As a former Jesuit seminarian and current writer and literary critic, Gerard Windsor is well-placed to explore Catholic faith and identity from both a theological and personal standpoint in his recent book, The Tempest-Tossed Church. Photo: Sourced.
As a former Jesuit seminarian and current writer and literary critic, Gerard Windsor is well-placed to explore Catholic faith and identity from both a theological and personal standpoint in his recent book, The Tempest-Tossed Church.
Indeed, personal experience infuses each chapter as Windsor reflects on his own journey of faith as a student in 1950s and 60s Sydney to his life as a family man, professional in Australian cultural life, inheritor of Irish-Catholic tradition and occasional pilgrim of the Chemin de Saint Jacques in France.
The book – which was published by NewSouth Publishing earlier this year – contains 31 chapters, including 12 ‘portraits’ of people Windsor has met in different places, whom he thinks of as good examples of the ‘communion of saints’.
These include a neighbour who receives an unexpected windfall of money and donates it to charity, a memorable teacher at Loyola College, his mother’s carer who sings hymns in the early morning, and two children with Down’s Syndrome who model an idea of a family with a doll in a photograph.
Other chapters discuss the uniquely Catholic culture which Windsor grew up with – and which existed alongside, and had equal value with Australian secular culture (‘Getting Religion’), the value of Christianity’s incarnate God in Jesus, and the tension between earthly and heavenly concerns and how Christian symbolism and scripture has enriched culture in a way that appears to be diminishing (‘Stories and Pictures’).
Windsor also takes an in-depth look at the figure of Jesus and how he’s been interpreted down the ages, from the ‘gentle Jesus meek and mild’ to the man of the people and the figure whose inscrutability and individuality marked Him out as being different from those around Him.
Connected to this is a chapter on prayer, which asks: what is the best way to get to know Jesus and to speak with Him? Here, Windsor reflects on different approaches, such as those of Ignatius of Loyola and Catholic mystics.
Some chapters tackle difficult subjects such as the human approach to death and redemption, and what our faith can teach us about this – again, personal experience makes an appearance, as the author describes his mother’s last hours.
The situation of contemporary Catholicism is also addressed in several chapters, as Windsor looks at the child sexual abuse scandal which had rocked the Church in Australia, and the debates that have emerged since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.
Overall, The Tempest-Tossed Church provides a thoughtful reflection on what it means to be a Catholic in Australia today, providing an overview of its contribution to culture and social justice, and raising questions that encourage contemplation on a number of topics.