Daniel Berrigan

The scenario that confronts us in the biblical text of 1 and 2 Kings is a turbulent one. Daniel Berrigan minces no words in his assessment of that biblical era. Prophets, kings, and the gods they worship -- all are found wanting. Berrigan examines the complex terrain of these two biblical books, opening our eyes to the deep flaws of their oft-praised characters. He shows that this dark time in biblical history is in many ways repeating itself today. The wars of these kings, Berrigan says, are our wars now, and we are fashioning our own gods to approve our misdeeds. These two books of Scripture come to vivid -- and sometimes terrifying -- life when we recognize these undeniable similarities.The Kings and Their Gods reveals Berrigan in stunning form. Here this modern-day prophet distills the wisdom gained from his long learning and his remarkable life experiences. The book is both a masterful biblical commentary and a clarion call to action. It balances polemics and poetry, despair and joy. It is truly a midrash for our troubled times -- both an indictment of the horror that is and an invitation to the great goodness that may be.

The Monk - The Artist - The Aunt - The Essayist - The Woman - The Jesuit - The Mother - Self-Portrait Berrigan's Portraits is his first completely biographical work, and it is perhaps his most intimate book. Here he speaks candidly of some of the people he has known and admired, people of fame and people who will probably never be memorialized or even remembered outside these pages. Here are Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin--guides to the vision that has inspired Berrigan's own witness to Christian peace. Here is an unknown woman painter, dying of cancer but gifted with uncanny powers of insight. Here are members of Berrigan's own family: a tough-minded aunt, who found in the currently outmoded pieties of the past a remedy for the terrible day-in-and-day-out of the religious life; his own mother, providential, foreseeing, compassionate. Lastly there is a self-portrait--not in a convex mirror, not a picture at an exhibition--of what has been the meaning of these various people and of their influence on him and his work. ""For me, Father Daniel Berrigan is Jesus as a poet. If this be heresy, make the most of it."" -Kurt Vonnegut ""Daniel Berrigan is America's greatest prophet-poet."" -- James Carroll ""Father Daniel Berrigan is an altogether winning and warm intelligence and a man who, I think, has more than anyone I have ever met the true wide-ranging and simple heart of the Jesuit: zeal, compassion, understanding, and uninhibited religious freedom. Just seeing him restores one's hope in the church."" -- Thomas Merton, in ""Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander"" Daniel Berrigan is an internationally known voice for peace and disarmament. A Jesuit priest, award-winning poet, and the author of over fifty books, he has spoken for peace, justice, and nuclear disarmament for nearly fifty years. He spent several years in prison for his part in the 1968 Catonsville Nine antiwar action and later acted with the Plowshares Eight. Nominated many times for the Nobel Peace Prize, he lives and works in New York City.

Committed radical that he is, Daniel Berrigan, launches his personal rockets against the social evils that disturb and preoccupy him. Beginning with a long autobiographical piece he traces the influences that brought him first to a radical stance and then to a direct confrontation with society. From this very intimate statement he develops his theme of a need for nonviolent revolutionary change in his reflections on his own trial and sentencing, in his thoughtful examination of the true implications of Christianity, and in his consideration of prophets as revolutionaries. In a long dialog with an SDS student about the 1969 Black/White confrontation at Cornell University, he relates the questions raised by that crisis to the larger crises of American life. Finally, he directs two stinging parables at the well-fed and the complacent. Probing and provocative, this work illuminates starkly the agonizing decisions people must make.

In The Discipline of the Mountain Daniel Berrigan offers ""ways of imagining our plight"" through the poetic vision of Dante's Purgatorio. There can be found ""a faithful vision, an alternative, a truthful image of God, of ourselves, of history."" Berrigan employs free, poetic adaptation of the original--its themes, moods, discourses, encounters--with a prose commentary relating the text to political-moral issues of the present day. With its themes of lust and hatred, religious strife and ecclesiastical corruption, military power and oppression, the Purgatorio is an apt allegory of modern society. Thirteenth-century kings and princes shade into twentieth-century colonels and shahs and juntas. The Discipline of the Mountain is evocatively illustrated by Robert F. McGovern. ""What is God saying to us, what would he have us do, as a seemingly irreversible course leads humanity, like a blindfolded beast, towards the abattoir? Might there be ways of coping, ways which might properly be named spiritual, surpassing whatever the politics of the Left or Right might offer?"" --from the Introduction ""Let us hope that our country will become wise. But until it does---indeed, in order that it should---we as its citizens must act on the wisdom of our own conscience. That, to me, is the ultimate meaning of what Father Daniel Berrigan, in prose and poetry, says and leaves unsaid."" -- Howard Zinn ""Daniel Berrigan is a poet and prophet for these times."" --Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners magazine Daniel Berrigan is an internationally known voice for peace and disarmament. A Jesuit priest, award-winning poet, and the author of over fifty books, he has spoken for peace, justice, and nuclear disarmament for nearly fifty years. He spent several years in prison for his part in the 1968 Catonsville Nine antiwar action and later acted with the Plowshares Eight. Nominated many times for the Nobel Peace Prize, he lives and works in New York City. Robert F. McGovern, whose woodcuts appear in The Discipline of the Mountain, is Professor Emeritus at Philadelphia College of Art and lives in Narbeth, Pennsylvania. In addition to illustrating several books, his work has appeared in New Covenant Magazine and the Catholic Worker.

