The Heart of Hope

Product Description

When Michael Downey accompanied a recently ordained, former seminary student to Vietnam in 2004 to celebrate Tet, the lunar New Year, he was carrying a deep tiredness. His heart was heavy. But he discovered that his heart could fall in love again, more deeply than ever. “Not with another,” he reports, “but with a people and a land.”

Traveling through Vietnam, his 35-year-old mental pictures of war with a cruel and godless enemy—reinforced by newspapers and TV reports during his teens—were replaced by fragrant flowers, bustling open-air markets, leisurely chats over spicy meals, and festive home altars for ancestor veneration.

Above all, Dr. Downey was struck by the Vietnamese way of livng - the sheer aliveness pulsating in the hearts of these golden people who have suffered prolonged civil wars and domination by foreign powers.

The first part of the book provides a profoundly moving account of the author’s personal transformation brought on by his encounter with “the other,” the people and the land of Vietnam.

In part two, he reflects on images that emerged from his experience in Vietnam — images that embody the essence of the Christian spiritual life: Humility, reverence, connectedness, contemplation, gratitude, faith, forgiveness, prayer, suffering and, most of all, hope.

Michael Downey is the Cardinal’s Theologian for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and Professor of Systematic Theology and Spirituality and St. John’s Seminary, Camarillo. With a Master of Arts in special education as well as theology he was the first layperson to receive the Ph.D. in theology from The Catholic University of America.

Dr. Downey has lectured in the United States, Canada, France, Ireland, Britain, New Zealand, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Author or editor of more than 20 books, his essays, articles and book chapters number in the dozens.

As an Irish Catholic schoolboy in urban Philadelphia, Michael Downey dreamed of being a missionary in a far-off place like Vietnam.