God, A Woman, & The Way

With time a precious commodity at Gethsemani Monastery in Kentucky, Fr. Raymond found that “a Trappist author must resolve when each day breaks to use the pieces in bringing his message of peace to the noise and commotion beyond his cloistering walls.” How well he used these fragments of time can be judged by the esteem he has won among the thousands who have read his books: The Family That Overtook Christ, The Man Who Got Even With God, The Less Traveled Road, God Goes to Murderer’s Row, Burnt Out Incense, and others. Fr. Raymond favored the classical authors of antiquity, but among his contemporaries his favorites were G.K. Chesterton, Archbishop Fulton Sheen, and Caryll Houselander. Through all his writing there runs the unifying thread of the doctrine of the Mystical Body, which he succeeded in interpreting in meaningful and practical ways. In everything he wrote, this doctrine was illustrated. He claimed that it was not only the heart of theology but the only satisfying explanation of life, since it gives man his true dignity, his destiny, and points out his duty. Nowhere is this more evident than in God, a Woman, and the Way where he often repeats that “We are His members; she is our Mother”—the Mediatrix of all grace who is the hope of our times.