Seasons of the Spirit - a journey through the Christian calendar

Seasons of the Spirit is the story of one community’s journey through the Christian year, from Advent to the following Advent.

Teresa Morgan reflects on the many ways in which God’s love reaches out to embrace and transform the world. She uses her everyday experiences to reveal how God speaks to her in different times and places.

The book gives insights into how we can grow in faith through the celebrations and commemorations of the church year.

Making relationships between the local and the global, Teresa Morgan gives some interesting insights into wider church history and custom. The reflections as the seasons progress are interspersed with poems appropriate to different times of year.

With a foreword by John Pritchard, the Bishop of Oxford, this book will appeal to those who enjoy meditative spiritual writing, especially grounded in a more liturgical tradition.

This book will be particularly encouraging to all those who minister in small churches and those who would like inspiration from the often mundane and routine minutiae of parish life. Those considering parish ministry would also find it a wise and thoughtful book.

Teresa Morgan is a Non-Stipendiary Minister in the parish of Littlemore on the outskirts of Oxford, where John Henry Newman ministered, and Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History at Oriel College, Oxford.

"We look at major festivals and some minor ones. All seasons and events are approached with a sense that “that deep unity of things, in which everything is both fully itself and part of everything else, is one of the most profound discoveries we make about the world.”

This is a diary of faith which explores the author’s relationship with God, the people around her, and the world.

"In all seasons, there is a desire to see the Divine. Sometimes this is with a good deal of humour. The Jews were looking for a mighty deliverer, a king, the Messiah. The shepherd’s reaction to the angel’s message is: “Israel is praying for salvation and you are sending a baby? Are you insane?”

"On Mothering Sunday, of her mother she writes: “More than anyone I know, she has a gift of celebrating the wonderful in the ordinary… she makes an art of everyday living. Everyone around her benefits from her mindfulness.”

This is way the author herself approaches much of the book: nothing around her is taken for granted; nothing is just ordinary; but in all there is an opportunity to get a glimpse of the beyond in our midst. Like the Dennis in her book, she is someone “who has stopped and stared a lot and sees deeply into things”. We are told: “We need every glimpse of heaven we can get, or how shall we change the world to reflect it?"

Seasons of the Spirit, priced £6.99, ISBN 978 1 84101 710 5