Union with God: According to St. John of the Cross (Paperback or Softback)

Christian perfection consists in the twofold way of charity: service of neighbor and our direct quest for God's love. Many of us discover ways to love our neighbor, but few achieve intimacy with God. Why? Because we don't know how to prepare ourselves properly to reach this exalted goal.

In these pages, Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen lays out for us a time-tested path toward achieving complete intimacy with God, the path first mapped out centuries ago by the Church's acclaimed master of the contemplative life, St. John of the Cross (1542-1591).

St. John showed that God hungers for union with each of us but also requires arduous efforts on our part, the many details of which Father Gabriel explains in these enlightening pages.

Do you perceive holiness as an unattainable goal for you?

Or is fear of the fatigue of such an effort holding you back?

Absorb this book, and allow gentle St. John to take you by the hand and lead you as he has led so many others to true intimacy with our Lord.

Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D. (1893-1953), was a Discalced Carmelite priest, confessor and spiritual director.He was an expert in the writings of venerated Carmelite Mystics such as St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. For the last decade of his life Fr. Gabriel was the spiritual director for the Discalced Carmelite nuns of the Monastery of St. Joseph in Rome. It was with their assistance that he compiled his writings and mystical insight, arranging his material to correspond with the liturgical year, while following the ascent of the soul to transforming union with God.