New Releases by Daniel Berrigan

A Voice and a Poet for All Times It is impossible not to be gripped by the spectacular details of Daniel Berrigan's life. He was Paul Simon's "radical priest" smiling in handcuffs. The Jesuit activist excommunicated by his peers and imprisoned by the state. The unapologetic advocate for society's disempowered. The defiant vandal of objects that fed bodies and materiel to the war machine. And the earnest, yet somehow serene, face emanating from televisions denouncing the inhumanity of that very machine's deeds. Yet Daniel was first an accomplished poet, inspired in his faith by dreams of peace. It was from this profound contemplation of the world from an early age that his courageous acts of civil disobedience and humanitarianism were born. In this collection of interconnected poems, Daniel Berrigan writes about his intimate bond with his small cottage built especially for him on Block Island. We see his complete integration into the island itself in his reverence for the everyday life and ever-changing weather winding around him. Yet soon we also discover themes of God and the soul, the land and the sea, friendship and loss, time and impermanence, and the tension between society's potential and its spiritual impoverishment. Embraced by personal and scholarly writings from friends who remain students of Daniel's ideas and lifeworks, as well as images and letters that enrich our perceptions of Daniel, this ever-timely collection is an essential object for poets, activists, the faithful, and all forms of countercultural rebel alike.

“The trouble with our state,” Daniel Berrigan writes in his great poem, “was not civil disobedience, which in any case was hesitant and rare. . . . The trouble with our state—our state of soul, our state of siege, was civil obedience.” This poem, like the many others gathered here together by Daniel Berrigan’s friend and editor, Rev. John Dear, continues his famous critique of the American war machine and summons readers to carry on his campaign of nonviolence for the abolition of war, violence, and nuclear weapons. “In this collection, I’ve brought together some of his most well-known political poems, poems from prison, poems from resistance, and a few never before published," John Dear writes in his foreword. "I hope they will inspire us to take up where Daniel Berrigan left off—following the nonviolent Jesus by resisting the culture of war, racism, nuclear weapons and environmental destruction and pursuing a new culture of justice, disarmament and environmental sustainability.” May we heed his call and carry on the gospel journey of civil disobedience, creative nonviolence, and divine obedience to “seed hope,” “flower peace,” and trace “a liberated zone of paradise.” “In looking over the selections, I’m thinking of poetry and nonviolence,” Bill Wylie-Kellermann writes in his introduction. “There is certainly the matter of bringing more poetics to action, for which Berrigan enjoys virtually a charism. This is not just in the recounting, plucking an action from the street and telling it in verse (there are any number of such here), but for casting actions in symbol, metaphor, liturgy, even sacrament. Enact the poem; embody it.” He continues, “Poetry also has a freedom about it, akin to what Gandhi called non-attachment to results. Like prayer, or sacrament for that matter, one offers a poem into the world, setting it loose and letting it go. It is. A germinating seed. In that sense, this book is a seed packet of nonviolent resistance. The sower has cast it. Upon Earth. Upon us all.”

Written during the 1970s and early 1980s at the height of Daniel Berrigan's work to stop the Vietnam war and nuclear weapons, The Nightmare of God offers a stunning commentary on the book of Revelation as a textbook of nonviolent resistance to empire. It begins in jail, where Berrigan sits after a 1976 protest at the Pentagon. As he takes us through the book of Revelation, Berrigan suggests that apocalyptic language and imagery are used to name Death (and its empires and wars) as anti-Christ, and challenges us to do the same today, to name every empire and war as anti-Christ, anti-humanity, anti-creation. Written with poetic insight and prophetic passion, Berrigan urges us to resist the culture of war as the early Christian heroes and martyrs did, so that we can end the suffering, heal humanity and join our place to worship the God of peace. Tom Lewis-Borbely's photo etchings complement the literary images. Daniel Berrigan describes Tom's art as healing the ancient killing split between ethics and imagination.

Sorrow Built a Bridge: Friendship and AIDS chronicles Daniel Berrigan's work with people with AIDS during the 1980s at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City. For decades Berrigan protested war and nuclear weapons. Then in the early 1980s he also began to minister to those dying of cancer. When AIDS exploded in New York, he offered to accompany the dying at St. Vincent's, one of the first and best care facilities in the nation for people with AIDS. This account tells of the suffering of those with AIDS, an epidemic which now afflicts millions around the globe. It also shows a compassionate Christian response to such suffering. In the process, Berrigan once again teaches us how to make peace. I list myself among the many admirers of Father Daniel Berrigan. His writings are always poetic and inspirational, his message ever timely and beneficial. Sorrow Built a Bridge is no exception. Father Dan has put a human face on AIDS, the malady which has reached epidemic proportions. He recounts here his own personal journey and ministry with fourteen specific persons for whom 'death was given a royal welcome.' He does not dwell on the causes of AIDS nor does he pass judgment on its victims doomed to 'atrocious suffering.' Father Dan gives meaning to his own experience by choosing and reflecting on selected scripture passages. He also connects his encounters with the deaths of those who were once 'young and vigorous' with his own peacemaking. In both cases, 'dreams turn into nightmares,' 'old hatreds don new fatigues' and 'immunity systems break down both in a person and in a nation.' This book is a special gift to those committed to compassionate care for persons with AIDS. Bishop Walter F. Sullivan (from the Foreword)

