Most Popular Books by Daniel Berrigan

This new edition of Daniel Berrigan''s classic autobiography To Dwell in Peace, with a new afterword by the author, takes us through his childhood in Syracuse; his early years as a Jesuit, teacher, priest, and poet; his bold 1968 Catonsville Nine action, when he poured homemade napalm on draft files in opposition to the U.S. war on Vietnam; and his ongoing civil disobedience, which led to his going underground and subsequent two-year imprisonment. We read of friends like Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, William Stringfellow, and his brother Philip Berrigan, with whom he participated again in the 1980 Plowshares Eight disarmament action. Daniel Berrigan''s breathtaking story and the poetic way he tells it inspire and challenge us to resist war, pursue nuclear disarmament, and undertake a similar journey to peace, hope, and justice.

The Monk - The Artist - The Aunt - The Essayist - The Woman - The Jesuit - The Mother - Self-Portrait Berrigan''s Portraits is his first completely biographical work, and it is perhaps his most intimate book. Here he speaks candidly of some of the people he has known and admired, people of fame and people who will probably never be memorialized or even remembered outside these pages. Here are Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin--guides to the vision that has inspired Berrigan''s own witness to Christian peace. Here is an unknown woman painter, dying of cancer but gifted with uncanny powers of insight. Here are members of Berrigan''s own family: a tough-minded aunt, who found in the currently outmoded pieties of the past a remedy for the terrible day-in-and-day-out of the religious life; his own mother, providential, foreseeing, compassionate. Lastly there is a self-portrait--not in a convex mirror, not a picture at an exhibition--of what has been the meaning of these various people and of their influence on him and his work.

Navigating through the Bible''s complex style--which intermixes poetry characteristic of the Old Testament and elaborate sentences found in Greek oratory--the author reveals the philosophical, ethical, ethological, historical, psychological and scientific issues raised by the text and wrestles with their contemporary relevance.

Sorrow Built a Bridge: Friendship and AIDS chronicles Daniel Berrigan''s work with people with AIDS during the 1980s at St. Vincent''s Hospital in New York City. For decades Berrigan protested war and nuclear weapons. Then in the early 1980s he also began to minister to those dying of cancer. When AIDS exploded in New York, he offered to accompany the dying at St. Vincent''s, one of the first and best care facilities in the nation for people with AIDS. This account tells of the suffering of those with AIDS, an epidemic which now afflicts millions around the globe. It also shows a compassionate Christian response to such suffering. In the process, Berrigan once again teaches us how to make peace. I list myself among the many admirers of Father Daniel Berrigan. His writings are always poetic and inspirational, his message ever timely and beneficial. Sorrow Built a Bridge is no exception. Father Dan has put a human face on AIDS, the malady which has reached epidemic proportions. He recounts here his own personal journey and ministry with fourteen specific persons for whom ''death was given a royal welcome.'' He does not dwell on the causes of AIDS nor does he pass judgment on its victims doomed to ''atrocious suffering.'' Father Dan gives meaning to his own experience by choosing and reflecting on selected scripture passages. He also connects his encounters with the deaths of those who were once ''young and vigorous'' with his own peacemaking. In both cases, ''dreams turn into nightmares,'' ''old hatreds don new fatigues'' and ''immunity systems break down both in a person and in a nation.'' This book is a special gift to those committed to compassionate care for persons with AIDS. Bishop Walter F. Sullivan (from the Foreword)

Daniel: Under the Siege of the Divine is a powerful, poetic commentary on one of the Bible''s most politically charged books by one of America''s greatest peacemaking prophets, Daniel Berrigan. Using the insights he has gained from a lifetime of nonviolent resistance to war and empire, Berrigan walks us through these ancient biblical stories of nonviolent resistance to war and empire, pointing out how we can learn from Daniel and his friends to keep the faith, stay hopeful, and resist every war, injustice, and empire today. It is not only one of Berrigan''s best books, but one of the best commentaries on the book of Daniel. Through the scripture and the author''s life, we discover the power and duty of civil disobedience to the culture of war and divine obedience to the God of peace.

Play depicting the trial of a group of anti-Vietnam War protesters who raided the offices of the draft board in Catonsville, Maryland, and burned some of the files in May 1968, by one of the protestors.

