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Media Kit
Messenger of the Heart fills its pages with mystical Zen and Christian poems by Angelus Silesius. His poems are widely considered one of the greatest achievements in the spiritual literature the world. Also containing a Foreword by David Appelbaum, the poems come alive with pages of pen and ink sketches by Frederick Franck.
When mystics like Angelus Silesius speak of God, they do so from a vibrant intensity of awareness, and in a tone of voice one trusts at once. The timeless wisdom embedded in Messenger of the Heart’s humble rhymes is beautifully echoed by the observations of the ancient Zen masters which punctuate the text, and in the haiku-like drawings by Frederick Franck. Messenger of the Heart is part of the Spiritual Masters-East and West series.
About the Author(s)
Angelus Silesius
Angelus Silesius was born in Breslau, Poland in 1624. He published, in 1657, the two poetical works on which his fame rests; The Soul's Spiritual Delight and The Cherubic Wanderer. In 1661, he was ordained a priest and retired to the monastery of the Knights of the Cross in Breslau, where he died. Messenger of the Heart is Frederick Franck’s translation of The Cherubic Wanderer.
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Frederick Franck
Frederick Franck was a man of many talents: surgeon, philosopher, author, translator, artist, and, above all, activist for peace and humanity and critic of modern barbarisms. Internationally acclaimed for his many accomplishments, Dr. Franck blended art and spirituality into all that he produced, helping people see the humanity in others and God's Spirit in its many manifestations in the world. His classic book The Buddha Eye was reissued by World Wisdom, with some new additions, in 2004. He was also the editor of The Messenger of the Heart, a beautiful book featuring poems of Angelus Silesius, complemened by Franck's own drawings and select sayings of Zen masters.
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David Appelbaum
David Appelbaum is a Professor of Philosophy at State University of New York at New Paltz and is the author of several books on spiritual philosophy including Gathering Sparks: Interviews from Parabola Magazine and The Shock of Love. A graduate of Harvard, Professor Appelbaum is also a former senior editor of Parabola. Appelbaum wrote the Foreword to Messenger of the Heart .
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Reviews
- Angelus Silesius was a seventeenth century Christian mystic who described his four days and nights of illumination in 302 epigrams that he published as The Cherubinic Wanderer Artist and philosopher Frederick Franck discovered this work in a Copenhagen bookstore. He was drawn to these short poems from one who lived in “a century of upheavals, wars, and revolutions, a time of religious conflict, almost as troubled as ours.” He remembered reading them before but in the meantime had himself been engaged in some 25 years of Zen study. This time, reading them, “It was as if the ancient Zen Masters, who had become my companions and friends, were bending over me, whispering their own — sometimes quite ironic — commentaries in my ear.”
Franck presents his translations of half of Silesius’s epigrams in this delightful paperback. To show how this mystic’s observations parallel Zen wisdom, he juxtaposes them to sayings of Zen teachers. The result is proof positive that Silesius is a bridge between Eastern and Western mysticism.
The material on these pages is as fresh as it was in 1976 when the paperback was first published. Franck becomes a spiritual guide leading us on a mystical adventure that opens our eyes to unity, the wonders of nature, the bounties of grace, the mystery of God, the meaning of wealth and riches, the value of silence and stillness, the greed and gluttony of the ego, and the sadness that accompanies a world split apart by dualism.…
This volume is another example of Frederick Franck’s pioneering work in interspirituality. He has drawn the rich resources of Eastern and Western wisdom together in an uplifting and edifying whole. With Franck’s line drawings illustrating the poetry, this is a beautiful edition.Reviewed by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat in Spirituality & Practice
