We used this book as one of our monthly Book Club selections. We had a wonderful discussion.
For me the whole book is a commentary on what he says on the first page. He learned to "let go." the rest is all a way of living a CHristian life from this point of view; not be attached to anything but keep your eyes on God alone.
Based on the Gospel of Jesus, this ability of "letting go" is the secret of Christian life; to allow God to work in us and through us require that we learn how to discern His will. Once we do this, we can live our lives without letting the storms determine the direction of our journey.
Cardinal Bernardin learned this the hard way.
I read the book in a couple of hours but had to go back again over and over to let the truth of his experience sink in my own heart.
I particularly enjoyed the chapter titles: they used his own handwriting. It was his wish. I liked that he reclaimed beauty (handwriting) in a world that was being destroyed by the ugliness of his illness.
easy read, thought provoking, life changing book.

"Subito Santo!"(Make him a saint now!) was my first thought as I finished reading "The Gift of Peace: Personal Reflections by Joseph Cardinal Bernardin". This was a book I noted when it first was published, but I waited to read it until now. Perhaps I thought it would be sad or even depressing. How wrong I was! This is an uplifting book, recounting in his own words the major events of the last three years of Cardinal Bernardin's life. It is a book filled with moving stories of reconciliation, kindness,
care of others even in the face of his own debilitating illness, and love of the highest order. It is the truest expression of the saying "Let go and let God" I have ever encountered.

This is not a long book and I suggest reading its short chapters over several days or weeks. This will allow the "Gift of Peace" the book offers--which is Cardinal Bernardin's real legacy--to take root and grow in the reader. If this happens, the book has served its purpose and Cardinal Bernardin, now in the company of the saints in light (even if not an official saint yet) can, himself, rest in peace.

"Santo subito!" Make him a saint now!

I found this to be a wonderful piece of work and have lent it to several friends who were diagnosed with cancer. Monsignoir Velo's reading was very delightful and I give him a lot of credit for being able to read his good friend's memoires.

Beautifully written. As Cardinal Bernardin reflects on the last three years of his life, he shares the importance of embracing prayer, family, suffering, beauty, reconciliation, pain, and forgiveness in order to appreciate and completely enter into the fullness of peace.

For anyone who feels lost or alone in life or frustrated, angry, or scared at the thought of facing death, I recommend this book. Love and peace pour out of the pages as the author shares his life experiences, struggles, and genuine concern for others. He shared his love with countless people he encountered in his life, and his love continues to be shared after his death to any reader who has the opportunity to read this book.

The book is quite short (can easily be read in one sitting) and is incredibly focused and well organized. The book title, chapter titles, and introductory letter are handwritten by the author and really add genuineness to the book. Highly recommended.

Those of us losing our eyesight and who love to read often turn to the audiobook. It is like having a wonderful text read to us at bedtime as we listen on levels spiritual and psychological unreached by silent reading. Please notice the audiobook of this present precious text of peace is read by a Monsignor, a close coworker of this blessed Cardinal.

The false accusations of abuse made against this great American Cardinal were quickly cleared up, and this slim volume insightfully and clearly records that process and the holy process of reconciliation with his false accuser, in a lesson for us of peace and reconciliation and of forgiveness of those who most completely destroy us. The Cardinal truly lives and demonstrates for us the promise we make each time we pray the Our Father. Forgive us in the same way that we forgive those who have trespassed against us. Forgive us with the same forgiveness we show others. Just as we must do unto others what we want others to do for us, JEsus also calls us actively to forgive others in the same way we want the Father to forgive us. This saintly and courageous Cardinal Forgave the disturbed young man who falsley accused him of abuse, and this book well displays the process, that we might also learn to forgive, in the Love of God, in our interpersonal relationships and national policies.

How many times must we forgive, o Lord. Not seven but seventy times seven.

We need in our national Catholic Church this voice now more than ever. Read this book and weep and become renewed in our Gospel mission to love and to forgive and to spread the good news to the poor and liberation to the captives. Sight to the Blind. In this time of unjust war and overwhelming violence, we need to hear this book.

Yet some Catholics for political reasons continue to condemn this saintly man (while silent on Cardinal Law), eagerly assuming the accusations true, or some association with others similarly accused, in order not to hear the exhortation by this great Cardinal that the right to life does not end at birth, but at a natural and God given death. The right to life must be supported at every point in our life and in every aspect of life. This great CArdinal elaborated for our edification the seamless garment explanation of the right to life.

Womb to tomb.

Please read this book.

I must rush to Mass now, and I bring this book with me to help my confused prayer. I thank God this great and holy and courageous Cardinal left us this Gift of Peace in the weeks before his untimely death. As head of the USCCB at the time of the crafting of the prophetic letter The Challenge of Peace, his courageous voice is needed now more than ever. Yet we have this, his abiding Gift of Peace, and that strong letter for peace. Take and read.

