A review by celeste57
Bread & Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter by Philip Yancey, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis

hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.0

 Bread and Wine is a collection of reflections on Lent and Easter and why both matter.  As a Protestant, Lent isn’t something I ever observed or even knew much about until the last few years.  The same can be said of Advent.  But something I’ve come to respect deeply about Catholicism are the sacred rhythms of their year.  Evangelicals tend to see Easter and Christmas as important days, sure, but they’re only a day each.  Catholics (and some of the more ritualistic Protestant faiths) see the importance of meditating on these events instead of flying through them, of observing a season of preparing the heart for the celebrations.  I love this, and it’s something I’m trying to institute in my own life.  One of the biggest ways I’m doing this is through reading such meditative works as the writings showcased in Bread and Wine. 

 

In this book, we have a collection of 72 brief essays or excerpts about the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, as well as a handful of poems.  No author has more than one inclusion.  While there were authors included that I already loved and was familiar with, like C.S. Lewis, Madeline L’Engle, N.T. Wright, G.K. Chesterton, Philip Yancey, and more, I was also introduced to an incredible amount of new-to-me writers, or those I’ve heard of but whose work I’ve never read.  Among these were Amy Carmichael, Frederic Buechner, Søren Kierkegaard, and Dorothy Sayers.  

 

As with any collection including so many authors, the pieces varied wildly in terms of quality.  None were terrible, but some were certainly better than others.  There are about twenty that I loved enough to mark so that I could return to them easily.  My favorites of these were written by: Barbara Cawthorne Crafton, Kahlil Gibran, Dorothy Sayers, Peter Kreeft, Brennan Manning, Frederica Mathewes-Green, Philip Yancey, Amy Carmichael, Barbara Brown Taylor, and (a poem by) John Updike.  

 

I found some of these profoundly moving, or thought-provoking, or both.  Many were penned by people from different faith backgrounds from mine, which helped me stretch myself.  Even if I didn’t agree with every single piece theologically, they still made me think and look outside of my own narrow beliefs.  Overall, I really enjoyed my time with Bread and Wine, and I feel like it did a lot to help prepare my heart to celebrate the Resurrection.  The same company has another book, Watch for the Light, that is similar readings for Advent and Christmas, and I will absolutely be buying myself a copy before December.  I can see both of these being books that I revisit in part or whole on a yearly basis.