Berrigan offers a brilliant, poetic commentary on the Acts of the Apostles with the daring proposition that this New Testament book is left "unfinished," and that we are called to take up the story, enter the book, and engage in our own bold, daring acts as apostles of the peacemaking Jesus. Writing from his own experience of civil disobedience and prophetic action, he challenges us to join the early community of Christian peacemakers by living as they did, acting as they did, and speaking out for peace and justice as they did. Whereon to Stand not only brings the New Testament alive, but offers new life and hope for us that our lives, our actions, our stand may help disarm the world and carry on the work of the peacemaking Jesus.

"I have a sense that the times themselves, apart from more or less deliberately created crises, render strong things fragile, and fragile things mortally endangered. The times themselves are a permanent crisis." So writes Daniel Berrigan in this journal of reflections and musings from the late 1970s. First published in 1981, this book traces Berrigan's work after his release from Danbury Prison in 1972 for his part in the Catonsville Nine antiwar demonstration--from his experiences in Palestine, Northern Ireland, and France (where he lived with Thich Nhat Hanh), to his experiences as a teacher in Manitoba and Berkeley. Throughout, Berrigan ponders the commands of Christ, the struggle to be faithful to these commands, and why so few take them seriously. With wit and wisdom, Berrigan shares his faith journey and encourages us to stay faithful to that journey, to be peacemakers for the long haul.

Kurt Vonnegut once called him ''Jesus as a poet, '' and added, ''If this be heresy, make the most of it.''[His Poems] have long been recognized for their spiritual beauty"--Soujourners Magazine.

The prophets exhort us to defend the poor; but we lionize the rich. They assure us that chariots and missiles cannot save us; yet we seek refuge under their cold shadow. They urge us to forgo idolatry; but we compulsively fetishize the work of our hands. Above all, the prophetic Word warns us that the way to liberation in a world locked down by the spiral of violence, the way to redemption in a world of enslaving addictions, the way to genuine transformation in a world of deadened conscience and numbing conformity, is the way of nonviolent, sacrificial, creative love. But neither polite religion nor society is remotely interested in this--which is why Jesus had to translate and midwife the prophetic insights for his companions in their historical moment. Dan has done the same for us in ours. As this reading of Exodus attests, he has a keen eye for both text and context, and exegetes both with his life. Thus does he help us shed our denial, connect the dots, and move from our pews to the streets. --from the foreword by Ched Myers

This new edition of Daniel Berrigan's classic autobiography To Dwell in Peace, with a new afterword by the author, takes us through his childhood in Syracuse; his early years as a Jesuit, teacher, priest, and poet; his bold 1968 Catonsville Nine action, when he poured homemade napalm on draft files in opposition to the U.S. war on Vietnam; and his ongoing civil disobedience, which led to his going underground and subsequent two-year imprisonment. We read of friends like Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, William Stringfellow, and his brother Philip Berrigan, with whom he participated again in the 1980 Plowshares Eight disarmament action. Daniel Berrigan's breathtaking story and the poetic way he tells it inspire and challenge us to resist war, pursue nuclear disarmament, and undertake a similar journey to peace, hope, and justice.

The Monk - The Artist - The Aunt - The Essayist - The Woman - The Jesuit - The Mother - Self-Portrait Berrigan's Portraits is his first completely biographical work, and it is perhaps his most intimate book. Here he speaks candidly of some of the people he has known and admired, people of fame and people who will probably never be memorialized or even remembered outside these pages. Here are Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin--guides to the vision that has inspired Berrigan's own witness to Christian peace. Here is an unknown woman painter, dying of cancer but gifted with uncanny powers of insight. Here are members of Berrigan's own family: a tough-minded aunt, who found in the currently outmoded pieties of the past a remedy for the terrible day-in-and-day-out of the religious life; his own mother, providential, foreseeing, compassionate. Lastly there is a self-portrait--not in a convex mirror, not a picture at an exhibition--of what has been the meaning of these various people and of their influence on him and his work.

