Only Wonder Comprehends: John Garvey in Commonweal

For over forty years, John Garvey was the “ballast” of Commonweal magazine. His award-winning essays and consistently notable columns revealed not only his acuity and alacrity, but his uncommon spiritual insight. These in turn provided momentum and substance for whatever followed in an issue of the magazine because Garvey never hesitated to wrestle with some of the most challenging and intractable topics of the day, and did so with a rich pastoral sensitivity, and a refreshing and rare intelligence. Only Wonder Comprehends gleans from John Garvey’s many contributions to Commonweal that reflect his spiritual depth and deep appreciation of history, politics, theology, and culture. Steeped in the Christian tradition, Garvey loved to write and, in return, his readers relished what he wrote. It is hoped that this collection of his writings from Commonweal will inspire readers to cultivate a similar sense of attentiveness and commitment, for as the author himself observed, “Religious traditions are meant to transform us, not to affirm us as we are.”

Table of Contents:
Contents Foreword Groundings    Climbing Trees    Confidence v. Certainty    A Tree Full of Monkeys    Admitting Ignorance    Telling the Christian Story    The New Atheists Portals    The Fiction of Philip K. Dick    Christo’s Gates    Not a Wasted Word    Philip Roth’s Everyman    Myths, Fables & Parables Incarnation, Death, Resurrection, Love    Found, Not Made    An Unimaginable Intimacy    Flesh Wounds    What Is the Point of Suffering?    Outrageous or Meaningless?    Resurrection or Resignation?    More than Sentiment A Priest of and for His Times    The Splendor of Orthodox Spirituality   What a Priest Does    Priests Should Be Married    Gender & Religious Symbols    When Church & State Marry    When Christians Kill    Why People Leave the Church Doxologies    Sing Out    The Decline of Friendship    Only Wonder Comprehends    The Beginning of Wisdom Books by John Garvey Index  

About the Author :
Patrick Jordan (1944 – 2025) served as the former managing editor of The Catholic Worker. He and his wife Kathleen were associated with Dorothy Day from 1968 until her death in 1980. From 1984 to 2012, Jordan was an editor at Commonweal magazine. He is the author of Hold Nothing Back: Writings by Dorothy Day, and Dorothy Day: Love in Action; and served as editor of Dorothy Day: Writings from Commonweal, and Only Wonder Comprehends: John Garvey in Commonweal, published by Liturgical Press. He served on the advisory board of the Dorothy Day Guild.

Review :
John's columns are gems of the plain style: conversational, first-person, direct, without elaborate metaphors or clever categories. He introduced people from his pastoral experience or from the rest of his everyday life: `I once knew a man who..' Or, `A woman who sat next to me on a four-hour bus ride..' Where many columnists dwell on the world's wholesale miseries, John went retail: the loss of a loved one, or of love, or of faith, or of purpose.Peter Steinfels