour in which they were united head with heart, thought and actual experience". His wish is "that every reader may rediscover that the thought and the witness of the Fathers is in his or her blood, as they are in the blood of the whole Church. .. That every reader may be referred by the Fathers back to the Bible. They are simply the shoulders of giants onto which we can climb to gain a deeper perception of the Old and New Testaments. In the end, human words .. will pass away .. all that will remain in the sight of the Father will be the Eternal Word, the glorified Christ, and [us] transfigured into Alleluias". A word of caution though. Although the readings are short, they are not suitable for speed reading. Closer perhaps to the Desert Father who decided to read the Psalter. He was so entranced by Psalm 1 verse 1, that he spent the next 10 years pondering it, before finally dragging himself on to the yet greater richness of verse 2. He died before he reached the end.