Robert Bela Wilhelm

Robert Béla Wilhelm's story-telling, particularly about St Francis, moves me, sometimes to tears. Bob has a way of evoking an emotional depth to help us connect with the richness of his stories.

Perfect Joy in Holy Week is a series of six stories for the six days of Holy Week. Each story has a short version and a long version, and each story is introduced by the Scripture readings set for the Eucharist of the day and powerful reflections.

He cares that people can use the material and the detail in this book is extraordinary. He includes not only the lections for his home Roman Catholic tradition, but also the ecumenical and Anglican lections where the differ.

Bob also is an icon writer. He includes a number of his own icons in Perfect Joy, and they stand up well against more traditional icons and paintings, some of which he explains.

We didn't get around (typically) to using these stories until Easter week, but we still found them to be fresh, inspiring and encouraging.… (meer)