This extraordinary book, written during the four months that Daniel Berrigan was resisting arrest and living underground, is an unexpected gift. Rather than being merely an account of a fugitive''s life, this is a spiritual work of the highest order, the work of an unusual man brooding over injustice, war, and love and setting forth his vision of what a man can become. His starting point is St. John of the Cross, from whom the author draws the inspiration that informs his unorthodox "commentary" on The Dark Night of the Soul. Here, John is the guru, the master to whom the disciple comes for enlightenment, the one whose vision inspires the disciple as he searches for his own vision. As the "commentary" moves on, it becomes the instrument by which Father Berrigan extends his own moral commitment to explore and reaffirm his spiritual philosophy, his concern for the world, his intense desire to awaken and move society in a nonviolent way. The result is a magnificent outpouring of prose and poetry--intense, personal, witty; the exposition of the heart of a man.

"The trouble with our state," Daniel Berrigan writes in his great poem, "was not civil disobedience, which in any case was hesitant and rare. . . . The trouble with our state--our state of soul, our state of siege, was civil obedience." This poem, like the many others gathered here together by Daniel Berrigan''s friend and editor, Rev. John Dear, continues his famous critique of the American war machine and summons readers to carry on his campaign of nonviolence for the abolition of war, violence, and nuclear weapons. "In this collection, I''ve brought together some of his most well-known political poems, poems from prison, poems from resistance, and a few never before published," John Dear writes in his foreword. "I hope they will inspire us to take up where Daniel Berrigan left off--following the nonviolent Jesus by resisting the culture of war, racism, nuclear weapons and environmental destruction and pursuing a new culture of justice, disarmament and environmental sustainability." May we heed his call and carry on the gospel journey of civil disobedience, creative nonviolence, and divine obedience to "seed hope," "flower peace," and trace "a liberated zone of paradise." "In looking over the selections, I''m thinking of poetry and nonviolence," Bill Wylie-Kellermann writes in his introduction. "There is certainly the matter of bringing more poetics to action, for which Berrigan enjoys virtually a charism. This is not just in the recounting, plucking an action from the street and telling it in verse (there are any number of such here), but for casting actions in symbol, metaphor, liturgy, even sacrament. Enact the poem; embody it." He continues, "Poetry also has a freedom about it, akin to what Gandhi called non-attachment to results. Like prayer, or sacrament for that matter, one offers a poem into the world, setting it loose and letting it go. It is. A germinating seed. In that sense, this book is a seed packet of nonviolent resistance. The sower has cast it. Upon Earth. Upon us all."

The scenario that confronts us in the biblical text of 1 and 2 Kings is a turbulent one. Daniel Berrigan minces no words in his assessment of that biblical era. Prophets, kings, and the gods they worship -- all are found wanting. Berrigan examines the complex terrain of these two biblical books, opening our eyes to the deep flaws of their oft-praised characters. He shows that this dark time in biblical history is in many ways repeating itself today. The wars of these kings, Berrigan says, are our wars now, and we are fashioning our own gods to approve our misdeeds. These two books of Scripture come to vivid -- and sometimes terrifying -- life when we recognize these undeniable similarities. The Kings and Their Gods reveals Berrigan in stunning form. Here this modern-day prophet distills the wisdom gained from his long learning and his remarkable life experiences. The book is both a masterful biblical commentary and a clarion call to action. It balances polemics and poetry, despair and joy. It is truly a midrash for our troubled times -- both an indictment of the horror that is and an invitation to the great goodness that may be.

To become and be a mature human being, to be alive, in the midst of such a drama in which all people do in truth live, describes a radical participation. To be alive means, as Father Berrigan puts it, enduring the crisis of grace. The fruit of the gift of Christ to this world is an unequivocal and utterly vulnerable immersion in the world as it is. . . . It means living in such a way that life is welcomed as the extraordinary gift which life is and, then, honoring that gift by extravagance: by giving one''s own life away. They call us dead men, and we live, wrote St. Paul. Berrigan''s immersion into Pauline theology has allowed him to present his deepest concerns for the Church''s role in the world. Knowing that the Church can not live in retreat from life, he illuminates the implications of the Triple Revolution-race, peace, and technology- for committed Christians who wish to see true renewal within ecclesial life. --From the Introduction by William Stringfellow

