Make Holy These Gifts: Enchantment and the Catholic Faith

At the heart of Catholic faith lies recognition that life is enchanted. In a sacramental world ordinary things--water, bread, sexuality--overflow with grace. The Whiteheads remind readers of the saving energy such belief can infuse into our lives. "The Catholic genius lies in the recognition of the world as sacramental. The lame walk, the blind see, weapons are repurposed as farm implements. All this takes place only in a world that has become enchanted. Enchantment names the jolts in consciousness with which we register the epiphanies and transfigurations of the wonder all around us. Another name for this is grace."

Evelyn Eaton Whitehead is a developmental psychologist (PhD, University of Chicago) and James Whitehead is a Catholic theologian and historian of religion (PhD, Harvard University). Married since 1970, the Whiteheads have served on the theology faculty at Notre Dame University and for forty-five years have been professors at the Institute of Pastoral Studies, Loyola University, Chicago. During that time they published twenty books, a number of which have been translated into five foreign languages.