Diary of a City Priest

This book presents a selection of the best of the weekly

'Pastor Iuventus' columns from The Catholic Herald.

Arranged over a year, the columns give us a true-life

picture of the ministry of a parish priest in a busy city. The diary

convincingly conveys the tangible and day-to-day reality of a

priest's life and work. The journal is about the endless fascinations

of parish life: the highs and lows, births and deaths, new

challenges, and, amongst all these, the quiet presence of God.

The author tells it as it is, with candour and insight, but also with

humour and brilliance. Through the everyday life of the parish,

the local hospital and the school, we are given an intimate

portrayal of real life. The reader will be moved and inspired by the

beauty and depth of these weekly columns. As the year unfolds,

the journal reminds us of the closeness of the Providence of God

to every human life.

As Dr William Oddie says in the Foreword to the first edition,

Father Allain's diary column provides readers with "an often vivid

inside track on the spiritual life of a parish priest, in a way which

certainly conveys its pressures and difficulties, but which also

nurtures the spiritual imagination of its readers by demonstrating

that those pressures and difficulties can always - with a simple

and basic faith in the realities of a working Catholic spirituality -

be withstood and transcended."

Fr Dominic Allain was ordained priest for the Archdiocese of

Southwark. Now the International Pastoral Director for 'Grief to

Grace' - a programme which brings spiritual and psychological healing

to survivors of sexual and other abuse (www.grieftograceuk.org), he

also works as a retreat giver and spiritual director. This book draws on

his experiences as a parish priest and hospital chaplain in the London

area. He is well-known to many through his weekly columns, 'Pastor

Iuventus', in The Catholic Herald.