New Books Published - "To Become All Flame"

Volumes I and II Now Available

I am very happy to share that the first two volumes of To Become All Flame have now been published. The third and final volume is expected to be available next week.

Although presented in three volumes because of its length, To Become All Flame was conceived and written as one book. The divisions are practical rather than conceptual. The three volumes belong together and are best read as a single, continuous movement.

At its heart, To Become All Flame is about the transformation of the human person in the love of God.

Drawing deeply upon the Desert Fathers, St. Isaac the Syrian, the Philokalia, and the great ascetical tradition of the Church, the book follows the spiritual life from fear toward wonder, from striving toward receptivity, and from the fragmentation of the heart toward the simplicity of love. Prayer, repentance, silence, suffering, mercy, desire, and surrender are not treated as separate subjects, but as movements of a single mystery: the gradual awakening of the heart to the God who has already drawn near.

The title comes from the ancient saying attributed to Abba Joseph. When Abba Lot asked him what more he could do, the old man raised his hand toward heaven, his fingers became like ten lamps of fire, and he said:

“If you will, you can become all flame.”

Perhaps the whole of the spiritual life is contained there.

We spend so much of our lives trying to become something for God. The Fathers invite us into something deeper: to consent to the fire already given—to allow grace to consume whatever cannot endure love until prayer is no longer merely something we do, but something we become.

These three volumes trace that movement.

Volumes I and II are now available. Volume III, God willing, will follow next week.

And so, while three books will eventually sit beside one another on the shelf, I hope they will be received as they were written:

one book, one journey, one movement of desire toward the Fire that has always been seeking us.