Fifth Gospel Living – book review

Thursday, November 21st, 2024

Simple, sweet, sometimes heart-breaking, and always invigorating, Fifth Gospel Living is the latest publication from Fr John O’Connor and his Food for Faith ministry. It comprises stories of personal encounters with God.

The 96 reflections are the result of a call from O’Connor, whose blogs on the Food for Faith website have, for about 10 years, elicited thoughtful responses from worldwide readers.

“My perspective and experience may have been interesting for others but more significantly my reflections seemed to encourage readers to share their own testimony,” O’Connor writes in his introduction to the just-released book.

“From this moment my daily delight was hearing from others who contributed their personal experiences of God in the joys, hopes, griefs and anxieties of their own lives.”

At Easter this year, he asked readers if they would share, in no more than 400 words, their experiences of an encounter with God.

He said he would assemble them into Fifth Gospel Living, a contemporary account from 21st-century ‘gospel writers’ who live in their own ‘holy lands’ with God in Jesus Christ by their side.

While several names are recognised as academics, writers, sports professionals, and religious figures, including retired bishops, most aren’t. They are us.

So, what does a personal encounter with God look like to these storytellers, young and not so, Catholic or not, living in the USA, Italy, Australia, the Philippines and Aotearoa, New Zealand?

They speak of gentle days alone in nature; fun with grand-children; deep wells of sadness resulting from child death, family suicide, addictions, disease, divorce and abortion; witnessing peaceful deaths; requests for ‘a dust-sized amount of your power;” Christmas miracles, endless ‘coincidences’ (aka the Holy Spirit); doubts, acceptance, trust, presence.

Like Food for Faith, O’Connor’s first book, Fifth Gospel Living, is a great little dipper: brief chapters that allow the book to be picked up for as short or as long a period as you like, day or night, offering inspiration, humour, and time to be with God.

The publication is also sprinkled with brief quotes from some of the stories, offering further moments of contemplation.

It’s a book that keeps on giving.

A note for anyone particular about grammar. Put it aside for this volume.

O’Connor has purposely edited “only when required, seeking to retain unique and personal turns of phrase, twists of grammar and colour of expression.”

As he says, this reflects the ’richness of cultural and educational diversity in the contributors’ and, as an observation, requires the reader to slow down, which is no bad thing.

Maybe you have your version of witnessing ‘the radioactive decay of the atom 156/72Hf” while going to receive Holy Communion or Jesus approaching you with a tray of apples and ice cream. O’Connor would be pleased to hear about it.

Fifth Gospel Living; a Christmas gift that keeps on giving is available at www.copypress.co.nz

Fifth Gospel Living is $35, it is published in 2024 by John O’Connor. Cover Design: Chiara Albrecht.