REGULAR READERS of The Southern Cross will have read Julia Beacroft’s occasional columns which tie feast days of the Church to everyday life experiences. These columns are brief. Beacroft’s reflections in Sanctifying the Spirit are more comprehensive, taking various turns as they journey towards their conclusion.

In this book, intended as “a personal guide to catechesis and the New Evangelisation”, Beacroft reflects on themes such as faith, evangelisation, vocations (for laity too), prayer, healing, love, change, sin, freedom, the search for happiness and more. Each chapter is structured so that it can be read on its own, which means that this book can be approached out of sequence.

In her reflections, Beacroft, who has a masters in pastoral theology and serves as a catechist in her southern England parish, draws from her own life experience and those of others. In doing so she aims to show how God is at work in our lives in surprising ways.

God, Beacroft writes, is never apart from us, even if we don’t notice his presence. But being aware of his presence facilitates our encounters with the divine — sometimes most unexpectedly.

Our communication with God is called prayer, she notes, and the way people pray comes in all sorts of different forms. Sometimes formulated prayers and guided spiritual reflections help to keep us on the right path.

Other times and for other people, spontaneous, freestyling prayer and reflection is the best way to communicate with God,

Beacroft suggests.

She is particularly good at chronicling how the latter type of prayer and reflection can produce great rewards.