Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul

A man of God

I enjoyed this book very much. Highly recommended to anyone who is faith filled or questioning their faith. Father Joe shows the quiet strength we all wish to have.

Read this book and then give it as a gift.

A marvelous book about faith and lack of faith and what it is like to really listen to and care about others.

I am glad he was not my inspiration

It drug on. It was disappointing. I could not finish it.

Freedom from the past ,,,freedom for the future

Outstanding and unusual memoir and story of redemptive love. The author is brave and honest,as he reflects his lifes twists, turns,hopes, fears and his wonderful safe relationship with his beloved Benedictine mentor Father Joe.This brilliant person struggled and finally found his truth and all the while was loved and accepted by Father Joe. Hendras use of language is beautiful... felt honored to read about a beautiful soul like Father Joe... would have loved to have known him . Highly recommended for those able to love the unlovable,and identify with Hendra as a fellow traveler on the journey.

Amazing grace

I was in a spiritual rut when I read this book, not unlike the author himself. I had pretty much heard it all and was excessively tired of institutionalized Christianity- even the Catholicism of my youth. The story of Father Joe lifted me from that rut and got me back on track. I guess Father Joe is still converting lost souls. But it is Hendra who deserves much of my gratitude. His rich writing blends the styles of Monty Python and St. Augustine, turning out a unique form of religious satire that actually feeds the soul. I read this book over a year ago, but can still vividly recall so many beautifully written scenes: Father Joe drinking his beloved red wine at the monastery the hideous look of his cancerous face Tony Hendra introducing Joe to his young children. There are some priceless comical scenes that will make the reader laugh out loud. Also, for those who enjoy the subject of Catholic Church history and liturgy, this is a very satisfying read. This is a book that must also be listened to on CD. Hendra gives an AMAZING narration, and by the story's end, you really believe that it is Father Joe stuttering the lines in his rich English accent. Wondering if life has meaning? Wondering if God is real? Read Father Joe- uncensored!

Not bowled over by this one

It was ok but not a book I'd recommend to anyone I know. You may have to be a Tony Hendra fan to appreciate it. I never got the sense of why this priest was such an extraordinary influence on his life. I thought some of the priest's interactions with the author as a teenager, while they may have been innocent, were questionable in judgment. I expected pearls of wisdom but found it to be a mediocre story with some amusing passages.

Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul

Tony Hendra is best known as a writer and satirist who co-wrote This Is Spinal Tap, a seminal comedy about a fictional 1970s rock band that inspired an entire film genre ¿ the mockumentary. Hendra¿s writing with National Lampoon in the late ¿60s and early ¿70s helped a generation of North Americans express their growing cynicism and frustration with politics and religion. What is less known about Hendra is his spiritual side. Father Joe begins with a fourteen-year-old Tony getting caught in an affair with a married Catholic woman. He is sent off to meet Father Joseph Warrillow, an unconventional Benedictine monk chosen to mete out punishment for the boy¿s sin. Much to Hendra¿s surprise he is not admonished, and he eventually becomes so enthralled with the life of a monk that he tries unsuccessfully to take the vows and gain acceptance into the abbey for many years to come. While there are some notable holes in Father Joe, particularly in regard to Hendra¿s two wives, I found that I could connect to Father Joe on a number of levels. Like Hendra, and like many people I know who grew up inside the Church, I also for a time considered taking vows and staying inside the tradition in a more formal way. I was also inspired by Hendra¿s struggles with satire itself. Having convinced himself that making people laugh was a noble pursuit, Hendra was unable to understand why he took so little personal pleasure in it himself. In speaking to Father Joe, Hendra realizes that the scabrous nature of satire ¿ the skewering of a subject at whatever cost ¿ is born from a vindictive, vengeful place, and not born from traditional Christian tenets, even if the result is laughter. As someone who has often used humour as the last line of defense ¿ and perhaps too often as the first line of offense ¿ I was interested in how a professional satirist and spiritual devotee engages with the contradictions found in these two pursuits. Overall, I don¿t know if Father Joe would be to everyone¿s taste, but I found myself greatly impressed by the deftness with which Hendra dealt with spiritual and cultural matters. I was 32,000 feet above the Canadian Rockies when I finished Father Joe, and was surprised to find myself weeping ¿ surprised to the point where I actually looked at the man next to me to see if he could explain why the book in my lap was wet. He just looked back at me with a puzzled expression. When I landed in Vancouver, I stopped at an airport washroom to freshen up, only to find my face streaked with black ink. I realized that my pen had exploded mid-flight, staining my hands, and when I was weeping into my hands the ink transferred to my face. I found it a fitting and comical end to a book that engaged and challenged me in considering the role of satire and faith in my spiritual life. What else can you do, except laugh?

Great Buy!!

I really enjoyed the journey the book took me on and I had a really hard time putting the book down. The life of Tony really quite remarkedly mirrors the lives that most of us have regarding the falling in and out of grace. God Bless Father Joe for holding on to Tony all those years and not giving up on him. This is a must read for all who feel they can't come back to the Church.

Profound, moving, clairvoyant...

