Bruce G. EPPERLY. Mystics in Action: Twelve Saints for Today. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2020, pp. 158, $22, pb. ISBN: 978-1-62698-389-2. Reviewed by Rachelle LINNER, Spiritual Director, Medford, MA 02155.

            Bruce Epperly, the author of this fine book, is a pastor and a professor.  He brings the charism of both callings to his insightful and sensitive portraits of twelve mystics who were also activists and social reformers.  “The mystics we have studied in this book are not afraid to get their hands dirty.  They soar to the heavens in ecstasy and then plunge back to earth, committed to challenging unjust social structures. …We need big visions and great hearts to respond courageously to the evils we encounter.  Committed to fulfilling our vocation as God’s partners in healing the earth, we must trust that god has the final word over history and that word will be grace.” (p. 139)

            Some of the mystics Epperly profiles are well-known — Albert Schweitzer, Dag  Hammarskjöld, Martin Luther King, Jr., Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero and Mother Teresa.  Happily, his portraits are not hackneyed repetitions of already known facts.  Instead, he presents each life through the prism of one feature — the empathetic spirituality of Simone Weil, the radical spirituality of Abraham Joshua Heschel, and the prophetic resistance of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Concise biographical essays of 10-20 pages are followed by thematic reflections, suggestions for action, and a concluding prayer.  This feature makes the book a wonderful resource for faith formation programs as well as personal prayer and study.

            Some of the strongest chapters introduce lesser-known figures, including the Quaker Rufus Jones, whom Epperly characterizes as an “affirmative mystic.” “We can never run away from God’s Spirit, because divinity is our deepest reality.  Our hearts are restless, not because God is something for which we must search on the outside but because God is our innermost reality and deepest desire…” (p. 47)

            “It Will Be Solved in the Walking” introduces readers to Mildred Lisette Norman, known as Peace Pilgrim, a remarkable woman who deserves to be widely known.  In the service of peace, she walked throughout the United States for twenty-eight years.  She carried no money and depended on strangers for meals and lodging. “Peace Pilgrim experienced herself as constantly in God’s presence.  One night, as she slept on a bench in Grand Central Station, she heard a voice addressed to her, ‘You are my beloved daughter in whom I am well pleased.’  Upon awakening, she experienced the world as a symphony of sound.  As she walked, she felt like she was walking on air.  From that time on, the feeling of divine purpose never left her.” (p. 93)

            The only mild flaw of this book is that it has more than a whiff of preaching to the choir.  Mystics in Action would not persuade someone who wants to follow a rigid itinerary for the spiritual life, or expect that conversion is the end and not beginning of life with God.  He comments, in the chapter on St. Oscar Romero, that “persons experience God gradually as divine providence unfolds gently yet persistently in their lives.” (p. 125)

            In his portraits of these twelve remarkable people, Epperly holds up a mirror to that process of transformation and allows the reader to better see it in the way their own lives are shaped by the mystery of God’s gracious presence.