A Faith That Challenges: The Life of Jim McSheffrey

A.J. Pell is rector of Christ Church in Hope, B.C., editor of the
Canadian Evangelical Review, and an instructor of Liturgy, Anglican
Studies Programme at Regent College in Vancouver, B.C.

The Christian world is full of people who never make an impact on the
wide world or the national stage, but who make a big difference to the
lives of people around them. Jim McSheffrey, a Jesuit brother born in
the Gatineau region of Quebec, was a person who made a big difference in
the MacMorran neighbourhood of Newfoundland’s capital. Formed by his
Christian faith, strengthened by the Ignatian spiritual exercises, and
fired up by Dorothy Day and the Catholic worker movement, McSheffrey
chose a life of service in an impoverished and troubled public housing
project.

Hanrahan’s approach to McSheffrey’s life is not to give us a
detailed chronology from birth to death, but to approach his life
thematically. While that does give the reader an idea of his
activities—mostly from his 17 years in St. John’s up to his death in
1999—what comes through most clearly is his passion for social justice
and the pragmatic spirituality that passion incarnated. Aided by
Hanrahan’s accessible text, McSheffrey becomes an inspiration to us
all.

Two minor quibbles. First, with a main text of only 80 pages, a bit too
much space is devoted to Newfoundland social history. Second, the book
seems too short to do justice to Brother Jim McSheffrey.