The spiritual life and the holy life are means to an end. The end is God. We shall only bring this end into focus if we hack down the intermediaries and over- come the contemporary malaise of excessive introspection. This is what the author terms in his book 'the problem of Narcissus'.
In the end we must 'bump up against God nakedly and adore him without intermediaries'.
The subtitle of this book (Notes on Holiness Today) is modest but serious-we are all called to the life of holiness and this is costly.
John Dalrymple is a Scotsman and a priest.
He is the author of 'The Christian Affirmation' which has sold widely through the English-speaking world.
He has been successively the spiritual director of a Seminary in Scotland ind chaplain to the Catholic students of St Andrew's University.
Currently, he is a parish priest in the Archdiocese of Edinburgh and is in continual demand as broadcaster, retreat giver and writer.