The Pocket-Size God: Essays from 'Notre Dame Magazine'

In this stirring collection of columns by Notre Dame cleric Griffin, readers get a glimpse of an uncommonly giving man who struggled to reconcile changes in society%E2%80%94and within the university%E2%80%94with the precedents of a long line of Catholic scholars who came before him. The 49 essays in the collection, published between 1972 and 1994 in Notre Dame Magazine, show Griffin wrestling with changes in the church following the Second Vatican Council, answering concerned students about issues of sexuality and faith%E2%80%94especially in the touching "A Letter to the Class of '73"%E2%80%94and telling stories of his ministry both on campus and in the parishes of New York City, where he spent his summers among the indigent and marginalized. Griffin's selfless commitment to the needy comes through in his stirring portraits of Manhattan characters%E2%80%94such as Bernie Halloran, who insisted on giving roses to prostitutes on Christmas, or the curmudgeonly Simeon, who discusses Scripture and Dante with Griffin outside a local Catholic school. In the standout essay "The Flame Keepers," Griffin makes an impassioned case for the "mystique of a priesthood passed down like the apostolic succession... as a visual expression of invisible truth." For those interested Notre Dame this collection will be a treasure; for those with no affiliation, there is still plenty of empathy, wisdom, and poetry to be found in Griffin's thoughtful columns. (Mar.)