The Diary of a Country Priest: A Novel

This is a great book for all!!

I picked this book up on a whim while at a train station. I needed something to read, and being a seminarian/Catholic geek/what have you, the title caught me. This book struck me both as a psychologist, and as a seminarian. On the psychological level, it is a beautifully written psychological profile, of a passive agressive personality. However on the spiritual level, it is much much more! We encounter a young country priest, whose soul is so pure, that by contrast, the failings of his parishioners seem enormous. At times he seems to be one that seems the splinter in his brother's eye before seeing the log in his own, but at other times, it becomes clearly evident that despite his flawed techniques, it is the young priest that is on the right track. This is a beautifully written novel about a soul yearning to love God and draw others into that love but at the same time contending with the effects of a broken and fallen humanity. I highly recommend it.

I tried to read this book several times since I first heard of it through watching the films of Robert Bresson twenty years ago. Only now have I been able to read it, and I think it is one of those books that you have to be "ready for" before you can appreciate it. It is not easy to read and it is certainly not congenial to contemporary laissez-faire attitudes toward religion, spirituality, sin and redemption. That said, it is one of the most powerful things one can read if one can hear it. And upon reading it a second time, one marvels at how fully thought out it is. The entire book is foreshadowed in the first chapter. It really is a marvelous bit of writing. If you're the sort of person who underlines quotable passages in books, bring an extra highlighter because there's a lot to quote from in this book.

Bernanos' classic is perhaps the most touching novel I've ever read. Its the story of a country priest whose parish is not very interested in religious matters. He deals with this, his personal problems, and Bernanos' descriptions of his struggles are profoundly emotional. I read this book a long time ago, but to this day I remember the impact it had on me. Such feeling and compassion I have never felt for any other fictional character (save Lord Jim). This work is truly a masterpeice. Reading it will change you, forever....

I am not religious, yet this book is a permanent source of inspiration for me. I believe this comes from the beauty of the life it describes, rather than of doctrines. This is perhaps the most relevant book I ever read, and also one of the best in whatever sense.

Along with Dorothy Day's The Long Loneliness, Diary is one of the books that helped convince me to become a Catholic. The priest's dying words--"Grace is everywhere"--sum up for me the Faith and what I want from and in my life.