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Author Profile |
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Sing A New Song
The Christian Vocation
Timothy Radcliffe, OP
300 pages
Templegate Publishers, 1999
Retail Price: $15.95
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In Sing a New Song, Radcliffe addresses themes of vocation, sexuality, prayer, community and the value of living simply and responsibly. While originally addressed to Dominicans throughout the world, Sing a New Song is for all.
Book Review
Timothy Radcliffe’s Sing a New Song: The Christian Vocation is outstanding, delightful, profound. The book comprises lectures he has given on various occasions, letters written to the Dominican Order, and shorter selections such as reflections occasioned by a trip to Iraq or the murder of Pierre Claverie, OP, Bishop of Oran, Algeria.
Although the book is a collection of some of Radcliffe’s speeches, letters, and shorter articles, the title captures the tone of the entire tome. There is something new here; it can be enjoyed; and it is intended for all Christians. What is new is that Radcliffe offers us an alternative way of seeing our world, a radically old way of seeing it to be sure, a Christian perspective, but he gives it a freshness and makes us aware of it. And why not sing, whether singing gives us courage or expresses a deep joy.
The book contains keen insights into what it means to be a Christian in our modern world as well as what it means to be human. Although many of the addresses and letters were addressed to religious, indeed all the letters were addressed to his own Dominican family, nevertheless they respond to our human longings and search.
In his introduction, Radcliffe tells us that religious life (a phrase he admits not liking) only has meaning insofar as it sheds light on the human vocation. This is why the book has an importance beyond Catholic religious alone. Although he writes as a Dominican, he speaks to all religious in his reflections on religious life, but also to youth who are struggling with how to make sense of the world in which they find themselves, as well as to all Christians who yearn to understand more deeply the importance of their Christian vocation. This is so apparent in his 1998 address to the major religious superiors of France, entitled “The Bear and the Nun.” I loved it.
Yet it is impossible to pick out a favorite in the book since each selection contains a distinctive reflection. Radcliffe is passionate as well as prophetic, witty as well as wise. He has a clarity of analysis as well as an ease in communicating. His writing conveys a refreshing honesty. Here is a man who has something to say, and something worth hearing. I recommend the book; we all need to hear the message.
Author Profile
Knowing Father Radcliffe, whom people know simply as Timothy, enables one to see a great congruence between who he is and what he says. To know him is to be able to see clearly, visibly, his message. But what he writes also enables one to feel that they know him. His writing is not in any way a self-conscious self-disclosure; yet the man comes through - his passion, his intellectual acumen, his humanness and compassion, the breadth of experience, his love of life and yet a profound awareness of its pain. He is acutely aware of what is wrong with our world, yet he is a happy man, unafraid of affect, committed. Those who know him closely often describe him as free. Above all he is a Dominican friar, a preacher par excellence.
Timothy was born in 1945, in England, where he entered the Dominican Order, the English Province of the Order of Preachers, in 1964, a very young man. And young he has remained although having been asked to carry many responsibilities in the Order. He did studies at Blackfriars in Oxford, as well as in Paris, and obtained his degree in New Testament, on which subject he lectured at Oxford for many years.
His knowledge and insight into the New Testament is reflected in his speeches and letters. Every letter is grounded in a biblical citation or scene which allows him to develop his thoughts on a particular topic while at the same time elucidating the timeliness of the Scriptures. He has a love for Scripture, as he does for life, as he does for the Dominican Order. His first assignment after ordination was as a university chaplain in London, and to this day he is attentive to youth and what we can learn from them. This too is reflected in his writings. They are in touch with the questions and issues of our day.
At an early age Timothy was elected Provincial of the English Province of the Friars Preachers, and during his first term in that office, he was elected Master of the Order at its General Chapter in Mexico City in 1992. He is the first Englishman to serve in that position which he still holds. His nine year term will end in 2001.
He blends well a sincere charm, a humanness, and capacity for leadership. He speaks from both heart and head to the deepest yearnings of the human spirit. In this he finds the meaning of his own life and of religious life.
As Master of the Order, Timothy has traveled extensively on every continent, present to every friar, listening to their concerns and helping to carry their burdens. His affection for the brotherhood and Dominican family is matched by their affection for him.
Timothy does not keep a tidy room. No one has complimented him for well groomed hair. Once when ringing the door of a convent to which he was going to give a retreat, the sister referred him to the side door where handouts to the homeless were distributed. Pretentious he is not; his geniuses has led to great respect. He lives what he believes, and he preaches what he lives. He is a friar, a preacher, very human, deeply Christian, genuinely Catholic.
Donald Goergen is a Dominican friar, preacher, lecturer, author and theologian, currently living with the "Friends of God," a Dominican Ashram and contemplative community in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He taught theology for many years and was the provincial for the Central Province of Dominican Friars. He was born and raised in western Iowa.
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