La redención de la sombra

In his work *Exercises in Contemplation*, Franz Jalics (Budapest, 1927–2021) proposes a meditation method illustrated through his own personal experience. This anthology gathers the key biographical episodes interspersed throughout those *Exercises*, as well as some of his brief yet profound commentaries on the Gospel—which he always expounds upon masterfully. Even when taken out of their original context, both the episodes and the commentaries highlight the extraordinary personality of a man who was undoubtedly one of the great spiritual masters of our century. The anthology is rounded out by an introductory study on Franz Jalics and his contemplative method, written by Pablo d'Ors, along with three appendices: a previously unpublished interview with the master, a first-hand account of his practice of silence, and his complete bibliography. Jalics’s prose—almost anti-literary and devoid of any aim other than the desire to communicate—lends his style a unique and unmistakable expressive power. Few spiritual masters in the Catholic world today are as capable as he was of demonstrating the relevance, necessity, and pedagogy of the path presented by Jesus of Nazareth two millennia ago in Galilee. Beneath its humble exterior, Franz Jalics’s approach offers nourishment for the souls of our contemporaries, aiding them in their own personal quests.