Endorsements
Images of Pilgrimage
Paradise and Wilderness in Christian Spirituality
DAVID LYLE JEFFREY
FRSC, Distinguished Senior Fellow, Baylor Institute for Studies in Religion
Fr Robert Crouse was one of the great spiritual mentors of the twentieth century. In this delightful series he gracefully and perceptively brings the spiritual depth and intellectual brilliance of pre-Christian classical and biblical traditions into high relief, revealing the striking mutuality in their on-going conversation to be highly worthy of Christian meditation. Here are beautiful examples of his theological workmanship; the book is a spiritual treasure.
CAROL HARRISON
Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, University of Oxford, and Canon of Christ Church Cathedral
Where is our home? Robert Crouse’s answer is a firm but humble one: it is not here and will never be found in this mortal life; it is a place we have lost and which we will regain, in an even more glorious way, in the life to come. Here we are on the way; we are pilgrims, journeying in faith hope and love towards our homeland; moved and compelled by the faith, hope and love which God inspires within us. This is the God who has created us in His Word, and — when we turned away — condescended in the incarnate Word to share our dark and fragile humanity, so that we might turn back to Him, who is our beginning, our way and our end. Crouse’s meditations convey the wisdom that comes from dwelling with great souls — pagan, and Christian. He appreciates the nobility and confidence of Homer and the philosophers; but is utterly persuaded that they lack the one thing necessary: the love of God which breaths through Christian authors. Like his subjects — the authors of Scripture, Augustine and Dante — Crouse catches us up and draws us into the love of God returning to its source, enabling us to join their pilgrim souls on the journey towards the heavenly homeland. There is much in his humbly confident, profoundly direct, eloquently simple reflections, and the images of pilgrimage which he sets before us, to encourage, sustain and inspire the life of prayerful devotion by which we journey through the trials and tribulations of the wilderness towards the heavenly Jerusalem.
MARK DOOLEY
Irish Philosopher, Writer,
Commentator
In this beautiful book, Fr Crouse leads the reader on a pilgrimage from estrangement and alienation to the homeland of the soul. Using the great canonical texts of the Western spiritual tradition, he shows us that this vale of tears is, when pondered in faith, illumined and redeemed by the Kingdom within. The Journey from the wilderness of this world to that place we call 'paradise', is one that we must make every day. It is the journey inwards to a place of peace where our earthly struggles are not surmounted but blessed and sanctified. Images of Pilgrimage is much more than a spiritual reflection on the human drama. It is to experience that drama first hand, and to find that we ourselves are its protagonists.
DOUGLAS HEDLEY
Professor of the Philosophy of Religion, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge
There is a magnificent and serene simplicity in these pages. The surpassing achievement of Crouse, however, is the re-imagination of the Christian life through the re-kindling of ancient images.
RON DART
Political Scientist and
Philosopher-Theologian
Robert Crouse was, probably, the finest classical theologian in the Anglican Church of Canada (and beyond) in the 20th century. Robert's deep mining of the mother lode of The Christian Tradition meant much refined gold was brought forth and offered to the divided church. May the republication of many of Robert's layered writings alert the church to its grand and subtle heritage.
ROWAN WILLIAMS
Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and former Archbishop of Canterbury
Robert Crouse was in every sense a classical theologian — steeped in the literature of the ancient world, but also deeply rooted in the central traditions of Western Catholic devotion and thinking within the Anglican spectrum. These meditations — quietly authoritative in tone, unfussy and measured in style — show why he was such an important figure for so many, a touchstone of spiritual and intellectual integrity.
ANTHONY ESOLEN
Senior Editor: Touchstone, Writer, and Translator of Dante
Father Crouse, whom I am deeply thankful to have known, has a gift that is only to be found in the greatest of essayists. He can, without strain, take you to a summit whence you can view from above, in all their mutual relationships, the woods and fields and farms and towns below, which otherwise you would know only singly and in part. In this concise and powerful work, he shows us both how the pilgrimage is essential to being human and how the Christian pilgrimage is yet something other, not least because it is God and not our brains or legs who carries us home, and it is to God that we journey. All paganism ends in despair, and so should we end too, but God, himself a perichoresis of love, has come down to us in Christ. He it is who spreads a table in our wilderness.
CAL NEWPORT
Professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University, author of Digital Minimalism and Deep Work
R. D. Crouse’s Images of Pilgrimage is an exemplar of deep theology presented in an accessible and moving manner. The chapter on Dante, in particular, is a mini-masterpiece of the genre.
WILFRED McCLAY
Historian, Senior Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Author of The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America
Few things are rarer in this life than theological writing that is at once learned, beautiful, and wise. But these painstakingly crafted and interconnected essays of Fr. Robert Crouse quietly exemplify all three traits, and much more besides. They remind us that the task of pilgrimage is the essential condition of the Christian life. It is a discipline we can never grow beyond, because its whole-souled pursuit is the only force that can keep our minds and hearts in right relation with the things of this world, as well as the world that is to come. That is why I shall gratefully return to these essays, again and again, in the years to come, and enthusiastically recommend them to others.
MICHAEL D HURLEY
Reader in English,
University of Cambridge
Fr Crouse’s learned but light-footed meditations are a joy to read as well as an education. Taking pilgrimage as the fundamental and all-encompassing theme of spiritual life, he invites us to embark on a pilgrimage of our own, through the genius of Greco-Roman literature as well the poetry and revealed truth of the Christian faith. We could not hope for a more graceful, engaging, or authoritative guide.