Committed radical that he is, Daniel Berrigan, launches his personal rockets against the social evils that disturb and preoccupy him. Beginning with a long autobiographical piece he traces the influences that brought him first to a radical stance and then to a direct confrontation with society. From this very intimate statement he develops his theme of a need for nonviolent revolutionary change in his reflections on his own trial and sentencing, in his thoughtful examination of the true implications of Christianity, and in his consideration of prophets as revolutionaries. In a long dialog with an SDS student about the 1969 Black/White confrontation at Cornell University, he relates the questions raised by that crisis to the larger crises of American life. Finally, he directs two stinging parables at the well-fed and the complacent. Probing and provocative, this work illuminates starkly the agonizing decisions people must make.

Berrigan draws clear parallels between Deuteronomy''s time of mingled triumph and broken law and the present moment in history, uncovering the stories within the story of this complex biblical book.

Berrigan uses the story of Job to ignite our religious imagination and show us the way to effective protest and true faith. Continuing his series of livel reflections on Scripture, he inspires us to action and assures us of God''s fidelity.

Written during the 1970s and early 1980s at the height of Daniel Berrigan''s work to stop the Vietnam war and nuclear weapons, The Nightmare of God offers a stunning commentary on the book of Revelation as a textbook of nonviolent resistance to empire. It begins in jail, where Berrigan sits after a 1976 protest at the Pentagon. As he takes us through the book of Revelation, Berrigan suggests that apocalyptic language and imagery are used to name Death (and its empires and wars) as anti-Christ, and challenges us to do the same today, to name every empire and war as anti-Christ, anti-humanity, anti-creation. Written with poetic insight and prophetic passion, Berrigan urges us to resist the culture of war as the early Christian heroes and martyrs did, so that we can end the suffering, heal humanity and join our place to worship the God of peace. Tom Lewis-Borbely''s photo etchings complement the literary images. Daniel Berrigan describes Tom''s art as healing the ancient killing split between ethics and imagination.

A new dialogue between the radical Jesuit priest and the Vietnamese Zen master covers a wide range of topics relevant to the Buddhist-Christian relationship, including war, peace, death, Jesus, and the Buddha.

Perhaps no Hebrew prophet speaks so directly to our time as Jeremiah. Perhaps no one can unveil his message and warning as can Daniel Berrigan, whose eloquence and courage, like Jeremiah''s, expose the corruption of religious commitments, address national trauma and uncertainty, and proclaim the requirements of true lament and resolve. Daniel Berrigan''s fiery, spiritual reading of the prophet Jeremiah evokes social action, religious courage, and personal witness.

Berrigan offers a brilliant, poetic commentary on the Acts of the Apostles with the daring proposition that this New Testament book is left unfinished, and that we are called to take up the story, enter the book, and engage in our own bold, daring acts as apostles of the peacemaking Jesus. Writing from his own experience of civil disobedience and prophetic action, he challenges us to join the early community of Christian peacemakers by living as they did, acting as they did, and speaking out for peace and justice as they did. Whereon to Stand not only brings the New Testament alive, but offers new life and hope for us that our lives, our actions, our stand may help disarm the world and carry on the work of the peacemaking Jesus.

With prophetic power and conviction, Daniel Berrigan shows how the message of Isaiah can speak directly to us who live at the end of a turbulent period of human history. His book is an exercise in pastoral prophecy for all who seek to apply biblical teaching to contemporary life.

From the Foreword: "Daniel Berrigan is not an academic Scripture scholar searching for an (always elusive) ''original meaning'' of the text. His concern is for the significance of the text to us--in the here and now...[He] has long been known to be a prophet, someone who courageously speaks God''s will for our warring world...For Daniel Berrigan, Genesis speaks to our time and our world..." For seven years, Daniel Berrigan pondered the themes, meanings, contradictions, and implications of the Bible''s most well-known and well-cherished "Book of Beginnings." In light of the escalating violence, military occupations, and global acts of terrorism that have characterized the beginning of our twenty-first century, Genesis: Fair Beginnings, then Foul yields both sorrowful and hopeful reflections as Berrigan walks his readers through the Scripture, searching for stories of ancestry and origins that can "shed a measure of light on dark days." Bringing together lively midrash, biblical exegesis, and stirring social and political critique, Daniel Berrigan marries the keen eye of a biblical scholar with the heart and words of a poet revealing for today''s generations the book of Genesis, in all of its aspects, fair and foul.

