Author(s): David W. Fagerberg

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To pray is best; to want to pray is good; to want to want to pray is the first touch by God. A person who is in that last condition is the subject of this book, because it turns out that even desiring to desire can be an expression of love. All the authors quoted herein are Catholic spiritual writers from between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries whom David Fagerberg categorises as theologians of abnegation because they take seriously Jesus’s words: “Deny yourself and follow me.” That abnegation has both a negative and a positive face: it is the cure for a sickness unto death, but it is also uplifting because it rejoices in the charity of God. This book is about the latter face of abnegation, so often overlooked. And it turns out that this view of abnegation is accomplished by liturgical theology—the key that turns so many locks.