In The Discipline of the Mountain Daniel Berrigan offers ways of imagining our plight through the poetic vision of Dante's Purgatorio. There can be found a faithful vision, an alternative, a truthful image of God, of ourselves, of history. Berrigan employs free, poetic adaptation of the original--its themes, moods, discourses, encounters--with a prose commentary relating the text to political-moral issues of the present day. With its themes of lust and hatred, religious strife and ecclesiastical corruption, military power and oppression, the Purgatorio is an apt allegory of modern society. Thirteenth-century kings and princes shade into twentieth-century colonels and shahs and juntas. The Discipline of the Mountain is evocatively illustrated by Robert F. McGovern.

"Prayer for the Morning Headlines: On the Sanctity of Life and Death" pairs select Berrigan poems with luminous photographs of cemetery statuary by Adrianna Amari. In this beautiful collection, the evocative images combine to form a meditation on the profound impact of the loss of any life, and bear witness to lasting grief, memory, and love.

From the Foreword: "Daniel Berrigan is not an academic Scripture scholar searching for an (always elusive) 'original meaning' of the text. His concern is for the significance of the text to us-in the here and now...[He] has long been known to be a prophet, someone who courageously speaks God's will for our warring world...For Daniel Berrigan, Genesis speaks to our time and our world..." For seven years, Daniel Berrigan pondered the themes, meanings, contradictions, and implications of the Bible's most well-known and well-cherished "Book of Beginnings." In light of the escalating violence, military occupations, and global acts of terrorism that have characterized the beginning of our twenty-first century, Genesis: Fair Beginnings, then Foul yields both sorrowful and hopeful reflections as Berrigan walks his readers through the Scripture, searching for stories of ancestry and origins that can "shed a measure of light on dark days." Bringing together lively midrash, biblical exegesis, and stirring social and political critique, Daniel Berrigan marries the keen eye of a biblical scholar with the heart and words of a poet revealing for today's generations the book of Genesis, in all of its aspects, fair and foul.

A classic of faith-based activism―updated for a new generation. Why was Daniel Berrigan wanted by the FBI? Why did Robert Coles harbor a fugitive? Listen in to the conversations between these two great teachers as they struggle with what it means to put your faith to the test. Discover how their story of challenging the status quo during a time of great political, religious, and social change is just as applicable to our lives today. Thirty years ago, at the height of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit priest, was wanted by the FBI for his nonviolent protest activities. He hid in the house of Robert Coles, who would later win the Pulitzer Prize. The two began a dialogue that encompasses a fascinating range of topics, from war, psychology, and violence, to social institutions, compassion, activism, and family life. With this expanded, anniversary edition of a classic, new generations of readers can examine for themselves how spirituality is not only for ourselves, but often demands action and personal risk in the public arena. New to this edition, Robert Coles offers historical perspective on this turbulent time and assesses the progress of faith-based activism in the years since. Daniel Berrigan challenges today’s activists in a new afterword. Finally, a glossary of terms helps to clarify the key people, places, and movements that are often the subject of the Coles/Berrigan conversations.

Examines how spirituality is not only for ourselves, but often demands action and personal risk in the public arena. Listen in on conversations between two great teachers and activists as they struggle with what it means to put your faith to the test.

The biblical prophets - those classic disturbers of the false peace - continue to hold religion and history accountable to the word of God. In his latest work, poet and peacemaker Daniel Berrigan explores the Book of Ezekiel, one of the most troubling works of scripture. Combining his own poetic paraphrase of Ezekiel's strange oracles with insightful reflections on a society in chaos, Berrigan makes the prophet speak to us anew. In Ezekiel's apocalyptic visions of death and his prophecies of new life, Berrigan finds timely warnings and consolations for our own time. The art of Tom Lewis-Borbely forms a stunning accomplaniment to the text, underscoring the interwoven images of nightmare and dream, destruction and hope.

With prophetic power and conviction, Daniel Berrigan shows how the message of Isaiah can speak directly to us who live at the end of a turbulent period of human history. His book is an exercise in pastoral prophecy for all who seek to apply biblical teaching to contemporary life.

Chiefly reprints of articles by Daniel Berrigan and others, which appeared in the American report from October 29 to December 10, 1973, and in Genesis 2 in December 1973. Includes the transcript of a televised debate between Berrigan and Morgenthau on the WNET program "51st State" in January 1974. The last article is an analysis by Allan Solomonow, written specifically for this booklet.

.Daniel Joseph Berrigan, S.J. (May 9, 1921 - April 30, 2016), was an American Jesuit priest, anti-war activist, and poet.