- from the newly written foreword by sister Katarina OSB
Gunnel Vallquist (1918-2016) was active as a writer, translator and author for more than half a century, all the while with the existential perspective in the foreground. This book of thoughts reflects the passionate search for truth that always guided her. As an independent thinker and a convinced Christian, she conveyed an attitude that has become exemplary for many believers: the one deeply rooted in the gospel and unconditional in the search.
With his concise and controlled style, Gunnel Vallquist urges the reader with his texts to seek a deepened faith, simple and clarified, but never naive or uncritical. The book's previous title was taken from a note made in Rome, Pentecost 1956:
Christ has come to light a fire.
The fire that is love.
Love lives in us, for we are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
To be a Christian: to be consumed, to be combustible.
The church is the hearth. She has no other meaning.
The Church can set the world on fire insofar as we—her members—are combustible.
If the world is not on fire, it is because we are heavy, hard, frozen.
Lord, let me burn.
Let the fire take hold of me, and of others through me.
Wire bound with unspread pages
Number of pages: 96
Year of publication: First edition 2009. New edition 2019