The Pocket-Size God
ISBN: 9780268080792
Platform/Publisher: Project MUSE / University of Notre Dame Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapters; Download: Chapters
Subjects: Spirituality; Spiritual life; Christian life;

In this stirring collection of columns by Notre Dame cleric Griffin, readers get a glimpse of an uncommonly giving man who struggled to reconcile changes in society-and within the university-with the precedents of a long line of Catholic scholars who came before him. The 49 essays in the collection, published between 1972 and 1994 in Notre Dame Magazine, show Griffin wrestling with changes in the church following the Second Vatican Council, answering concerned students about issues of sexuality and faith-especially in the touching "A Letter to the Class of '73"-and telling stories of his ministry both on campus and in the parishes of New York City, where he spent his summers among the indigent and marginalized. Griffin's selfless commitment to the needy comes through in his stirring portraits of Manhattan characters-such as Bernie Halloran, who insisted on giving roses to prostitutes on Christmas, or the curmudgeonly Simeon, who discusses Scripture and Dante with Griffin outside a local Catholic school. In the standout essay "The Flame Keepers," Griffin makes an impassioned case for the "mystique of a priesthood passed down like the apostolic succession... as a visual expression of invisible truth." For those interested Notre Dame this collection will be a treasure; for those with no affiliation, there is still plenty of empathy, wisdom, and poetry to be found in Griffin's thoughtful columns. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

J. Robert Baker is professor of English at Fairmont State University.


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