From Affliction to Spiritual Audit

Praise for From Affliction to Spiritual Audit:

"These reflections are the fruit of prayer, study, and a lifelong pursuit of discipleship- one that imparts not just knowledge, but wisdom. The spiritual audit Dr. Cronin proposes is both a deeply personal journey of discovery and a model for the kind of self-examination every serous Christian must engage in from time to time."

- The Most Reverend Steven J. Lopes

Bishop of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter

"In his fifth and latest book, From Affliction to Spiritual Audit, Cronin offers readers his testament, the fruit of a Catholic life lived with integrity and intensity for three-quarters of a century. He opens his heart, as well as the bookcase of his study, to us, letting us in on his coming to grips with the mystery of death and his hope in the resurrection. Pressed into a profound confrontation with mortality, he shares with us what he calls his “spiritual audit,” a systematic and analytical review of his faith, both its theological underpinnings and its integration into his own experience. Suffering from cancer, the author gives us an intimate account of one man’s faith under trial.

         The book is part autobiography and memoir, and part an apologetic for Catholicism, which draws amply on hundreds of sources. His 406 pages of text accompanied by an impressive 1677 footnotes, in which he cites sources as broadly as the Fathers of the Church, Protestant Reformers, and contemporary theologians. Like a wise man, Cronin has taken from his treasury – and the Church’s treasury! – both the “new and the old.” His is a very readable apologetic for the faith.

         Cronin does not present himself as a theologian but as a chronicler of the Church’s history and her faith. He is respectful of the tradition but does not hesitate to take up difficult questions, especially those raised by non-Catholics and non-believers. What he has produced is a book that demonstrates enormous learning, humility, and a willingness to draw from the wide-ranging sources available to him. Reading Cronin is a pleasure, for it lays bare the soul of a great man, whom one cannot help but admire.

         Readers will enjoy his religious self-assessment. It may well prompt them to undertake a similar venture, even if the impetus for such introspection is not a disease that places them in a precarious position. Drawing upon Cronin’s example, all of us could benefit from a“spiritual audit” when the noon of our life is long past, and we strain for what lies ahead."

- The Most Reverend J. Michael Miller, CSB

Archbishop Emeritus of Vancouver