Gerald ocollins autobiography

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The second journey

May 23, 2020

Subtitle: Spiritual Awareness and the Mid-Life Crisis

This book saved my life! Wow, that's dramatic. Well, maybe I am exaggerating. But it was given to me in the middle of my midlife crisis, as I was also going through other major transitions, such as leaving my religious order, etc. It shed light in darkness and opened a path through the confusing forest of feelings, thoughts and fears.
I recommend it whole-heartedly for those in smiliar predicaments.
The author, a Jesuit professor, is/was a proflific and gifted theologian who produced many learned books on a wide range of Catholic doctrinal topics. Here, he approaches an existential problem - it would even seem personal- and very realistically applies his humanistic and theological knowledge to help anyone lost and floundering.
A little masterpiece, which I whole-heartedly recommend to anyone wanting to intelligently and spiritually navigate their way out of a crisis, or that crisis of all crises, the mid life crisis

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Gerald O’Collins’ hospitable portraits

Gerald O’Collins SJ, Portraits: Popes, Family and Friends, Connor Court Publishing, ISBN9781925826302

Those who have read Fr Gerald O’Collins’ three volumes of autobiography will be delighted to find the same easy and confident style in Portraits: Popes, Family and Friends. It complements the earlier books by offering short portraits of significant people in his life, ranging from his parents to popes and to a wide range of friends.

Of the people whom he describes, the best known are the popes whom he came to know while teaching in Rome: Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. He writes of them in a way that catches their humanity and assesses the lights and shadows in their contribution to the Church.

His portraits are enlivened by accounts of his meetings with them and by vivid details that speak more powerfully than eulogies. For example, his description of a sermon of Paul VI conveys poignantly his frailty and solitude:

‘When the time came for the homily, the officials put him in a chair in front of the altar,

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“If we don’t get Jesus right, we won’t get the church right.”

These words from a 2015 America interview with Gerald O’Collins, S.J., might provide a decent introduction to the intellectual and spiritual passions of this prominent systematic theologian who died in Melbourne on Aug. 22, 2024. In the same interview, he called Jesus the “constant companion of my life,” saying that “Jesus is the One on whom I want to center all my thinking and loving.”

The reality of Jesus and the reality of the church—and how both should be interpreted and understood—were the topics of many of the more than 75 books Father O’Collins wrote or co-wrote over his long life and career, and certainly the focus of his teaching over the years. His books are used as theological textbooks in many locales, but probably none has been thumbed through by more students than his 1995 book Christology. O’Collins revised it twice, incorporating new trends and insights in the field to expand the book’s scope.

Born in Melbourne in 1931, Gerald O’Collins entered the Society of Jesus in 1950. Ordained in 1963, he ea