In The Discipline of the Mountain Daniel Berrigan offers "ways of imagining our plight" through the poetic vision of Dante''s Purgatorio. There can be found "a faithful vision, an alternative, a truthful image of God, of ourselves, of history." Berrigan employs free, poetic adaptation of the original--its themes, moods, discourses, encounters--with a prose commentary relating the text to political-moral issues of the present day. With its themes of lust and hatred, religious strife and ecclesiastical corruption, military power and oppression, the Purgatorio is an apt allegory of modern society. Thirteenth-century kings and princes shade into twentieth-century colonels and shahs and juntas. The Discipline of the Mountain is evocatively illustrated by Robert F. McGovern.

One of Daniel Berrigan''s best works, Minor Prophets, Major Themes, offers poetic, insightful commentary on the books of Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachai. From his own experience in the prophetic struggle to end war and injustice, Berrigan brings these ancient texts to new life and uses them to shed light on the life and death struggles for justice and peace today. The author takes these often neglected prophetic works and shows how they speak to us with even greater urgency, pushing us to become a prophetic people, to take up the major themes of justice, disarmament, nonviolence, compassion, and peace. There is simply no other commentary like it.

"I have a sense that the times themselves, apart from more or less deliberately created crises, render strong things fragile, and fragile things mortally endangered. The times themselves are a permanent crisis." So writes Daniel Berrigan in this journal of reflections and musings from the late 1970s. First published in 1981, this book traces Berrigan''s work after his release from Danbury Prison in 1972 for his part in the Catonsville Nine antiwar demonstration--from his experiences in Palestine, Northern Ireland, and France (where he lived with Thich Nhat Hanh), to his experiences as a teacher in Manitoba and Berkeley. Throughout, Berrigan ponders the commands of Christ, the struggle to be faithful to these commands, and why so few take them seriously. With wit and wisdom, Berrigan shares his faith journey and encourages us to stay faithful to that journey, to be peacemakers for the long haul.

The prophets exhort us to defend the poor; but we lionize the rich. They assure us that chariots and missiles cannot save us; yet we seek refuge under their cold shadow. They urge us to forgo idolatry; but we compulsively fetishize the work of our hands. Above all, the prophetic Word warns us that the way to liberation in a world locked down by the spiral of violence, the way to redemption in a world of enslaving addictions, the way to genuine transformation in a world of deadened conscience and numbing conformity, is the way of nonviolent, sacrificial, creative love. But neither polite religion nor society is remotely interested in this--which is why Jesus had to translate and midwife the prophetic insights for his companions in their historical moment. Dan has done the same for us in ours. As this reading of Exodus attests, he has a keen eye for both text and context, and exegetes both with his life. Thus does he help us shed our denial, connect the dots, and move from our pews to the streets. --from the foreword by Ched Myers

Daniel Berrigan was born in 1921 in the United States and is known world wide as a poet and peace activist. Ordained a Jesuit priest in 1952 he was deeply engaged in the anti-Vietnam War movement, together with his brother Philip and the famed Trappist monk Thomas Merton. Following Philip''s arrest and imprisonment for non-violent protest, Berrigan increased the scale of his own non-violent protest. In 1968 he was sentenced to three years in prison for destroying draft files and after a period on the run was arrested and imprisoned until 1972. In the early 1980s he was one of six activists who formed the Plowshares Movement to protest against nuclear armaments, and he has since been outspoken in his opposition to the 1991 Gulf War, the US invasion of Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Among his many publications are some ten volumes of poetry. Berrigan''s poems, according to Soujourners Magazine "have long been recognized for their spiritual beauty. Kurt Vonnegut once called him ''Jesus as a poet, '' and added, ''If this be heresy, make the most of it.''" Tulips in the Prison Yard was first published by Dedalus Press in 1992.

The making of Roland Joffé''s film described in diary form. Daniel Berrigan followed the film footage as an advisor on the life and history of the Jesuits.