This extraordinary book, written during the four months that Daniel Berrigan was resisting arrest and living underground, is an unexpected gift. Rather than being merely an account of a fugitive's life, this is a spiritual work of the highest order, the work of an unusual man brooding over injustice, war, and love and setting forth his vision of what a man can become. His starting point is St. John of the Cross, from whom the author draws the inspiration that informs his unorthodox ""commentary"" on The Dark Night of the Soul. Here, John is the guru, the master to whom the disciple comes for enlightenment, the one whose vision inspires the disciple as he searches for his own vision. As the ""commentary"" moves on, it becomes the instrument by which Father Berrigan extends his own moral commitment to explore and reaffirm his spiritual philosophy, his concern for the world, his intense desire to awaken and move society in a nonviolent way. The result is a magnificent outpouring of prose and poetry--intense, personal, witty; the exposition of the heart of a man. ""How are we to live our lives today? We are in the dark preliminary stages of a new humanity, together. Imagine my brother in prison, myself on the run, our friends here and there (in prison, on the run), and in every city between. Thus, all of us are enabled, in an utterly new way, to probe and ponder new forms of community, the questions about the future, the usefulness and joy and hope that may arise from this."" --from the first chapter ""Daniel Berrigan is a poet and prophet for these times."" --Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners magazine ""Daniel Berrigan is the sort of priest who causes the lights of the Vatican to burn through the night."" --Newsweek Daniel Berrigan is an internationally known voice for peace and disarmament. A Jesuit priest, award-winning poet, and the author of over fifty books, he has spoken for peace, justice, and nuclear disarmament for nearly fifty years. He spent several years in prison for his part in the 1968 Catonsville Nine antiwar action and later acted with the Plowshares Eight. Nominated many times for the Nobel Peace Prize, he lives and works in New York City.

On May 17, 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, nine men and women entered a Selective Service office outside Baltimore. They removed military draft records, took them outside, and set them afire with napalm. The Catholic activists involved in this protest against the war included Daniel and Philip Berrigan; all were found guilty of destroying government property and sentenced to three years in jail. Dan Berrigan fled but later turned himself in. The Trial of the Catonsville Nine became a powerful expression of the conflicts between conscience and conduct, power and justice, law and morality. Drawing on court transcripts, Berrigan wrote a dramatic account of the trial and the issues it so vividly embodied. The result is a landmark work of art that has been performed frequently over the past thirty-five years, both as a piece of theater and a motion picture.

On September 11, 2001 Daniel Berrigan sat at his desk in upper Manhattan writing a commentary on the Book of Genesis. As he explored the goodness of God's creation, the terrible events of that day stopped him cold. With countless others, Berrigan—the tireless and often controversial peace activist—wondered how best to respond, articulate profound grief, and shape a response. In the midst of working with those ministering to rescue workers and families of the missing or dead, leading prayer vigils, and organizing protests against military retaliation, Father Berrigan looked to Lamentations for wisdom and insight. This book is the result of long, intense hours spend connecting that ancient text with the modern world. In line with his critically acclaimed biblical commentaries, Berrigan uses the lens of Lamentations to explore the causes and repercussions of the events of September 11 and beyond. Here he asks, Where do we turn when the world around us seems to be inextricably enmeshed in violent conflict? How do we cry out for justice? Where do we find faith and hope to heal the immense human suffering that surrounds us? Written in a style that captures the poetry and power of Lamentations, Berrigan cries out for peace in a militaristic world, calls for compassion instead of retribution, gives voice to those caught in the midst of war and strife, and names the evil in the world while lamenting the status quo. Art by Robert McGovern illuminates the suffering of war and the hope of the faithful.

A classic of faith-based activism—updated for a new generation. Why was Daniel Berrigan wanted by the FBI? Why did Robert Coles harbor a fugitive? Listen in to the conversations between these two great teachers as they struggle with what it means to put your faith to the test. Discover how their story of challenging the status quo during a time of great political, religious, and social change is just as applicable to our lives today. Thirty years ago, at the height of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit priest, was wanted by the FBI for his nonviolent protest activities. He hid in the house of Robert Coles, who would later win the Pulitzer Prize. The two began a dialogue that encompasses a fascinating range of topics, from war, psychology, and violence, to social institutions, compassion, activism, and family life. With this expanded, anniversary edition of a classic, new generations of readers can examine for themselves how spirituality is not only for ourselves, but often demands action and personal risk in the public arena. New to this edition, Robert Coles offers historical perspective on this turbulent time and assesses the progress of faith-based activism in the years since. Daniel Berrigan challenges today’s activists in a new afterword. Finally, a glossary of terms helps to clarify the key people, places, and movements that are often the subject of the Coles/Berrigan conversations.

A new dialogue between the radical Jesuit priest and the Vietnamese Zen master covers a wide range of topics relevant to the Buddhist-Christian relationship, including war, peace, death, Jesus, and the Buddha. Original.

Berrigan uses the story of Job to ignite our religious imagination and show us the way to effective protest and true faith. Continuing his series of livel reflections on Scripture, he inspires us to action and assures us of God's fidelity.

And the Risen Bread is a culmination of forty years of poetry by the late American Jesuit and activist Daniel Berrigan. Beginning with poems written on bucolic themes, the book moves to those dealing with the struggle against war. Included are poems written from courtrooms and jail cells, as well as religious poems which include the doubt and difficulty that arise from the many horrors of our world today.