A Retreat for Beginners

By Ronald Knox Monsignor Ronald Knox preached scores, if not hundreds, of retreats. Of these, A Retreat for Beginners is singular: for, in Knox’s own declaration, it is addressed not to a crowd, but to one particular soul—to you. The point of a retreat is that God means to do something in and to the soul; God, in this time of quiet, intends to conduct a spring-cleaning of sorts in the retreatant’s spiritual life, illuminating a particular fault, loosening the fetters of some foul habit or unhealthy friendship, or introducing some fresh means of serving Him. This Divine housekeeping takes place as the mind and soul are refreshed with the waters of good Christian teaching. Knox distributes this water generously, with twenty-two reflections on central truths and mysteries of the Faith, including the Divine Nature and the Incarnation; original sin and personal sin; the Holy Mass and the Blessed Sacrament; prayer and the Rosary; personal vocation and vocation to the priest­hood; and the Last Things. “Lose no time in asking God to take your life and break it and remould it according to his own plan; for you will find no peace, believe me, and no satisfaction until you have learned to want to be what he wants you to be—that and nothing else.” (Ronald Knox) Following the spirit of St. Paul’s remark, “You were little children in Christ’s nurs­ery,” Knox’s preaching is proper schooling for souls at every stage of life’s journey.    Ronald Knox (1888–1957) was an English Catholic priest, theologian, and author, and one of the most prominent twentieth-century converts from Anglicanism to Catholicism. Best known for his contemporary English translation of the Scriptures (the “Knox Bible”), he wrote numerous works of apologetics and collections of ser­mons, retreat conferences, and lectures, as well as six detective novels.  Paperback: 240pp. ISBN: 978-1685953843