Corrie van den Bosch, COVENTRY PRESS, ISBN 9781922589415
Graced Beyond Telling contains the story of two journeys. The first tells of a girl who came as a migrant from Holland into rural Tasmania and then joined the Missionary Sisters of Service. The Congregation, known in Victoria as the Caravan Sisters after their eye-catching stand in the Catholic Life Exhibition in the 1950s, went through isolated areas in Australia visiting families and teaching faith.
Sr Corrie travelled through Tasmania and outback South Australia, spent time in administration, studied spirituality and counselling in the Philippines and in Queensland.
The inner journey on which the book focuses is of Corrie’s inner journey for which she draws on her diaries of many decades. From girlhood she had a deep sense of God’s presence. This was tested by the torment of absence. It drew her into the mystery of God ‘s love which she experienced both as light and as darkness, always accompanied by a call for deeper trust and acceptance.
Corrie’s writing evokes the wonder of God as it is revealed in the natural world and in apparently ordinary human experience. It feeds into a commitment to the environment and social justice, exploration of the feminine, and consequent insistence on reform within the Church.
Grace Beyond Telling is valuable for exploring so deeply our relationship with God, and assuring us that if it seems to grow distant this is the path to intimacy.