Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
James T. KeaneFebruary 29, 2008
Jesuit scholastic Ryan Duns, SJ recently read Anne Rice’s new book on the life of Jesus, Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana, and found much to praise in a review on his blog. A sequel to Rice’s Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, it suggests this famous author (and recent convert) has found Jesus a more compelling subject than...well, than sexually ambiguous vampires. Duns particularly praises Rice’s treatment of the "hidden life" of Jesus, the period between the scriptural accounts of his visit to the temple in Jerusalem as a youngster and his baptism in the Jordan many years later. Contemplatives have always found great fruit in meditations on the life of Jesus during these years, in part because the lack of source material allows more leeway in prayer than if Scripture had provided a matter-of-fact account of these missing years. "Rice seems able to capture the aridity and grittiness of life in Nazareth, the feelings of angst and anxiety that Jesus faced," Duns writes, "and she conveys them to the reader without manufacturing feeling. Her writing, in a sense, facilitates an imaginative encounter with the fictive world of Jesus that helps to make Jesus’ story the reader’s story." Read it here. Jim Keane, SJ
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

The 12 women whose feet were washed by Pope Francis included women from Italy, Bulgaria, Nigeria, Ukraine, Russia, Peru, Venezuela and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
"We, the members of the Society of Jesus, continue to be lifted up in prayer, in lament, in protest at the death and destruction that continue to reign in Gaza and other territories in Israel/Palestine, spilling over into the surrounding countries of the Middle East."
The Society of JesusMarch 28, 2024
A child wounded in an I.D.F. bombardment is brought to Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on March 25. (AP Photo/Ismael abu dayyah)
While some children have been evacuated from conflict, more than 1.1 million children in Gaza and 3.7 million in Haiti have been left behind to face the rampaging adult world around them.
Kevin ClarkeMarch 28, 2024
Easter will not be postponed this year. It will not wait until the war is over. It is precisely now, in our darkest hour, that resurrection finds us.
Stephanie SaldañaMarch 28, 2024