This book is identical to the many Year in the Life Books that are published, A Year in the Life with Thomas Merton or a Year in the Life of Dorothy Day. Each day devoted to a saying or quotation from a particular person. This book is basically a years worth of daily devotions for priests. Each day opens with a short scripture verse, a selection from numerous contemporary and ancient authors, and then a very short prayer or reflection.
I really wanted to enjoy this book. The cover is inviting and the topic is a great one especially for people like me who are pastors. Yet I found the book very uneven. Becker draws upon a variety of writers such as Pope Francis, Saint Pope John Paul II, and the former Pope Benedict as he does others such as Thomas Merton and Gordon Lathrop. I didn't count but it seemed like at least sixty to seventy percent of the daily devotions were from Cardinal Bernadin, Pope John II and Benedict. I only counted two or three from Gordon Lathrop a very well known liturgical pastoral theologian, and maybe two or three from Thomas Merton. There were two from John Chrysostom and then a few others.
Yet within the Christian Tradition, both ancient and modern, Catholic and non Catholic are a whole host of wonderful sayings from so many other writers that could have been included but were not: Ignatius of Antioch, Gregory the Great, Augustine, Frank Senn, Eugene Peterson, Will Willimon, and others. They have wonderful insights and sayings about pastoral care which pastors would enjoy reading. Perhaps this is a book that Liturgical Press could put together for the future.
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