The Essential Guardini (Romano Guardini's Works‪)‬

ROMANO GUARDINI is sometimes referred to as a "Philosopher of the Christian World" whose lifelong task was that of "proclaiming the sacred in a modern world." A world-famous Roman Catholic thinker and a prolific writer who was born in Verona, Italy, in 1885, he lived and studied in Germany from the age of one year old, eventually concentrating on theological studies with an abiding interest in liturgy. Ordained a priest in 1910, he held various pastoral positions, interrupted by military service as a hospital orderly during the years 1916-1918. Subsequently he taught philosophy and theology at the University of Bonn, the University of Berlin, the University of Tubingen, and the University of Munich. By the time of his death in 1968 at the age of 83, he had written at least 60 books and 100 articles. The editor of The Essential Guardini (1997), Heinz R. Kuehn, first came to know Guardini in the fall of 1938, and later, after World War II, studied under him at Tubingen; in especial, he pays warm tribute to his teacher's enduring legacy as "a Renaissance man, a precursor of Vatican II, a lighthouse in a darkening world, a prophet of things to come, a humanistic scholar in the best sense of the word." The prophetic dimension of Guardini's achievement, Kuehn stresses, served as "a determining factor in the selection of the texts in this anthology." He also stresses that in compiling this book for "Liturgy Training Publications" (Archdiocese of Chicago), with the special aim of "providing materials that assist parishes, institutions, and households in the preparation, celebration and expression of liturgy in Christian life," he decided to include selections from Guardini's books "devoted to a critique and analysis of the modern age in all its aspects" so as to illustrate the theologian's "truly cosmic view of Catholicism and life's realities." In this respect, this anthology rightly proposes to delineate Guardini's contribution as an intellectual, cultural, and spiritual guide in our time. Guardini's meditations on "the spirit of the liturgy" are here appropriately joined to Guardini's thoughts on "the end of the modern world" and on "freedom, grace, and destiny."