The Pursuit of Holiness

'Holiness is a word that may well alarm many potential readers; it suggests something solemn and hushed, at best something for only a few people, something belonging to admirable but not -- if we're honest -- all that attractive figures. Stephen Haskell offers us in this lucid, learned and intelligent book a wide-ranging picture of how the teachings of the great Carmelite spiritual reformers of the sixteenth century, Teresa and John of the Cross, can be understood and applied in all our lives, so that we grow in that authentic and joyful humanity for which we were made. And this is holiness -- not an 'extra' added to the human mix, but the essentially human, stripped of the embarrassing, destructive and futile habits with which we normally cover it up.

Stephen Haskell begins with a brilliant summary of the sophisticated teachings of Teresa and John, but immediately turns to practical issues around our daily routines and vivid examples of the choices we face in those routines, the choices which if we understand them aright are about how we grow or fail to grow in holiness. We see that what the great contemplative saints have to say about the spiritual journey is not about a purely interior series of refinements but very specifically about the constant discernment of where God is calling us away from the slavery of our self-concern and our false and distorting perceptions of the world we live in and the people we live with.

Holiness, the Bible suggests, is something to do with truth: Jesus prays in the Gospel of St John that his friends will be 'sanctified in the truth', and this book shows how our friendship with God opens up new levels of truthfulness just as it leads us to new levels of at-homeness with God. This is a really unusual work of profound pastoral theology, accessible to all, coming out of a deep contemplative encounter with God in Christ that pervades the whole of human existence. We learn here about how we may better understand our sacramental practice, our engagement in Christian service in the world and our calling deeper into the silence in which the true God can make himself known to us as our fantasies about him and ourselves are put aside. I have found it a treasure of wisdom and insight and am very grateful indeed to Stephen for writing it.'

Rowan Williams
Magdalene College, Cambridge

FOREWORD by Rowan Williams.

STEPHEN HASKELL was born in 1931. He won scholarships to Eton College and Cambridge, where he obtained  firsts in Classics and English. He also has an MA in Christian Spirituality from Heythrop College. Most of his working life was spent in teaching; but after a severe breakdown he became a milkman for seven years. He has a stepdaughter and two daughters, and lives in London.

 'Holiness is a word that may well alarm many potential readers; it suggests something solemn and hushed, at best something for only a few people, something belonging to admirable but not -- if we're honest -- a ll that attractive figures. Stephen Haskell offers us in this lucid, learned and intelligent book a wide-ranging picture of how the teachings of the great Carmelite spiritual reformers of the sixteenth century, Teresa and John of the Cross, can be understood and applied in all our lives, so that we grow in that authentic and joyful humanity for which we were made. And this is holiness -- not an 'extra' added to the human mix, but the essentially human, stripped of the embarrassing, destructive and futile habits with which we normally cover it up.'

Rowan Williams
Magdalene College, Cambridge