Pray for peace. Receive this Gift of Peace.

Those of us losing our eyesight and who love to read often turn to the audiobook. It is like having a wonderful text read to us at bedtime as we listen on levels spiritual and psychological unreached by silent reading. Please notice the audiobook of this present precious text of peace is read by a Monsignor, a close coworker of this blessed Cardinal.

The false accusations of abuse made against this great American Cardinal were quickly cleared up, and this slim volume insightfully and clearly records that process and the holy process of reconciliation with his false accuser, in a lesson for us of peace and reconciliation and of forgiveness of those who most completely destroy us. The Cardinal truly lives and demonstrates for us the promise we make each time we pray the Our Father. Forgive us in the same way that we forgive those who have trespassed against us. Forgive us with the same forgiveness we show others. Just as we must do unto others what we want others to do for us, JEsus also calls us actively to forgive others in the same way we want the Father to forgive us. This saintly and courageous Cardinal Forgave the disturbed young man who falsley accused him of abuse, and this book well displays the process, that we might also learn to forgive, in the Love of God, in our interpersonal relationships and national policies.

How many times must we forgive, o Lord. Not seven but seventy times seven.

We need in our national Catholic Church this voice now more than ever. Read this book and weep and become renewed in our Gospel mission to love and to forgive and to spread the good news to the poor and liberation to the captives. Sight to the Blind. In this time of unjust war and overwhelming violence, we need to hear this book.

Yet some Catholics for political reasons continue to condemn this saintly man (while silent on Cardinal Law), eagerly assuming the accusations true, or some association with others similarly accused, in order not to hear the exhortation by this great Cardinal that the right to life does not end at birth, but at a natural and God given death. The right to life must be supported at every point in our life and in every aspect of life. This great CArdinal elaborated for our edification the seamless garment explanation of the right to life.

Womb to tomb.

Please read this book.

I must rush to Mass now, and I bring this book with me to help my confused prayer. I thank God this great and holy and courageous Cardinal left us this Gift of Peace in the weeks before his untimely death. As head of the USCCB at the time of the crafting of the prophetic letter The Challenge of Peace, his courageous voice is needed now more than ever. Yet we have this, his abiding Gift of Peace, and that strong letter for peace. Take and read.

Pray for peace. Receive this Gift of Peace.

Those of us losing our eyesight and who love to read often turn to the audiobook. It is like having a wonderful text read to us at bedtime as we listen on levels spiritual and psychological unreached by silent reading. Please notice the audiobook of this present precious text of peace is read by a Monsignor, a close coworker of this blessed Cardinal.

The false accusations of abuse made against this great American Cardinal were quickly cleared up, and this slim volume insightfully and clearly records that process and the holy process of reconciliation with his false accuser, in a lesson for us of peace and reconciliation and of forgiveness of those who most completely destroy us. The Cardinal truly lives and demonstrates for us the promise we make each time we pray the Our Father. Forgive us in the same way that we forgive those who have trespassed against us. Forgive us with the same forgiveness we show others. Just as we must do unto others what we want others to do for us, JEsus also calls us actively to forgive others in the same way we want the Father to forgive us. This saintly and courageous Cardinal Forgave the disturbed young man who falsley accused him of abuse, and this book well displays the process, that we might also learn to forgive, in the Love of God, in our interpersonal relationships and national policies.

How many times must we forgive, o Lord. Not seven but seventy times seven.

We need in our national Catholic Church this voice now more than ever. Read this book and weep and become renewed in our Gospel mission to love and to forgive and to spread the good news to the poor and liberation to the captives. Sight to the Blind. In this time of unjust war and overwhelming violence, we need to hear this book.

Yet some Catholics for political reasons continue to condemn this saintly man (while silent on Cardinal Law), eagerly assuming the accusations true, or some association with others similarly accused, in order not to hear the exhortation by this great Cardinal that the right to life does not end at birth, but at a natural and God given death. The right to life must be supported at every point in our life and in every aspect of life. This great CArdinal elaborated for our edification the seamless garment explanation of the right to life.

Womb to tomb.

Please read this book.

I must rush to Mass now, and I bring this book with me to help my confused prayer. I thank God this great and holy and courageous Cardinal left us this Gift of Peace in the weeks before his untimely death. As head of the USCCB at the time of the crafting of the prophetic letter The Challenge of Peace, his courageous voice is needed now more than ever. Yet we have this, his abiding Gift of Peace, and that strong letter for peace. Take and read.

Pray for peace. Receive this Gift of Peace.

Joseph Cardinal Bernardin made a very large impact on the City of Chicago. A simple, humble, very human being, he was greatly loved by all Chicagoans. At the end of his life, two huge events impacted his life, being falsely charged with sexual molestation by a young man, and learning that his life was soon to end as the victim of cancer. This book is a moving, eloquent statement of how he dealt with these and how his faith in God was tested and ultimately made rock solid. It is an inspiration to all who who are faced with burdens beyond their strength.

