The Pope goes to the heart of wisdom and maturity

Sharing the Wisdom of Time, Pope Francis and friends

(Messenger Publications, €24.95 / £27.50)

This is a book inspired directly by Pope Francis. Youth, as we are all aware, knows it all, middle age has had ‘experience’, but maturity (surely to God a better term than ‘old age’), maturity has wisdom.

Though it contains reflections on life and how it ought to be lived by everyone for the best and for the benefit of all, it is the photographs that really catch the reader’s attention: the craggy faces of wisdom, the lively young faces reflecting a sheer joy in the vitality of life.

The idea was the Pope’s own. Some 250 people were asked by his editors to contribute their accounts of wisdom, age and experience. These were passed to the Pope who thought about them all and finally selected some 31 pieces which seemed to express what he had hoped for and on which he wrote his own comments.

Introduction

These are now published with his introduction and a splendid array of images. But this is not a book to be looked through once: it is a book to return to in the odd quiet moment – and we can all do with some of those in our days – to read a passage here and there, and to enjoy again and again the sheer human interest of the images.

This is a heartening, human book, one which achieves exactly what the Pope had hoped for it. His drive and creativity is truly remarkable, in himself he is a authentic example of wisdom in maturity.