I learned how difficult it can be in the spiritual life to discriminate between things which seem similar but which are, in fact, profoundly different. How tempting it is for us to believe, for example, that we possess the readiness to change because, lacking in continuity, we follow every fashionable trend of the time. How often we believe that we are truly forgiving when in fact we are really too thick-skinned to notice offenses or we find it advantageous to make peace. How often we assume that we are spiritually recollected because we can concentrate fully on a task, when, in fact, we are merely capable of efficient mental concentration, which is radically different from recollection. To help us see such important differences in ourselves and to help us avoid other pitfalls, Transformation in Christ provides spiritual guidance for those who are serious about making progress toward holiness, enabling them to discern more clearly the path to holiness.

Since first reading Transformation in Christ and having my eyes opened by it, I have discovered that my experience has been duplicated in the lives of very many other people. Over the years, my husband received innumerable letters from persons testifying that reading Transformation in Christ profoundly changed their lives.

Reviewers of the book have also been unanimous in recognizing the extraordinary spiritual wisdom it contains. In 1949, a year after its American publication, it received the Golden Book Award of the Catholic Writers Guild.

Transformation in Christ awakens our longing for supernatural virtues

Too often, well-intentioned spiritual authors believe that in order to make the supernatural more palatable, they must water it down and use a vocabulary borrowed from down-to-earth, trivial experiences. This often creates a spiritual hiatus, a false note which is painful for those whose spiritual ear is attuned to the music of the angels.

One of the striking characteristics of this book is that the author never uses a word which is not in perfect harmony with the sublimity of his topic. With an unfailing holy instinct, he always pulls us upward toward a higher sphere clouded over today by our secularized anti-culture which constantly pulls us downward. From this point of view Transformation in Christ is a much needed spiritual medicine. It will inevitably sharpen our sense for the supernatural and reawaken the deep longing which exists in every human heart for what is above. Indeed, this was the call that St. Paul addressed to us: “Seek the things that are above.”

Transformation in Christ illuminates in a unique way the nature of the supernatural virtues which can blossom only in and through Christ. Much as my husband had loved moral values prior to his conversion, it was through the lives of the saints that he discovered a new, higher morality—the supernatural morality—the one embodied in those whose very souls mirror the infinite beauty of the God-Man.

What a chasm lies between the natural virtue of modesty—an objective awareness of one’s own limitations—and the supernal ural virtue of humility which (as exemplified in St. Catherine of Siena) makes one rejoice over the fact that God is everything and man is nothing. What an abyss separates the natural warmth and friendliness which a good pagan possesses, from the ardent, burning supernatural charity which characterizes the saints.