I have purchased this book several times and recommended it on numerous other occasions. I bought it first for myself, and on the other occasions for friends, family members and acquaintances who were dealing with serious illness and end of life issues. The feedback received from each recipient has been very positive. Cardinal Bernardin leads the reader through his last days of life as he deals in a very graceful and touching way with terminal cancer, life's issues and personal spirituality. It's not long until the reader feels he or she is walking the journey with a close friend. Through his experinece, Cardinal Bernardin helps the reader deal with his or her own mortality in a peaceful way. He is still ministering to us. I highly recommend this book for all those dealing with illness, family members, ministers, and healthcare professionals. Incidently, You don't have to be Catholic to fully appreciate this book.

The Gift of Peace was recommended to me by the rabbi who presided over my father's funeral, which tells you something about its universal appeal. In deceptively simple and beautiful prose, Cardinal Bernardin chronicles his last days in which he makes the most of his ministry. The Gift of Peace is a story of moral and spiritual courage from which we can all benefit.

Former Cincinnati archbishop and Chicago Cardinal-Archbishop Joseph Bernardin knew he was dying when he undertook this final goodbye to the peoples of his Church. It is impossible to open this slender volume and not have that foremost in mind. Even the opening pages here are hand-written in the Cardinal's beautiful penmanship. This man, once seriously considered American's one great hope for the Papacy, lived a life in so many ways worthy of imitation. The late Cardinal was imperfect, needless to say, and his personal epistemological beliefs were not shared by all Americans, but in the good things that may be known of him, he was inspiring in a highly positive way. He personified modesty, dignity, grace, and exercised almost super-human powers of personal forgiveness as demonstrated in his laying aside all enmity toward the troubled young man who falsely accused him of molestation. Bernardin was a man who committed the first hour of every day of his life to prayerful meditation, and in a reversal of the past dogmatic intolerance of Catholicism, advocated the ecumenical consanguinity of all humans regardless of race, religion or creed. When visiting a Chicago-area synagogue during his time as Cardinal, Bernardin greeted the Jewish worshipers there by telling them, "I am Joseph, your brother."

This book tells in his own words Bernardin's battle with the cancer that ultimately killed him. He was a man who did not shun death, he embraced it as part of life, and--in his view-the doorway to a better existence. It also tells of how his faith sustained him in his darkest hour (far more dire, he confesses, than the terminal cancer) which came in the months that followed the unfounded accusations of pederasty made against him by a one-time seminarian.

Bernardin, through this last book, founds a legacy of moral goodness that should stand as a challenge not just to Roman Catholics but to humanity everywhere, to lay aside anger, pessimism and violence, and strive toward a life in which hope, peace, selflessness, form the foundation. In this post-911 world, we probably need more than ever to remember that there are, were, and will be good people in human society who set examples for all of us. In The Gift of Peace it is our privilege to know one.

Bernardin, who completed this work on November 1, 1996, passed away on November 14th of that same year. I remember waking up to the news on local television as I was preparing for classes in my final year at a Catholic school in his one-time archdiocese. I was struck then that he was truly gone and that such a figure of profound importance, about whom I'd grown up hearing so much, wouldn't be there any longer. However, through this book, in a way, his life and works can, via inspiration, still prove influential.

This man will one day be a canonized Saint of his church, and this is his last earthly "talk" to those of remaining in this life.

"It is precisely in letting go, in entering into complete union with the Lord, in letting him take over, that we discover our true selves." p. 48. This is the union that Cardinal Joseph Bernardin spoke of in "The Gift of Peace". The frivilous matters of this world mean little when they are placed in the proper perspective. Bernardin's tumultuous final three years of life led him through false accusations of misconduct and cancer. He invites to follow his journey in the book as he puts his life in the proper perspective and prepares for his eternal reward.

Just as Jesus suffered and died to be reborn to greater things, we do the same. Death is a passage to a greater life. As one becomes ready to die, they begin the process of "putting their life in order." There is also the matter of putting the soul in order which is acknowledged less frequently. Bernardin advises readers to pray now as it is often difficult to find the strength or focus during sickness. Additionally, by praying now we are more prepared to release the worries of this world and trust our fate to God. Worrying about what is out of our control is among the most frivilous wastes of energy during illness. In the book, Bernardin readily admits that even he was unsure if he was praying well at times. The truth is that your prayer life will tell you when it is adequate.

One need not being dying to appreciate Bernardin's wisdom. We all have our daily sufferings or cross to bear. Bernardin's wisdom provides strength for the journey as we embrace death as a friend and passage to eternal peace. Even our sufferings our only a passage to greater things. Bernardin has written a masterfully written, spiritually uplifting book that only hints of the peace in the next life.