This is a book that provides fertile ground for further writing and reflection. While the language is rather dry, if given the time it really deserves, each few pages will leave you torn between continuing your reading or running out to plant yourself under a tree to sit and work out the cramps in your brain. Rather than offering an idea of some unnatural marriage of Buddhism and Catholicism, Father Aelred concerns himself only with Zen practice and what the Zen sages have to teach us(meaning Westerners) in regard to incessant prayer and what the Psalmist meant in writing "Be still and know that I am God". This is a book that begs for further dialogue within the Church as Father Aelred seems to be hot on the trail of how express the way in which one can be in the world but not of it. It's sort of a scholarly Thomas Merton type of book.

This book is a fairly dense but well written exploration of how Zen might help Catholics "to realize more fully their own spiritual inheritance." Graham's take on Zen in relation to Catholicism is theologically astute and experientially grounded. Graham, who was a Benedictine monk, notes that he is not inviting readers "to embark on a daring theological adventure" (the book received an ecclesiastical imprimatur). Rather, he is inviting readers "to look into [their] own nature and that of the Church" and to consider Graham's suggestion that, at their existential depths, Zen and Catholicism share the same basic message. This book was first published in 1963, but I think it's still one of the best books relating Buddhism and Christianity.

"What God tolerates we have no business to find intolerable."

"Zen Catholicism" is a very well-written "crossroads" type book. Certainly a must read for any Catholics that may feel other religions or denominations are "more spiritual". Other Christians can certainly learn a lot, if not more, from this type of theology as well.

Since Thomistic/Aristotelean thought has become outdated as far as academic philosophy is concerned, the Church has been in need of a paradigm shift to find a better philosophy to back up Catholic spirituality. Graham may well be along that road.