SLG Press

How often we use expressions like, ‘thank you for doing that, you’re such an angel’, without really thinking about it, referring to angels as helpful and rather sweet, possibly with a picture in mind of a tall female with big feathery wings. Despite this typecasting, scripture reveals angels as somewhat fearsome messengers from God who must constantly reassure people not to be afraid. The messages they bring are for the benefit of God's people, for salvation and healing. In this exploration of angels, Sister Raphael reflects on her reading of Bible passages and related texts to examine how angels might lead us into a greater understanding of God's love and purposes for us all.

From 1972 to 2014 Sr Edmée Kingsmill SLG published a number of articles in the Fairacres Chronicle, the Journal of the Sisters of the Love of God at Fairacres, that were offshoots of her doctoral research on the Song of Songs, or of her excursions into biblical Hebrew. Her essays examining aspects of the Song of Songs have been gathered together and published as Divine Love in the Song of Songs (SLG Press, 2024), while the present volume contains the studies of other texts from the Hebrew Bible and early Christian writers. Each essay is carefully crafted to explore some aspect of biblical interpretation or the literature and beliefs surrounding the origins of the Hebrew Bible, providing the reader with a wealth of information and considerable food for thought.

Most of us, most of the time, prefer not to think about the universal experience of death. Death arouses disturbing instincts, emotions and memories. This is a book for those wishing to understand more about the Christian journey at the end of life, but it is not just a book about death, it is also about living with courage and grace and about facing our fears. The author writes both for the dying and for those who accompany them. He examines the questions that we are often too afraid to ask, and helps us to encompass death through a deeper understanding of the promise of union with God and life everlasting.

This volume of essays gathers together some of the articles by Sr Edmée Kingsmill SLG that were published in the Fairacres Chronicle, the Journal of the Sisters of the Love of God, between 1977 and 2018. The collection concludes the series of books of her works collected and published in 2024 and 2025. Its title reflects the ways in which Sr Edmée examined penetratingly all that was around her, looking to all points of the compass in her interests, her reading, and her knowledge. This volume includes the brief essay that she wrote examining the meaning of her life’s journey, prefacing the texts of talks and articles on subjects that fascinated her and exercised her intellectually. She engaged with all of her subjects argumentatively, and in the case of her critiques of the work of other writers extended the reach of the subject of the book under review through her own exploration of its subject matter.

This book is about finding our spiritual home in God and how that helps us to lead a life of honesty and genuine love towards the rest of humanity and the planet that sustains our physical lives. A person comes home to God by learning how to walk by faith instead of being driven by fear; by finding freedom of spirit through accepting whatever yoke of discipline fits their situation. In this way a person comes not only to themselves, but to God: to a living knowledge of God. Through this understanding we reach the realization of God as our true home; someone who is always there when we turn to Him, who welcomes us back no matter how far we stray, or for how long. Our true home, our safe haven, the place where we are fully loved, is in God. Drawing on Townroe’s retreat talks, these essays span many decades, but the universal truths on which they are founded resonate through time and through the shifts and changes of our increasingly complex society.

As this title implies, praying is something that has to be learned, if it is to serve God’s purpose in our lives. Prayer begins with God whose invitation into a living relationship with him calls forth from us a continuing response to his redemptive love, which is always at work in the world. Mother Mary Clare’s practical guidance dispels a common misconception of prayer as the passive alternative to engagement with the needs of the world and humanity, and shows it to be, on the contrary, the most urgent and relevant task a Christian can undertake in union with Christ’s saving work. Originally given as a talk to Roman Catholic novices, Learning to Pray has retained its popularity for more than half a century and has been adapted for secular readers.

Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941) was a poet, novelist and author of numerous works on religion and spiritual practice, she is best known for her book Mysticism published in 1911 and still in print. She became a prominent Anglo-Catholic, proponent of contemplative prayer and member of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship and prolific author. Exceptionally, for a woman of her time, she gave lectures for the clergy, conducted retreats and established ecumenical links. She became an honorary Doctor of Divinity (University of Aberdeen) and a Fellow of King’s College for Women, London. This book examines Underhill’s approach to mysticism and includes eight hitherto unpublished letters written by her to a novice at the Convent of St Mary the Virgin at Wantage.

The slow progress of the churches in the twentieth century towards the unity for which Christ prayed is measured chiefly by official records of conferences, debates, declarations and agreements. What are less often recorded and rarely noticed at the individual relationships between one Christian and another of different confessions. Such personal encounters, sustained by mutual attraction, profound respect and above all by prayer, make a contribution which cannot be measured to the healing of wounds inflicted by centuries of division on the Body of Christ. This short study explores with care and sensitivity the spiritual friendship between an English Anglican and an Italian Roman Catholic, both women dedicated to the love and service of God, and both now commemorated in the Calendars of their several Churches.

In this bold exposition of the Psalms as the Word of God, Dietrich Bonhoeffer addresses Christians oppressed by an inability to pray. Holy Scripture itself provides us with a prayer book; we can speak to God in God’s own words and by using the Psalms, especially in fellowship with other Christians, we can participate with all humanity in the true prayer offered by the Incarnate Word. With and in Christ we pray the Psalms, confident that our prayer will be heard. ‘With these prayers on our lips we stand at the heart of the New Testament and in the fellowship of the Cross of Jesus Christ.’