This is a wonderful starting point for serious prayer about
World Peace. Fr Hans Kung says, "there can never be peace until the three tributarys of monotheasim can join in prayer to the ONE Father. Cardinal Bernardin leads the way to understanding of that faithful fact. jmk

At a time when extremists of both the left and the right continue to polarize the Catholic Church in the USA for what, in many cases, are no more than their own self-serving ends, it is imperative that moderate and unity-minded Catholics take up the hard work outlined by the esteemed Cardinal Bernadin in bringing church-splitting extremists to the table of dialogue. As Paul wrote in his letters, "Is Christ divided? Can one say, am I of Apollos and another, I am of Paul?" Bernadin had the intelligence, foresight, and grace to see that the Common Ground Iniative would be a way for moderate peacemakers in the Church to bring our feuding brothers and sisters together in a calmer, more productive manner. His words still ring prophetic. Come, let us reason together, that we may all be one. At the very least, the Common Ground Initiative offers real hope and stability against the polarizing impulses of special-interest Catholics whose myopic North American/USA point-of-view fails to include the mission of the worldwide church. We owe it to Cardinal Bernadin and his legacy to equip ourselves for the work of healing and reconciliation in any way we can.

This book is a wonderful glimpse at the final days of one of America's most prominent Catholic leaders. Cardinal Bernardin embraced his trials with grace and dignity, and thus set an example for all of us. For those who would like a glimpse at the death of this great Catholic leader, I really can't say enough good about this book.

Whatever your exposure to the late Cardinal, you must admire his example of the Christian life. In the Gift of Peace, he invited us to walk beside him during his final months. In this volume, Spilly & Langford have artfully woven together extended excerpts from his homilies while Archbishop of Chicago. The book is divided into chapters identified by the Stations of the Cross -- a device that both illuminates the Cardinal's own words, as well as the putting the Way of the Cross into a contemporary context, thus reminding us that the Cross itself is as real today as it was two thousand years ago.

If you loved Cardinal Bernadin as we in Chicago did, you will of course love this book. But even if this is your first encounter, you will come to know him like a dear friend -- and learn much from his humility, his prayerfulness, his humiliation and exoneration, and his very public suffering and passing.

Cardinal Bernardin talks candidly about dealing with a false accusation of sexual misconduct, his panceatic cancer, and his later terminal illness and preparation for death. He talks about surrendering to the Will of God and how to do this. I found it helpful in finding peace within crisis, and hope within despair. I recommend it without reservation

Recently I lost my father to a 10 year bout with cancer. This book provided me with joy, tears and abudance within a month of my own fathers death. Cardinal Bernardin was a remarkable man who had the courage to face his accusers, his illness and ulitmately his death. He has reconfirmed that faith, hope, love, forgivenss and kindness is the very essentials of what life needs to be about. It is clear from the Cardinal as it was from my experience with my own father that even when you think you are at your darkest human hour you need to reach out and make a difference every single day until your final moment in this part of your journey here on earth.

This book is a must read for anyone who has doubted that there is peace in death. He reconfirms that the lessons most important in life are to continue to give of yourself every day despite the adversities you face. In his illness, through his false accusation and his wonderful rediscovery of a deeper faith in Christ it makes accepting God's plan for you important.

Anyone who has an ill parent or someone close to them should read this book it will give you a much clearer spiritual understanding of illness, death and living every moment under God's plan.

America was drawn to the story of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin when he publicly shared with the community of the Archdiocese of Chicago the news that his liver cancer was inoperable on August 30, 1996. The Cardinal wrote The Gift of Peace to share his thoughts on the last three years of his life. His writing reflects the principal role of a Roman Catholic bishop - - the teaching office, to nourish within the community the principles of faith illustrated by the realities that present themselves in the course of everyday life.

Like most Americans outside of Chicago, I first learned about the Cardinal in the news coverage that accompanied his last year on the front pages of the newspapers. He wanted to walk with the community as he confronted his death. Sharing with the community both the pain of his illness and the discoveries of the intellect that bridged for him, first acceptance of his terminal illness, and then the process of personal reconciliation of his life journey.

There are so many books upon the shelves of Amazon.com on the topic of Death and Dying. None of them adequate to the task of being "how to's", but offering reasonable guidance for that most personal of tasks, confronting personal death and death in the family. Yet, I keep coming back to The Gift of Peace. Perhaps, because of the Cardinal's one-to-one conversation by which he engages the reader.

For those of us that can prepare for death, a struggle may develop as we form a personal inner conversation to embrace with grace and maturity and purpose our changed fortune. The Cardinal models in the journey of his illness the direction our own path may take.

Upon hearing the first fateful news of his illness, the Cardinal experienced a feeling of helplessness. The same helplessness I nervously experienced when the heart specialist began taking my history. The Cardinal acknowledged then, as I did also, the state of great anxiety as patients wait to hear from doctors what their fate will be. "God was teaching me yet again just how little control we really have and how important it is to trust in him."

The Cardinal describes how terrible illness changes lives - - not only the life of the person carrying it, but also the lives of friends and family members who love and care for that person. We follow in the book's narrative the Cardinal's trajectory along illness as described by Therese A. Rando: keeping alive, understanding and acknowledging the illness, experiencing the pain, framing realistic expectations and completing unfinished business.

And in the midst of the Cardinal's struggle, he continued his own ministry to others with cancer. "Somehow when you make eye contact," he says, "when you convince people that you really care - - that at that particular moment they are the only ones that count - - then you establish a new relationship." It is all about entering into an intimacy with those we minister to, however brief, forever permanent.