Tony Hendra gives us a memoir which is both keenly perceptive about the human condition and brutally honest regarding his own perceived shortcomings, as well as by turns wickedly funny. The story of his 40+ year-long friendship with a Benedictine monk who served as his friend, mentor and spiritual advisor, it is a work of sublime beauty I believe will go down in history as a classic. Hendra's narrative begins when he is 14 years old, living in Britain, and involved in an affair with a married woman. Without giving away too many details - this sets the stage for a series of events culminating in Hendra's introduction to Father Joe, a Catholic priest living in a cloistered community on an island in the English Channel. Mr. Hendra is a brilliant writer and infuses his story with so much wit, insight, and heartfelt emotion that one is overwhelmed with its depth and immediacy. The portrait of Father Joe which emerges is truly that of a Saint. I found myself alternately doubled-over with laughter and awash in tears, all the while driven to find where the story would take me next. While the book may be challenging at times even to those of above-average verbal fluency (Hendra's prose does get a bit heavy now and then),keep a dictionary handy - it is well-worth the effort. One cannot help but be enriched by this account of a man practicing seemingly super-human compassion, love, and insight. Hendra has produced at once a masterpiece and a loving tribute to a great friend.

Fascinating read

I dearly loved this book. It revealed a lot to me, stuffs which I have never experienced, but find enriching. Above all, I was taken into a journey to meet a man I would have loved to know in my life. I appreciated the writer's command of the English language. His writing style reminds me of the works of Gilead, Janvier Tisi, Hemmingway.

Author inaccuracies

It seems such a shame that a major publishing house such as Random House does not have 'fact-checkers' -- this may seem to be a minor point to illustrate, but Tony Hendra does not have the correct names of the movie stars of his favorite 'adolescent' movie, 'Samson and Delilah' (as listed on pg. 19) -- Yvonne de Carlo never starred in the above-listed film; in fact, she is not listed in any of the credits. Mr. Hendra is confusing Ms. de Carlo with Hedy Lamarr, who did co-star in the film with Victor Mature. It seems odd that Mr. Hendra and Random House's editors did not uncover this inaccuracy prior to publication date -- hopefully, in later editions (or by the time the paperback edition comes out), this will be corrected and changed. Insofar as the theological issues involved, Mr. Hendra's journey unfolds in most unusual ways -- fortunately he did have a 'Father Joe' in his life.

'Father Joe' is simple but profound.

¿Father Joe¿ is simple but profound. The two-hundred-seventy-one pages form Tony Hendra¿s journey, which is our own, of false clarity, confusion, and the sobering beauty of divine truth tearing away the walls of modern-day life and frivolities revealing the core of life as it ought to be. Losing yourself in Holiness and tenderly loving all those who may embody Him. Life revolves around this vulnerable agape love.  But we deny it; Tony denies it; to lead a dynamic existence but an empty one. Tony patches the spiritual void with an alter ego, Tony the Monk, feeding his perpetual addiction, selfishness. Years of sex, drugs, rock n¿ roll, and even Tony the Monk, manifestations of his selfishness, ended, defeated by the counsel of Father Joe and the grace of God. Tony¿s new journey as a husband and father, as well as his newfound selflessness, is the rudiment of ¿Father Joe,¿ the compelling story of a renewed spirit.

No excuses, no sappy hokum

With every man and his dog writing books about ''life's greatest lesson'' it's a relief to find Tony Hendra NOT going for the sappy pap, but writing with great humor and humanity about his own human fall and the man who essentially became his personified conscience. This is the time in human history to get real about what we're about as beings. Recommended without reservation. For an equally powerful exploration of the inner man I urge you to read Peter Hillary's IN THE GHOST COUNTRY which has been praised in overseas broadsheet newspapers as ``deserving a wider audience for its searing psychological insights'' and ``a superb dialogue on human frailty.'' A must read.

The Writing Is Amazing

Much has been written about this wonderful book, but I must emphasize that Tony's writing is simply tremendous. The dscriptions of spirituality or the loss of spirituality are amazing. This book is a must read. No matter your background or age...Enjoy

Story of soul-searching while coming to terms with oneself.

Still, Tony wasn¿t ready to take good over evil. He continued life, going though a tumble into substance abuse, hollow satisfaction as head writer of National Lampoon, and a failed marriage. All along, he struggles with himself as he attempts to find the true meaning of life. The shadow that Father Joe had cast over him in his youth will not let his soul conform to the materialist satisfaction of the world. Eventually, he comes to terms with what Father Joe had attempted to explain to that rebellious teenager so many years earlier and continued to patiently tell him through the years. In the end, Hendra deserts his self-hating ways, as is the case with the ideal stories. Tony eventually finds good over evil and embraces the ways that Father Joe unwearyingly showed him for many years. The story is about Hendra and Father Joe, but has a hidden reflection on those readers that go through the same private internal war of their own. A well-written book that will do more than just inform and entertain; it will guide you if you let it. Highly recommended.

Really worth reading.

This book really turned out to be a pleasant read. I was expecting something different, but it worked out to be very entertaining, funny and heart warming all in one.

No text was provided for this review.

No text was provided for this review.