As one who is, more likely than not, within a decade or two of his demise, I ponder often on spirituality and the question of 'life after death'. I read it a few years ago and was captivated by his thoughts about finding God in unexpected places - such as in ourselves as he has made us in his image.

Even if you take God out of it, as I did, it provides amazing insight and structure into how to know yourself better, to stop trying to take all your worries and deal with them yourself, and ultimately giving you tools to be able the understand how to live a more fulfilling life. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. As such, any reader whose interest is piqued by this book may well wish to attend an Ignatian Spiritual Exercises retreat, and then use the book as a guide to their on-going reflections.

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. It feels like an enormous handbrake turn for the book to take as it should be concluding and as a result it doesn't really feel finished.

One of the most widely read and highly acclaimed religious books, God of Surprises takes us on the inner journey, convinced that the treasure is hidden within. I don't have a lot of patience for the "coolness" in dissing people for believing in something bigger but that's my own problem to get over. 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. In this chapter the author expresses his inner feelings regarding nuclear war and beautifully presents the Christian approach to nuclear weaponry and warfare. That’s a long way removed from my own evangelical charismatic background, so I’m impressed how well Hughes is able to present his message to the church as a whole, even though quite a lot of it is based on the teachings of Ignatius of Loyola.I had a Christian education (Anglican, not Roman Catholic)but Christianity never really 'caught' for me. What is so special about this book is the refreshing yet gentle way Hughes approaches the reader and the respect he has for the individual paths each person takes towards the great mystery of who God is.

In terms of content and presentation the book is very good and will give you an awful lot to think about, it certainly changed my view on a lot of topics, especially the seeking guidance chapters.Embracing mystical styles of reflection and prayer such as Ignatian contemplative prayer, he encourages the reader to identify and counter whatever desires are not oriented towards God. I am now going to work my way through more slowly looking up the scriptural passages as well as the exercises. At the end of the chapter, he presents some biblical texts which could be useful for imaginative contemplation.

This book has only one purpose: to suggest ways of finding the treasure in what we may consider a most unlikely field - ourselves. Gerard Hughes goes back to the basics on how faith/our relationship with God and our spirituality should be. Creative and consolatory feelings are those that lead us to discovering more of our hidden treasure, whereas destructive and desolatory feelings lead us away from it.

Hughes found human beings complicated "with layers upon layers of consciousness", most of which we never break through.