The year 2009 marks the fiftieth anniversary of C. P. Snow’s influential lecture on the ‘Two Cultures’. In it he argued that the divide between the sciences and the humanities was hindering contemporary society’s attempts to solve many of the problems it faced. In the half-century since then fields of learning have become, if anything, even more specialised and subdivided; the challenge he pointed to faces us ever more starkly. However spirituality is, or at least has the potential to be, one discipline that can bridge this division, drawing on the insights of both art and science to further its quest for God and its appreciation of God’s creation. In this issue of The Way, something of the richness that can result is illustrated.
Peter Steele, ‘Three Presences: The Dreamer, the Traveller and the Friend’, 7–24
Three men who shared rooms at the University of Paris in the early sixteenth century went on to shape the earliest history of the Jesuit order. Peter Steele presents three poems that illuminate the characters of Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier and Pierre Favre.
Colleen Carpenter Cullinan, ‘Red is the Colour of the Morning: Resurrection in the Writing of Terry Tempest Williams’, 25–39
The writings of Terry Tempest Williams reflect on humanity’s place within nature, and oppose The Ways in which we despoil creation. Here Colleen Carpenter Cullinan shows how the theme of resurrection provides a key to a deepened understanding of Williams’s work.
Beth Crisp, ‘Finding God in Illness’, 41–52
In our ‘Spirituality and Living’ strand, Beth Crisp offers an account of her experience of serious illness, and asks whether, without romanticising, it can offer an opportunity to ‘find God in all things’.
Mary McKeone, ‘What Adults Can Learn from Young People’, 53–62
‘Children should be seen and not heard’, the old adage instructs. Mary McKeone’s years of experience, first as a teacher and later as a chaplain, suggest that, on the contrary, young people have much to teach those who are able to listen deeply to what they have to say.
Janet Tanner, ‘The Irish Penitentials and Contemporary Celtic Christianity’, 63–78
The great revival in Celtic spirituality in recent years has often focused only on its appreciation of the natural world. Here Janet Tanner brings another aspect of its tradition to the fore, that of the books produced to help those involved in sacramental reconciliation.
J-M. Laurent, ‘Reflections on Priestly Formation I: Difficulties with Feelings’, 79–91
Jean-Michel Laurent has been involved in the formation of members of his religious congregation, the Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers), for many years. This article is the first of three extracts from a reflection on the strengths and weaknesses of contemporary priestly training.
Elena Ene-Vasilescu, ‘The Icon after Postmodernism’, 93–103
The modern and postmodern periods have seen an emphasis on the individual which has led to a fragmentation of communities and of belief systems. How can church art, and in particular icons, help people to recover a sense of cohesion and community in todayl reconciliation.
Mariola López Villanueva, ‘The Ignatian Exercises in the Light of Stories about Women’, 105–118
In presenting the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises today, it is common to invite the exercitant to pray with the stories of biblical men: Zaccheaus and Bartimaeus, John and Peter, Abraham and Jeremiah. Might the experience be different if one concentrated on the women who find their place in the biblical narratives?