Secret Keepers, by Karima Berger
Reading the Scriptures plunges us into a “time specific to the events of the soul”, according to the expression of the Islamologist Henry Corbin. Karima Berger traces throughout her work a personal itinerary in the footsteps of the power of the feminine in the plan of God. She was about to write the culmination of her quest when verse 34 of the IVe sura offered him, like a flash, the axis that crosses his last book: “Women are the secret keepers of what God keeps secret. » The secret ? The unspeakable, the infigurable. God has entrusted its preservation to women. They are carriers of a knowledge that passes much in the Muslim tradition through the body, the senses, the desire, the flesh. Often to their greatest misfortune, because this skill – a word that the author prefers to intuition – worries men to the point of assigning “guardians” to the fence of intimacy.
Karima Berger acknowledges her debt to contemporary intellectuals (Fatima Mernissi, Asma Lamrabet, Nayla Tabbara) who have re-read the Koran to show the seeds of liberation swept away by centuries of masculine exegesis. But it is situated on another plane: that of writing, of interiority. His approach is nourished by the stories that rocked his childhood in Algeria, the reading of texts from the Sunna (the prophetic tradition), the Koran, the mystics. We follow her with delight as she meets the many women who irrigate Muslim spirituality like an underground river: Khadidja, the Prophet’s first wife, his daughter Fatima-Zahra, Hagar, Marie, Zuleikha, Potiphar’s wife, whose mad love for Joseph is interpreted by Sufi tradition as an image of human desire for Beauty, one of the names of God. A sensual and intelligent book. DL
Albin Michel, €21.90.
How beautiful are your works, by Sophie de Mullenheim and Anna Griot
Original, this book evokes the way in which 15 witnesses of Christ lived integral ecology: François d’Assise, Hildegarde de Bingen, the Amerindian Kateri Tekakwitha or Charles de Foucauld, who described his Algerian desert thus: “Nothing stops the view. It is a beautiful place to worship the Creator. »
But also mountain lovers, Jean Paul II, Pier Giorgio Frassati, Carlo Acutis, or the Jesuit Jacques Sevin, who introduced scouting to France; this summer, nearly 150,000 young people will camp in the great outdoors! In addition, advice (sports, culinary, anti-waste) to live more in the spirit Laudato si’. CS
Mom, €17.90.
Living the Beatitudes with François de Sales, by Michel Tournade
Michel Tournade, parish priest in Annecy, has embarked on a daring undertaking: to shed light on a Gospel text to which the faithful have become accustomed – to the point of emptying it of its revolutionary power – by drawing on life and the writings of a saint from 500 years ago and whose style “smells the dawn of the Grand Siècle” ! In a hundred pages, the author dusts off the Beatitudes and the author of theIntroduction to the devout life. The subject is all the more invigorating as it is embodied and does not lack joy.
François de Sales was in no way a sad saint: with gentleness, love and humour, the former bishop of Annecy and Geneva is a valuable guide to advancing on the path to happiness, that of holiness. A path open to all and whose first step is to know that you are loved by God: “Yes, God has dreamed of you from the depths of his eternity, even before the first morning of the world. » AV
Salvador, €17.
By paths of intimate depth, by Colette Nys-Mazure
“I can tirelessly redo paths: they will turn out to be new each time because I will have changed, I will have become capable of looking differently. » Colette Nys-Mazure walks as she reads books, as she finds friendly faces, as she contemplates a painting: with an open mind, alertness. Whether she walks the paths from her home in Froyennes (Belgium), whether she strolls through the market in Arles or strolls through a garden in Angers, the vast world is always woven into her subject.
Exhibitions, comics, cinema, the most contemporary works are erected like cairns over the steps and the pages. We close the book with a thousand reading desires. And in the intimate depths of his life, Christ is the traveling companion who says to him “Follow me”, even if it is sometimes necessary to put ice on one knee.’ DF
Salvador, €18.50.
The World Tour of Christian Feasts, by Sophie Pelloux-Prayer and Hubert Poirot-Bourdain
What if we took advantage of the holidays to discover the festive traditions of Christians? On August 15, the feast of the Assumption, thousands of pilgrims pass in procession in front of the grotto of Lourdes with torches. The Bretons organize “pardons”, pilgrimages around a patron saint. At Christmas, in Burkina Faso, children visit their godparents. Listed as a UNESCO intangible heritage, the feast of Timkat (“baptism”) is celebrated by Orthodox Ethiopians in memory of that of Christ. Many baptisms take place at night. The Russians immerse themselves in the frozen waters three times while making the sign of the cross. This colorful manual also suggests a few activities: paper lanterns, origami doves… From 8 years old.’ CS
Bayard, €14.90.