Much has been written on the last words of Jesus, the traditional phrases taken from Scripture that depict the final moments of Jesus’s life as he dies on the cross. In this new take on the last words, author Dan Horan brings a fresh perspective to this time-honored meditation as he challenges readers to look at their lives through the lens of Jesus’s suffering and death. Yet interlaced with suffering, the focus throughout is on the immense love of God for human beings, shown in the gift of Jesus, God made flesh. In his preface, Horan writes: “In a world that remains irrevocably shaped by the suffering of the human condition, the misunderstanding between groups and cultures symbolized by the horrific events of September 11, we need to hear Christ’s words anew.” He gives us a different look into these words by drawing on works by other noted scholars and spiritual writers, then fashioning a view of these phrases that’s contemporary and thought-provoking. An ideal Lenten companion, especially during Holy Week, The Last Words of Jesus will also serve as a useful meditation throughout the year on the deep love Jesus bore for us in taking on the human condition.The audio edition of this book can be downloaded via Audible.
Author, Franciscan friar, and popular retreat leader Dan Horan puts Christian dilemmas into a new light in this new book of thoughtful reflections. As Paul made clear to the Corinthians two thousand years ago, being a Christian can mean appearing out-of-step at times. This is because a Christian’s priorities aren’t measured by the culture, but according to the reign of God that Jesus preached and modeled. In this collection of essays, Horan demonstrates that the Christian life is most often focused on the counterintuitive and gratuitous foolishness of God’s love revealed in the healing of the broken and brokenhearted, forgiving the unforgiveable, and loving the unlovable. Like Jesus’s early followers, the ethical implications of Jesus’s words and deeds for those of us who would follow him are not always what’s expected of us. But the risk of appearing foolish never stopped “God’s Fool,” St. Francis of Assisi, from embracing the Gospel as best he could, protesting the injustices of certain social systems, and letting nothing get in the way of his relationship with others. God Is Not Fair and Other Reasons for Gratitude addresses what it means to follow Christ in the modern world, opens up the Gospels to explore what Jesus has to say to our situations and predicaments, and delves into what it means to faithfully live by vows—counterculturally—today.
