Verna Holyhead, S.G.S., is an Australian Sister of the Good Samaritan of the Order of St. Benedict. She leads retreats, lectures, and writes, with an emphasis on biblical scholarship, liturgical insight, and pastoral challenge.
With Burning Hearts should strike a flame in the hearts of readers
and make them eager to witness to the Word of God throughout the
church year.Worship
Perfect for personal reflection or communal discussion.Crux
Anyone seeking fresh reflections on the Sunday readings will find
the book full of liturgical insights and pastoral challenges. . . .
[Holyhead’s] reflections build on fresh images, which unite the
words of the Rule to contemporary experience. This book can be a
worthy addition to your resource library.Tidings
The insights here are always fresh, relevant, and thought
provoking. Holyhead has delivered a fine resource for preachers,
teachers, faith-sharing groups, and others who wish to delve deeper
into the Sunday readings.Writing Works
Verna Holyhead’s hope that this will strike a tiny flame is too
modest. Short, pithy introductions to each season, Sunday-by-Sunday
commentaries bristling with fresh images that throw scripture and
contemporary experience together to converse with one another,
footnotes that hint at the depths of scholarship that ground this
most readable book—all these threaten to start a conflagration
among faithful hearers of the Word! A final chapter, “With the
Gospel as Our Guide,” brings the Benedictine spirit into the
conversation as yet another lens for the firelight by which we
read. Welcoming the Word is a pearl worth the price. Genevieve
Glen, O.S.B. Abbey of St. Walburga Editor for Daily
Offices--Magnificat
Verna Holyhead's Welcoming the Word is an elegant complement to the
liturgical readings of Year C. It provides us with a frame which
brings out the deeper artistry of the biblical selections used at
the Sunday Eucharist. The author draws on liturgical and scriptural
knowledge, poetry, common experience and personal reflection to
offer a counterpoint to the familiar texts and to start us off on
fresh avenues of meditation. This wise and mellow book will become
a valued companion as we journey through the Church's year, opening
up the riches of the liturgy, and calling us to a more fruitful
listening and a fuller preactice. Fr. Michael Casey, OCSO,
Tarrawarra, Abbey, Yarra Glen, Victoria, Australia
"By presenting a grand sweep of the literature of ancient Israel,
Dianne Bergant offers readers a marvelous introduction to studying
the Hebrew Bible. Because she is both an outstanding scholar and
popular teacher, Dianne Bergant offers an overview of Israel's
sacred history that is equally insightful and accessible. Readers
will be enlightened and elated by this synopsis of Israel's
inspired writings, which are the inheritance of both Judaism and
Christianity."Stephen J. Binz, biblical scholar and author of
Threshold Bible Study
If it is especially in the sacred liturgy where the Church offers
to the faithful the bread of life found in the Scriptures, as
Vatican Council II taught us, we need help in breaking the
life-giving bread. The thoughtful worshiper at each Sunday's Mass
depends on a well-prepared lector and a gifted homilist. These are
precisely the readers who will benefit from Verna Holyhead's
reclaiming of the Liturgy of the Word, together with parish groups
in Lent and Advent that traditionally ponder and pray over the
Sunday texts. Here every reading in the Sundays of the year of Luke
comes alive with her impeccable grasp of the biblical author's
intention coupled with a sense of readers life situation. Her
sureness of touch arises from long experience in mediating the
inspired Word to people hungry for that bread of life.Robert C.
Hill, Australian Catholic University
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