The Soul's Pilgrimage
Vol. 1: From Advent to Pentecost
DAVID LYLE JEFFREY
FRSC, Distinguished Senior Fellow, Baylor Institute for Studies in Religion
Fr Robert Crouse was one of the great spiritual mentors of the twentieth century. In this delightful series he gracefully and perceptively brings the spiritual depth and intellectual brilliance of pre-Christian classical and biblical traditions into high relief, revealing the striking mutuality in their on-going conversation to be highly worthy of Christian meditation. Here are beautiful examples of his theological workmanship; the book is a spiritual treasure.
CAROL HARRISON
Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, University of Oxford, and Canon of Christ Church Cathedral
Where is our home? Robert Crouse’s answer is a firm but humble one: it is not here and will never be found in this mortal life; it is a place we have lost and which we will regain, in an even more glorious way, in the life to come. Here we are on the way; we are pilgrims, journeying in faith hope and love towards our homeland; moved and compelled by the faith, hope and love which God inspires within us. This is the God who has created us in His Word, and — when we turned away — condescended in the incarnate Word to share our dark and fragile humanity, so that we might turn back to Him, who is our beginning, our way and our end. Crouse’s meditations convey the wisdom that comes from dwelling with great souls — pagan, and Christian. He appreciates the nobility and confidence of Homer and the philosophers; but is utterly persuaded that they lack the one thing necessary: the love of God which breaths through Christian authors. Like his subjects — the authors of Scripture, Augustine and Dante — Crouse catches us up and draws us into the love of God returning to its source, enabling us to join their pilgrim souls on the journey towards the heavenly homeland. There is much in his humbly confident, profoundly direct, eloquently simple reflections, and the images of pilgrimage which he sets before us, to encourage, sustain and inspire the life of prayerful devotion by which we journey through the trials and tribulations of the wilderness towards the heavenly Jerusalem.
ROWAN WILLIAMS
Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and former Archbishop of Canterbury
Robert Crouse was in every sense a classical theologian — steeped in the literature of the ancient world, but also deeply rooted in the central traditions of Western Catholic devotion and thinking within the Anglican spectrum. These meditations — quietly authoritative in tone, unfussy and measured in style — show why he was such an important figure for so many, a touchstone of spiritual and intellectual integrity.
ANTHONY ESOLEN
Senior Editor: Touchstone, Writer, and Translator of Dante
Father Crouse, whom I am deeply thankful to have known, has a gift that is only to be found in the greatest of essayists. He can, without strain, take you to a summit whence you can view from above, in all their mutual relationships, the woods and fields and farms and towns below, which otherwise you would know only singly and in part. In this concise and powerful work, he shows us both how the pilgrimage is essential to being human and how the Christian pilgrimage is yet something other, not least because it is God and not our brains or legs who carries us home, and it is to God that we journey. All paganism ends in despair, and so should we end too, but God, himself a perichoresis of love, has come down to us in Christ. He it is who spreads a table in our wilderness.
The Soul's Pilgrimage
Vol. 2: The Descent of the Dove and the Spiritual Life
STANLEY HAUERWAS
Drawing on a deep knowledge of the Christian theological tradition these sermons by Father Crouse have a beautiful directness that illumines the eschatological character of the Christian year. Crouse’s sermons are filled with insights that reflect the no doubt hard won wisdom of this remarkable human being and priest. For example according to Crouse salvation is a kind of seeing acquired through attending to the words we are given in liturgy and prayer. The task of the preacher is to help us discover what time we are in by helping us see what God has done on the cross. Drawing on a wide range of literature Crouse’s sermons make clear that the sermon is can and should be the genre for the work of theology.
DAVID LYLE JEFFREY
“This second volume of homilies by Robert Crouse are a splendid complement to the first : each reflection on the Scriptures appointed for the seasons of Trinity and Pentecost is rich in lucid theological substance; in them the revealed Word itself shines forth in beauty and power. In the cycle of the year which recollects the testimony of saints down through centuries we are given further memorable demonstrations that, in the author’s words, “the Church can have its true existence only in obedience to the Word of God made manifest in Jesus Christ.” For Christians who may have only a modest acquaintance with their legacy in the ‘cloud of witnesses’ whose Christ-like examples urge us on, these homilies are a treasure trove of inspiration and illumination, a marvelous short course opening vistas on the Body of Christ against and across the ages, persevering in faithfulness unto the end.”
OLIVER O'DONOVAN
The opportunity to take an overview of the work of the shy Canadian scholar-pastor Robert Crouse is one that no one who has looked for hidden treasure will want to pass by. Here we meet him as a preacher, now set loose from the narrative of the seasons from Advent to Pentecost but still strictly faithful to the prescribed Scripture readings, ranging widely over the experience of the Christian life in general and especially in the University. We may be surprised first of all by the unpretentiousness of these homilies; but then we will be struck by the great care with which they have been composed to take their place within the act of worship, and by the intellectual discipline with which the Scripture text is called on to shed light on the tasks of faithful living. And finally, perhaps, we may be convinced that they form a whole greater than the sum of the parts, a structure of Christian living and worship, built in the pattern of the Anglican Prayer Book, that is both coherent and expansive.