Jesus learned this lesson from the Canaanite woman to whom he first avoided, saying he was sent to minister only to the house of Israel." She continued to confront him, to engage him. She established a relationship that from that moment forward propelling Jesus' ministry beyond Israel to embrace all the nations. For ministry, the Cardinal concludes, is about imparting a sense that "somehow you truly care and have somehow mediated the love, mercy and compassion of the Lord."

Ministry to the dying is all about strengthening the relationship between each person and God. I understand that each of our ministerial encounters is unique. Our need for healing is no different in dying than in living - - however the more apparent and actively sought out for. I strive to go to the bedside with practical skills fashioned around a dynamic toolbox of appropriate pastoral applications.

A dynamic shaped by what the Cardinal would call prayer and prayer's search for peace. Peace that accompanies recognition, acceptance, reconciliation. And as a pastor, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin offers us a simple prayer that we may find the gift of peace. It is in the journey toward death's great mystery that we call out to the Lord for peace. The peace that finds voice in prayer. Prayer that nourishes. Prayer that heals. Prayer that reconciles. Prayer that brings us to salvation.

Best friends are complex characters. Both sides develop a synergy which goes beyond clear tangibles and virtues. When your best friend is famous, and that person dies, the surviving friend has an obligation to seek perspective. Eugene Kennedy needed more time and distance to adequately honor his friend, the late Cardinal Bernadin. Kennedy's emotions are too raw. He seeks sainthood for his friend. After setting that standard, the book becomes defensive. Kennedy tries to be poetic, but he can not sustain that type of prose for 175 pages. In the end Mr. Kennedy tried to honor his friend with emotions and flowery prose. It would have been better if the author had more confidence in Cardinal Bernadin's own words and deeds. We would have learned more about a great man than the slim concepts gained from this endeavor.

Like my fellow reviewers, I agree that Kennedy is hardly an objective, dispassionate biographer. As he makes clear from the outset of the book, he and Cardinal Bernardin were close, personal friends for many years, and the latter's death in 1995 was a deep personal loss to the author. I certainly would have appreciated a few more words about Bernardin's personal flaws, a subject which Kennedy glosses over. Nonetheless, Eugene Kennedy is one of America's most highly respected Catholic thinkers and, if this book is somewhat lacking in evenhandedness, I remain convinced that what appears within its covers is accurate and reliable. Because of his direct access to Bernardin, Kennedy is able to give us a "behind the scenes look" at some of the most fascinating episodes in recent church history: the 1978 election of Popes John Paul I and II; the scandal involving John Cardinal Cody, Bernardin's predecessor as Archbishop of Chicago and the target of a federal criminal investigation; the politics surrounding the drafting of the bishops' pastoral letter on nuclear arms; the shocking allegations of sexual misconduct by Bernardin (later retracted by the accuser); and the Cardinal's courageous handling of the news that he was dying of cancer. But this book is more than just an ecclesiastical "tell-all"; it's also a loving account of a very special man and priest. What I find so extraordinary about Bernardin -- and EVERYONE who knew him attests to this -- was his humility, gentleness, and total lack of pretension. How, I wondered, does a man who rises so high in both Church and society remain so down-to-earth, so unaffected by the honors and the "hype". Somehow, Joseph Bernardin knew how to do this.

Writing a memoir about friendship is a tricky endeavor. Events and conversations, times of consolation and alienation, moments of intimacy -- all those elements that go into making up the best of relationships -- are suddenly on display. Living through them, you somehow thought they would never catch the light of day. Now they are out there for all to see. Eugene Kennedy's poignant and inspiring tale about his more than thirty years of friendship with Joseph Bernardin, the late archbishop of Chicago, convinces us that it is worth the risk to share the details about these precious relationships. Anyone who has ever had a best friend will cherish this book.

My Brother Joseph, however, is much more than the tale of a friendship between two men. The book also provides us with an understanding about how Bernardin grew into a much-admired and loved churchman who provided energetic and visionary leadership to the Archdiocese of Chicago and the Catholic church in the United ! ! States.

Kennedy helps us appreciate that Bernardin was niether a dealmaker nor a crafter of compromises; he was instead a genuine consensus builder. His genius as a leader lay in his ability to maintain that delicate balance between loyalty to the institution and respect for the person. Bernardin also refused to typecast people. This capacity helped him work effectively with fellow bishops holding different points of view and was one of the gifts he used eventually to produce the US bishops' pastoral letter on war and peace.

Most memorable in Kennedy's book, however, is the very human person who emerges in its pages. We see Bernardin in those unguarded moments that we all have with good friends -- moments when, free of self-censorship, we say exactly what's on our mind. We are also privileged to witness the growth of his ever deepening spirituality.

The friend that Kennedy had in Bernardin was no plaster saint. Yes, he was ambitious. While still Archbishop of Cincinnat! ! i, for example, he confided to Kennedy that he would very m! uch like to head the Chicago archdiocese. While tolerant of others, their idiosyncractic behavior was not lost on him. He cloaked his reactions to these annoyances, however, in subtle humor.

Kennedy has done us an enormous favor in sharing with us his years of friendship with Bernardin. We come away from this book convinced that God did have a dream for Joseph Bernardin and that this exceptional man spent his life discerning just what that dream was about and living it out. Each step along the way helped make him what he was at the end: an extraordinary leader, a compassionate pastor, a dear friend. Simply put, he was the very best of men.