By Alban Goodier, S.J.

“The school of Christ is the school of love.” Echoing these words of St. Robert Bellarmine, Pope Benedict XVI describes love as the heart of the Christian faith and the fundamental decision of the Christian life. “God is love and we have learned to recognize the love God has in our regard, to recognize it, and to make it our belief,” in the words of St. John the Evangelist. The hand of God has bestowed on mankind a loving nature; the meaning of life is nothing more and nothing less than the development of this nature. In the school of self-love, it can be clipped or stunted into a caricature of itself. In the school of true love, it is cultivated and fostered, grown to its full stature of perfection in Christ Jesus the Lord.

A hungry heart is the foundation of a saintly heart…. And God so loves a hungry heart that He will stir the hunger in a hundred ways. (Alban Goodier, S.J.)

In The School of Love, Archbishop Goodier offers a course of study in this school, with lessons on the cultivation of charity and chastity by prayer, piety, and proper friendship; the remedy of impediments to love, such as loneliness, cravings, and grief; and the sustenance of love by concord with neighbor, the promise of eternity, and union with God. Published in numerous editions since 1920, The School of Love imparts clearly and directly its blend of sound doctrine and deep spiritual insight, each of its nineteen essays fortifying faith by inflaming love.

Alban Goodier, S.J. (1869–1939) was an English Catholic priest of the Society of Jesus and author of numerous books of spirituality and theology. After serving as Archbishop of Bombay from 1920 to 1926, he returned to England and retired to the Benedictine abbey of St. Scholastica, where he spent the remainder of his life preaching and writing. 

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Paperback: 150pp.

ISBN: 978-1685954581