Passions of the Soul
by Rowan Williams
What’s the main point? This is a wonderful collection of talks given by archbishop Rowan Williams to a Benedictine community of women some years ago. There is a direct, accessible style to the text here, since it is a lightly edited version of the transcribed presentations. To it are added an earlier article on Christian spirituality re-titled “To Stand Where Christ Stands,” and another renamed “Early Christian Writings.” Both pieces, in Part Two of the volume, are excellent introductions to the spiritual life. The first shows how the spiritual life in Christianity is not a particular set of methods of prayer and meditation and other actions but rather a drawing nearer to Christ with the rest of Christ’s community/koinonia. In a very few pages, we are taken from the earliest years of Christianity on through some major voices and vision of the life in Christ, from ancient martyrs to church fathers and later masters such as John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila. It is by no means an exhaustive overview but one which opens a door to further exploration, reading and learning from important women and men of faith about the life in and with Christ. The second essay specifically examines the earliest sources, again in a way that invites readers to go further in grounding themselves in the tradition of writers and their understanding of prayer and many other aspects of a life of faith.
Why is this book useful? The bulk of the book is taken up by Williams’ talks on the passions of the soul. His method is striking and what makes this modest book a most worthwhile one for spiritual reading, for a retreat or a class. He first reminds us that all of the spiritual life is aimed at our freedom in Christ. This is a marvelous way to put it. What follows is not at all a “how to do it” course, the sharing of particular practices for moving toward freedom. Rather Williams takes us to the traditional list of the passions that enslave us and from which we need to detach, literally become apathetic–letting go of the pathos in each. The list he employs is classic, found throughout the spiritual literature of the Christian East and West: pride, lust, anger, gluttony, usury, envy and sloth, captured in the mnemonic PLAGUES. Great monastic writers such as Evagrius and John Cassian, among numerous others, take aim at this inventory because each passion is the pathological development of something human that is nothing but good in itself, but which becomes toxic. Perhaps gluttony is the easiest example to imagine.
Why is this book impactful? The remarkable feature of William’s presentation is that he pairs up these passions with what he calls the reverse images of what can go wrong in our souls—namely the Beatitudes given Matthew’s gospel. Thus, it is not just an inventory of human weakness and failure that is inspected here, but a truly integral view of the search for holiness. There is neither space nor time here to look more closely at how Rowan Williams weaves together the ways in which our lives become distorted with those by which we become more authentically human and children of God. Brief as these reflections are, they are discerning and rich. There are simply brilliant flashes of insight offered by Williams throughout. “We are because God is” is but one of them. (23) Another: “Pride is the refusal to breathe in and let God be what God is—which is the heart and focus of energy of our being.” (24) Lastly, “Being free from passion does not mean being free from Pain and suffering.” (30) This is par for the course with an intellect and heart as deep as Rowan Williams. This is a most welcome sharing of his ministry as both theologian and bishop.
Rowan Williams, Passions of the Soul, London/Oxford/NY: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2024, paper, pp. 121, $15.00, ISBN 978-1-3994-1568-2
REVIEWER: Michael Plekon
Michael Plekon is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Religion, The City University of New York, Baruch College,
and has been a priest in the Western and Eastern Churches.
Community as Church, Church as Community and Ministry Matters (Cascade, 2021, 2024) are his most recent books.