The Reed of God is an inspirational classic written by a British Roman Catholic ecclesiastical artist, Caryll Houselander. This book contains a beautiful meditation on Mary, Mother of God and so much more. Reading this book will bring you closer to Our Blessed Mother, and hence, to Christ Himself. Filled with lyrical prose and touching analogies, the author shows how Mary was the "Reed of God" and that we are all vessels waiting to do God's work, and carrying Christ within us.

"Caryll Houselander (1901-54), English artist, spiritual writer, poet, social activist and mystic, was a unique laywoman who took holiness out of the monastery, cloister and rectory and into the offices, factories, farms, streets and homes of ordinary people. In this engagingly interactive book, part narrative biography and part practical spirituality, readers will be moved to see in Caryll's story - from her difficult childhood, through periods of searching, being touched by God, becoming involved with the poor and the marginalized in society, living through war, writing and meeting an early death through cancer - something of their own life history."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

In the English-speaking world, the Catholic Literary Revival is typically associated with the work of G. K. Chesterton/Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene. But in fact the Revival’s most numerous members were women. While some of these women remain well known⎯Muriel Spark, Antonia White, Flannery O’Connor, Dorothy Day - many have been almost entirely forgotten. They include: Enid Dinnis, Anna Hanson Dorsey, Alice Thomas Ellis, Eleanor Farjeon, Rumer Godden, Caroline Gordon, Clotilde Graves, Caryll Houselander, Sheila Kaye-Smith, Jane Lane, Marie Belloc Lowndes, Alice Meynell, Kathleen Raine, Pearl Mary Teresa Richards, Edith Sitwell, Gladys Bronwyn Stern, Josephine Ward, and Maisie Ward. There are various reasons why each of these writers fell out of print: changes in the commercial publishing world after World War II, changes within the Church itself and in the English-speaking universities that redefined the literary canon in the last decades of the 20th century. Yet it remains puzzling that a body of writing so creative, so attuned to its historical moment, and so unique in its perspective on the human condition, should have fallen into obscurity for so long. The Catholic Women Writers series brings together the English-language prose works of Catholic women from the 19th and 20th centuries; work that is of interest to a broad range of readers. Each volume is printed with an accessible but scholarly introduction by theologians and literary specialists. The first volume in the series is Caryll Houselander’s The Dry Wood. Houselander is known primarily for her spiritual writings but she also wrote one novel, set in a post-war London Docklands parish. There a motley group of lost souls are mourning the death of their saintly priest and hoping for the miraculous healing of a vulnerable child whose gentleness in the face of suffering brings conversion to them all in surprising and unexpected ways. The Dry Wood offers a vital contribution to the modern literary canon and a profound meditation on the purpose of human suffering.

Twelve lessons focus on important teachings of the Catholic faith, including our relationship with God, the consequences of sin, and events in the life of Jesus.

Shaped around the writings of Caryll Houselander, A Child in Winter is a daybook for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. If you are familiar with Houselander's poetic grace, you will recognize her spirit of awe and abandonment to God. If you are new to her legacy, you will be drawn to her heart and eye for God's goodness and beauty that is artfully captured here.A Child in Winter is a faithful companion as you watch in Advent and grow large with the presence of God through Christmas and Epiphany.You will enter these holy seasons with an increased faith, renewed joy, and the promise of transformation and fulfillment.

Originally published in 1941, this book by the renowned British mystic and spiritual writer Caryll Houselander is once again new as modern readers learn from Houselander's encouragement of her compatriots to view their experience of World War II through the lens of Christ's passion. Writing with the intensity and immediacy of life in London during the blitz, Houselander's thought-provoking reflections continue to speak to believers today about the complex challenge they face to find Christ in the midst of the War on Terror. Writing in the tradition of Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena, and Teresa of Avila, Houselander's words resonate with Christians today regardless of their perspective on theology and the Church.

Shows how the wood of Christ's cradle prefigures the wood of his Cross ... and how we must have this fact ever in mind if we are to know him, love him, and serve him as we ought. The author carries us past the warm, sentimental images of the birth of Jesus to the power and majesty of the event itself ... as well as to the way of the Cross that Jesus began walking (for our salvation) from the very first moment of his conception. [Book jacket].

“I was received into the church,” states Caryll Houselander at the very beginning of this work “when I was six years old. Strictly speaking, therefore, I am not a ‘cradle’ Catholic, but a rocking-horse Catholic.” This autobiography, first published in 1955, takes the reader from the author’s Catholic childhood and school days through a period outside the church while she tried to make her living as an artist, to a return to the church. This return was brought about by her insight, so central to all her books into the presence of Christ and others. A theologian in every sense of the word except the formal academic one, Caryll Houselander understood the central importance of one’s image or concept of God. “Caryll Houselander: artist, odd ball, mystic, friend, and in the end, suffering servant. In the midst of her last illness, she clung to life, loved life with a passion that did not want to die. ‘I honestly long,’ she said, ‘to be told ‘a hundred percent cure’ and to return to this life and celebrate it with gramophone records, giggling and gin.’”—Mitch Finley, Our Sunday Visitor As a classic in spirituality, the work of Caryll Houselander is very close to the top of the list.