Title: The Enchantment of the Parables  Author: Msgr. Michael J. Cantley, STD  ISBN 13: 978-0-8189-1319-8  ISBN 10: 0-8189-1319-3 Paperback: xxxii + 296 pp.  Price: $19.95 + shipping  To Order call: 1 800-343-ALBA (2522) Please have your Master, Visa or American Express card ready. To order online click here.

Stories have a wonderful suggestive power that awakens the imagination, stimulates thought and, like a well-ordered attic, keeps inviting the curious to examine their content. That is what Jesus did. Through the parables, he explicitly and implicitly invited his hearers, enemies among them, to look deeply into the hidden treasures of meaning that his stories contained. The parables were Jesus' favored instrument for communicating his message to his disciples, and for his attempt to break through the resistance of the scribes and Pharisees who opposed him. In the commentaries on individual parables it will become clear that many of them grew out of polemical encounters where Jesus had to defend his claims and explain his association with outcasts and sinners. But Jesus never stopped at defense, and he never intended retaliation for the attacks against him. His motivation went much deeper. He intended to plant a seed of God's truth in story form, hoping that as it ruminated through the memory of his sympathetic hearers they would come to a deeper understanding and, perhaps, acceptance of what he was teaching. This is precisely what centuries of discussion about the parables have done and what the present work hopes to continue by giving the parables another hearing.

 

Msgr. Michael J. Cantley, STD, a member of the Catholic Biblical Association and the Catholic Theological Society of America, was ordained for the Diocese of Brooklyn in 1955. He received his doctorate in theology at the Catholic University, Washington, D.C. in 1965. His teaching career began in 1959 at St. Joseph's College in Brooklyn and thereafter at the Major Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington, NY. At the same time he was an adjunct professor at St. John's University in Jamaica, NY. From 1983 till his retirement in 2004 he was pastor of St. Anastasia Parish in Douglaston, NY. In 1986 he was made a Prelate of Honor by Pope John Paul II. His articles have appeared in a number of journals including the New Catholic Enclopedia, American Ecclesiastical Review and The Linacre Quarterly. His book reviews have appeared in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly. Reviews Drawing on his many years as a teacher and pastor, Cantley explains his choice of the book's title on the grounds that Jesus' parables are unique in their power to thrill, rapture, and delight. After an eight-page preface and a twelve-page introduction, he treats the parable that concern entry into God's kingdom, prerequisite attitudes to enter God's kingdom, the cost of discipleship, the fullness of revelation in Jesus, and Christ's return and final judgment. Also included are a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount and an essay on bringing the story of the resurrection into modern times. --New Testament Abstracts, Volume 55, No. 2. The heart of this work is a thorough and reflective study of all the parables found in the gospels. Cantley, a retired professor of Scripture at Immaculate Conception Seminary in Huntington, NY, groups the parables into major themes according to their content. With each parable he offers a succinct explanation of its potential meaning, its place within the context of the particular gospel or gospels where it is found, and its setting within the Lectionary. Added to the volume are additional studies on Matthew's Sermon on the Mount (where there are a number of images in Jesus' sayings in the Sermon also found in the parables) and on the contemporary message of the resurrection. Preachers looking for helpful leads in preaching the parables will find solid background information here. --Donald Senior, CP in "The Bible in Review," The Bible Today, September 2011.           Around this time each year, without planning to do so, I frequently recommend a book as a possible Christmas gift. Friends have told me that when there is an occasion when they would like to offer a gift to a priest, deacon, seminarian or religious, they are stymied in trying to figure out what might be an appropriate gift. I think a good book is always a good gift. This year I think I have come upon a book that would be a marvelous gift to anyone who is a preacher or who is teaching scripture on any level. The book is Msgr. Michael J. Cantley's The Enchantment of the Parables. This marvelous book might be used on either the graduate or undergraduate level. It might also be used in adult education courses and in discussion groups. I can imagine it being used as a guide in prayer groups that are centered on the parables. The scholarship is first rate and the insights should be accessible to anyone who is interested in learning more about scripture, more specifically more about the parables of Jesus which are such an important part of Jesus' teaching in the New Testament.           Msgr. Cantley has given his book an appropriate title. The parables can enchant us, even seduce us, into entering into a deeper relationship with God. They are not merely interesting stories but invitations to our faith. They can stun us and challenge us and they can do this more than once. The same parable heard at different moments in our life can affect us in different ways.... I believe strongly in the power of stories to influence us, sometimes profoundly This belief is one reason why I have a strong interest in literature, theatre and film. These media can tell stories in a very powerful way. The parables are powerful stories that can stun us even if we have heard them many times. In his book, Msgr. Cantley comments on more than forty parables. In his introduction he writes the following about Jesus' use of parables:           He intended to plant a seed of God's truth in story form, hoping that as it ruminated through the memory of his sympathetic hearers they would come to a deeper understanding and, perhaps, acceptance of what he was teaching. There was the further hope that in time even those opposed to him at the beginning would awaken to the truth he was offering them.           Stories have a wonderful suggestive power that awakens the imagination, stimulates thought and, like a well ordered attic, keeps inviting the curious to examine their content. That is what Jesus did. Through the parables he explicitly and implicitly invited his hearers, enemies among them, to look deeply into the hidden treasures of meaning that his stories contained and mine their wisdom. This is precisely what centuries of discussion about the parables have done and we hope to continue to do with this book.           The project of this book is to give the parables another hearing.... We need to listen to them again, as though for the first time. We need to tease out the richness they contain; to allow them to become so deeply appropriated into our thought patterns that they influence our faith and motivate our actions. (pp. x1-11).           Christians interested in understanding the parables more deeply owe a debt of gratitude to Msgr. Michael Cantley. --Rev. Robert Lauder, Ph.D., professor at St. John's University and weekly commentator for the Brooklyn Tablet Top of Page