Title: The Pursuit of Happiness - God's Way: Living the Beatitudes  Author: Servais Pinckaers, O.P.  ISBN: 0-8189-0797-5  Paperback: xii + 204 pp.  Price: $6.95 + shipping  To Order call:  1 800-343-ALBA (2522)  Please have your Master  or Visa card ready To order online click here.

When we think of happiness, we have to admit that our idea is at times worldly and self-centered. Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount showed us that true happiness will elude us, however, if we follow that kind of thinking. And, in the form of a series of promises and challenges which we have come to know as the Beatitudes, He told us how to find perfect happiness -- both here and hereafter. These pages have been written in the conviction that every seeker should make the Sermon on the Mount the primary source of what will and will not make them happy. In its approach to the question Jesus insists from the outset that we face up to the inevitable trials of life: poverty, tears, hunger and thirst, and shows us how we can find God -- the source and object of our joy -- in the midst of them.

 

Servais Pinckaers, O.P., is presently professor of moral theology at the University of Fribourgh in Switzerland. The author of a dozen major works in French in the area of moral theology and spirituality, he is best known in the English-speaking world for his recently published work entitled The Sources of Christian Ethics (Catholic University of America Press, 1995). Alba House is proud to introduce him to an even broader audience with this publication.  Reviews "In this little book Pinckaers offers his readers an excellent commentary-reflection on the Beatitudes which constitute the central core of the Sermon on the Mount.... Pinckaers is of the opinion, and rightly so, that Christian moral teaching must retrieve the Sermon on the Mount and return it to its central position [in Christian moral teaching], if it is to be able to foster Gospel-rootedness and respond to the call to renewal of Vatican II, for in the Sermon on the Mount one finds the essence of Jesus' response to the human desire for happiness.... Hence Pinckaers goes on to uncover each word, each precious truth, the vital seed, the 'realistic' message from the Beatitudes, so that his readers can receive this word, cherish it and live it, for the Sermon on the Mount is addressed to all who listen to Jesus, and in fact to all people. Pinckaers has performed a masterly task. His work is highly commended to all." --Peter Lobo, OP in Dominican Ashram Book Reviews, 2000 "The author of the influential and very scholarly The Sources of Christian Ethics here offers a popular and deceptively simple exposition of the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes, he insists, are not an 'interim ethic,' as some theologians claim, nor a set of impossible commands, but the promise of the new life in the Spirit of God. They are the way to happiness (i.e., beatitude), which is God's purpose for his children. For those times when you know you must go back to the sources to drink again from the well of spiritual wisdom, The Pursuit of Happiness is warmly recommended." --Richard John Neuhaus in First Things, August/September 1998  "A fine introduction to the beatitudes as a path leading to the happiness of God. Pinckaers sees morality, as does Augustine, as a search for happiness. The blunt realism of the Gospel is not about glowing dreams or imaginary Edens but insists that the believer face the inevitabilities of life: poverty, tears, hunger, thirst. Out of this is shaped the beatitudes, and therein is the essence of the response of Jesus to the human desire for happiness. A very interesting consideration by this moral theology professor from Switzerland's University of Fribourg." --"Winter Books" in the National Catholic Reporter, November 6, 1998 "Pinckaers offers new insights on the beatitudes, a refreshing change from others who have also commented on them, including St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas (whose positions he outlines in a final chapter). The Pursuit of Happiness is a gem suitable for everyone in their personal lives. Preachers and homilists will find in it a wealth of ideas, fresh and contemporary. It is the best book bargain of the year." --Stanley M. Grabowski, Ph.D. in Pastoral Life, November 1998 "A scholarly examination in 11 chapters, including a look at the Commentaries of St. Augustine and St. Thomas. Among chapters: 'Meekness and the Menagerie Within; I Will Give You a New Heart; In Search of the Sources of Peace.' Author's premise: The secret to true happiness can be found in the Sermon on the Mount, e.g., finding God in the midst of life's trials (poverty, hunger, etc.) is the key to happiness, and the Beatitudes show us how to do that." --Crux of the News, October 26, 1998 Top of Page