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To live in faith is to live in love. That is the new understanding of faith Fr Laurence opens us to in this profound examination of the subject. Faith, he says, is not reducible to belief, or to orthodoxy, morality or culture, although these will be coloured by their faith context. The essence of faith is self-transcendence. Faith is our capacity to go beyond the self-centred priorities our ego advances, and to centre in another, in God, where we find unity, love. So faith is a way of living and also a process of growth requiring not just time but also the will. The person of faith makes this growth process the central value in all they do and in all their relationships. Faith therefore is an important determining factor not just for our personal and spiritual lives but also for our social life, our political life and our civilization. Meditation, Fr Laurence says, makes us see the meaning of being a faithful human being. Every time we sit down to meditate it is an act of faith. Repeating the mantra, returning to it throughout the meditation takes us beyond self-consciousness to a place of union where the prayer of Christ is fulfilled: “May they all be one as we are one.”

A Short Span of Days is an excellent book, filled with practical wisdom and hopeful advice.

In the insightful new preface, Fr. Laurence rightly declares that “our birth and death change the lives of others.” While this may seem like an obvious assertion, it is a point well worth remembering.

This book offers comfort and wisdom for anyone close to the experience of death – the dying person, the family of the dying person, and the caregiver.

Most people don’t like to think about death very much – it can be rather uncomfortable and unappealing to some, while the thought of the prospect may fill others with varying degrees of fear and sorrow. Yet, there are wise and brave people who find the strength to look death in the eye, and move forward with triumphant hope and joy.

Those of us who meditate know what a powerful and salubrious effect meditation can have in our lives. Especially at the time of death, meditation can be a wonderful gift, and a way of healing and redemption.

Readers will appreciate Fr. Laurence’s candid style, as well the basic instruction on meditation, and some common questions and answers concerning meditation and care for the dying.

As we keep death ever before our eyes, as St. Benedict encourages us to do, may we treasure every drop of life as more precious than the last, until we can say, with joy and courageous faith, “in you rests all my hope!”

Here, I am reminded of the words of John Main: “What seems the demand for absolute surrender is in fact the opportunity for the infinite realization of our potential.”

Let us also remember the words of St. Paul: “the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours; and you are Christ's; and Christ is God's” (1 Cor 3:22-23).

We have nothing to fear.

Reviewed by Elizabeth Cardone

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