The Royal Way of the Cross (Living Library)

"It is very profitable to have realized what one is; but do not add to that weakness, which is inseparable from our human nature, an estrangement from the very means of strength. Only hearken inwardly to him and despise boldly that which is despicable."

Above all, Francois Fenelon desired to love God. Out of this love came a desire to share the truth of a life lived in the light of the Cross. His individual writings document his desire to find truth through the love of his Creator; corporately, they comprise a masterpiece of a recorded spiritual journey.

The Royal Way of the Cross is written with an unblinking honesty that distinguishes it from the murky intellectualism that pervaded the time, and it is this truthfulness that gives this work its enduring appeal. Arrestingly written, The Royal Way is an exceptional account of a man who saw the hand of God in all things and was intimately acquainted with "the royal way of the Cross."

François Fénelon was a seventeenth-century French archbishop who rose to a position of influence in the court of Louis XIV. Amid the splendor and decadence of Versailles, Fénelon became a wise mentor to many members of the king's court. Later exiled for political reasons, he set out to improve the lot of peasants of his diocese. His letters of counsel and spiritual meditations have found a wide audience for more than three centuries.

Born in North Carolina in 1923, Hal M. Helms graduated from Furman University and earned an M. Div. from Hartford Seminary. He served five congregations and then in 1974 became Chaplain at the Community of Jesus, an ecumenical Christian Community on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Rev. Helms “mildly modernized”  a number of classics, including The Pilgrim's Progress, The Imitation of Christ, and The Confessions of St. Augustine, and wrote several devotional books. He died in 1997.