Plough Publishing, “Bread & Wine: Readings for Lent & Easter” Review by Bradley Jersak

Plough Publishing has once again offered a high-quality treasure-trove from Christianity’s classical authors. Bread & Wine: Readings for Lent & Easter is a beautiful hardcover (with sleeve) expanded edition of daily devotional readings for Lent and Easter. This anthology of 96 daily readings (about 2-1/2 pages or ~600 words each) gathers together riches from across the centuries–from the early church fathers to medieval mystics to modern saints, and a number of living authors. It features scholars, mystics, activists and literary giants from the Greek East to the Latin West and represents both Catholic and Protestant voices. While Plough has plumbed the spiritual depths of the tradition, each selection is bite-sized and accessible as a nourishing taste of daily bread, This expanded edition has added many voices and warrants its place as a keeper for annual use well beyond the bounds of the Lenten season and Pentecost. Each section also includes an opening, soul-stirring poem (worthy of memorization). The seven sections are:

• Invitation
• Temptation
• Passion
• Crucifixion
• Resurrection
• New Life
• Pentecost

Authors include:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dorothy Day, Søren Kierkegaard, C. S. Lewis, Eberhard Arnold, Edith Stein, Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, J. Heinrich Arnold, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Dorothy L. Sayers, Johann Christoph Arnold, George MacDonald, Henri J. M. Nouwen, Sadhu Sundar Singh, Thomas Merton, Christina Rossetti, Leo Tolstoy, N. T. Wright, William H. Willimon, Meister Eckhart, Erik Varden, Jakob Hutter, Peter Riedemann, Julian of Norwich, Stanley Hauerwas, Ignatius of Antioch, Clement of Rome, Gregory of Nazianzus, Hildegard of Bingen, Archbishop Angaelos, John Chrysostom, Howard Thurman, Cyril of Jerusalem, Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Malcolm Guite, Tish Harrison Warren, Alastair Roberts, Cardinal Kurt Koch, Adrienne von Speyr, Hannah Whitall Smith, Johann Ernst von Holst, Wendell Berry and Kwon Jeong-saeng.