Many of the sonnets in this collection deserve to be called inspired, and all of them are inspirational. Bishop Paul exhorts us to put aside the cares of the world, the ignoble strife of nations, and the strategic lies of the media. He suggests we empty ourselves of personal concerns, and talk to God through prayer. Prayer, he says, and contemplation of the Divine, are antidotes to life’s ills, engendering patience, compassion, a new perspective on our surroundings, and above all fostering love. As he says:

Love is good, and patient, kind and free, For Love’s another name, O Lord, for thee.

The Greek language gave us the word Pentecost, meaning ‘fiftieth day’ (after the Passover), celebrated in the west as Whitsun. The Orthodox Church gave us Bishop Paul of Tracheia, who has created fifty devotional sonnets in his own clear, crisp English.

The Pentecostal Spirit often means speaking in tongues, prophecy, healing and exorcism. Here, Bishop Paul expresses his ‘practical theology’ in phrases that are themselves frequently prayerful and will touch us all. With hints of Milton, Donne and other devotional poets of the past, these fifty sonnets take us away from the blear and smear of toil, into the brightly lit landscape of prayer.

Bishop Paul of Tracheia has already published two volumes of Practical Theology in Verse (Athena Press, 2004). Born in East Anglia during the war years, he has served the Orthodox Church (Oecumenical Patriarchate) as priest, then as bishop. He retired in 2001 to a small monastic athonite community in the French Vercors where he now lives a secluded life, rarely leaving the monastic territory