God of Surprises

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If Gerard Hughes had expressed during the Inquisition what he'd written here, he would surely have been branded a heretic. Hughes openly challenges many of the most commonly-observed pillars of organized religion but productively offers solutions for churches progressing with the times to serve modern humanity. Chapter Ten is aptly tilted ‘Knowing Christ’. When people imaginatively contemplate on the Gospels, they are often surprised by the Christ they meet. The author gives us some guidelines for reading or contemplating Christ in the Gospel. In the Fourth Chapter, the author suggests some methods of prayer. These methods help us meet the God who is actually out to meet us. Each of us has our own unique way of praying and hence may find one or the other method suitable. The suggestions of the author however could be a useful tool for those struggling to pray. He gives a good variety of methods to choose from. His last book, Cry of Wonder (2014), found him no more optimistic as he broadened that criticism beyond church structures. “We are in a severe crisis today, not just of the church, but of the whole human race. We have seen wonderful technical development, but we have become unhinged. We have lost the link between the words we use and what we actually do. It’s a most vicious illness: it faces us with annihilation.”

He remained, to the end, unafraid of speaking his mind, telling an interviewer in 2014 that too many spiritual books were “destructive” and “an easy way to make money”. “There are lots of beautiful words. God is here and Our Lady is there, so all will be well. ‘Just trust,’ they [readers] are told. Trust in what? ‘Just trust in what I am telling you’ is the message. There is very little attempt to encourage people to listen to their own experience, to discover things for themselves.” As a baptized Catholic who seeks meaning in life and spirituality, yet feels alienated by organized religion, I found this book to be a great comfort. Perhaps it was because Hughes wrote things that validated my own views. I'm sure some of the more conservative Catholics would say he is way off, but, well, he's a priest too and views like his will do a lot more to help people and the Church. Chapter Five shows how the journey is not only made with our minds and with the religious part of ourselves, but involves our whole being and affects every aspect of it, our relations to other people, our attitude to health, wealth, reputation, power, and our reactions to the economic, social and political structures in which we live.

Subsequent books, including his account of a pilgrimage to Jersualem, reproduced the same approach as God of Surprises but did not match its impact. A memoir, God, Where Are You? (1997), and God in All Things (2003) saw Hughes at his most pessimistic about the fate of his church. “Christianity today has reached the most critical moment in its history … the institutions, forms and structures that served us well in earlier centuries no longer answer the needs of our day.” This failure, he believed, had given rise to fundamentalism. Gerard William Hughes, Jesuit priest and spiritual writer, born 22 March 1924; died 4 November 2014 Chapter Nine is about Christ our treasure, whom we often take for granted and fail to recognize. The Jews did not recognize him and sometimes neither do we. This truth is illustrated in a letter written by an imaginary parish priest complaining of the disruptive behaviour of one of his parishioners.

In the Seventh Chapter, the author gives some exercises that will help us recognize the action of God in our lives and give him praise, thanks and glory for it. He suggests reviewing one’s consciousness and imaginative contemplation. At the end of the chapter, he presents some biblical texts which could be useful for imaginative contemplation. In 2004, he was diagnosed with stomach cancer. After a spell at Campion Hall in Oxford, he spent his last years in a small, sparse room at the Jesuit community care home in Boscombe, Bournemouth.The Second Chapter shows us how we can get in touch with our inner selves. The author presents von Hügel’s analysis of the three main stages of human development-infancy, adolescence and adulthood-describing the predominant needs and activities which characterize each stage. The growth of faith and its connection with these stages is also presented. It rejected the notion of a vengeful God and made an impassioned appeal for peace. This recurring theme in Hughes’s writing led to his taking the platform at antiwar demonstrations and developing a close connection with CND and Pax Christi, the international Catholic peace movement. There was another Scottish Jesuit with the same name, Gerard Hughes, writing at the same time, often taking a radically different stance on such issues of war and peace. They became known to colleagues as “Peace Hughes” and “Bomber Hughes”. Officially the Jesuits distinguished between the two by using a middle initial. The Final Chapter applies the insights of the book to a very real situation- the threat of nuclear war. In this chapter the author expresses his inner feelings regarding nuclear war and beautifully presents the Christian approach to nuclear weaponry and warfare.