Caryll Houselander è stata una mistica, scrittrice e artista britannica il cui lavoro è stato caratterizzato da profonda intuizione spirituale e visione artistica. La sua scrittura si è concentrata sullo svelare la presenza di Cristo in tutte le persone e in tutte le circostanze della vita. Il suo stile è stato descritto come rinfrescante, come se vedesse le cose per la prima volta, capace di illuminare anche le considerazioni dottrinali più aride. I suoi testi, che comprendono poesie, racconti e articoli, sono apprezzati per la loro profondità spirituale e la loro prospettiva unica sull'esperienza umana.
The Catholic Women Writers series brings together the English-language prose works of Catholic women from the 19th and 20th centuries. The first volume in the series is Caryll Houselander's The Dry Wood. It offers a vital contribution to the modern literary canon and a profound meditation on the purpose of human suffering.
This book lends hope to persons who are suffering or are in their declining years. A prolific writer of spiritual books, Caryll Houselander (1901-1954) wrote this one during her years of poor health. In The Risen Christ she focuses on Jesus' Resurrection and the joy that is the mark of every Christian life. She brings to life the forty days of our Lord after the Resurrection. What Jesus taught us by his final days on earth shows that the Resurrection is the key to the joy that awaits all who follow in Christ's footsteps.
Petook is a snowy white rooster and proud of his wife's new brood of chicks, and quick to protect them from an intruding young stranger named Jesus walking through the garden. But when he sees the child kneeling in wonder and caressing his newborn chicks, Petook is soothed and crows happily. Years later, Petook, whose home is in sight of Calvary's hill, is awaiting another hatching and becomes strangely agitated when he sees men being lifted onto crosses there. He doesn't know that one of the men being crucified is the same boy who visited Petook's family long ago. But three days later on Easter morning, as a new brood of chicks hatches that coincides with the Resurrection of the stranger, Petook is inspired to crow with great joy, celebrating the mystery of new life.