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Liturgy is the golden chore; the ineffable becomes as practical as a calendar or a loaf of bread. The Son of God becomes the Son of Man and briefly walks among us, Love itself incarnate in the life of faith. This generous collection--in both senses of spirit and breadth--uses the liturgical year to explore the many aspects of Christian belief. In a wide variety of voices, styles, and forms, Ordinary Time (the title is deeply ironic) includes themes from the most intimate examinations of conscience to some of the knottiest theological/philosophical questions. In tones ranging from comic/satiric to meditative to ecstatic--in characters as diverse as several apostles, three different Christmas shepherds, Mother Theresa, a retired Navy cook, and a lapsed Catholic celebrity on a TV talk show--these poems cover an extraordinary breadth of faith experience, without diminishing the struggles of faith. Like Mother Theresa in "Darkness," absence and doubt have their place: they move Incarnate grace deep enough even to meet suffering and death. The ritual year that winds from nativity to death to resurrection includes each member of the body of Christ. This collection provides one pilgrim experience in memorable detail.
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Michael D. Riley, who passed away on February 23, 2019, shortly after completing Pattern Evidence, published six collections of poetry, most recently Ordinary Time: Poems for the Liturgical Year (Wipf & Stock, 2016). His poems appeared in many periodicals, including Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review, Rattle, America, and Southern Humanities Review, and in two recent anthologies (The Book of Irish American Poetry: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present and Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust). He was emeritus professor of English from Penn State University and lived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
