And indeed, to reflect on the connection between the material and the spiritual, especially with regard to the sanctity of human life. It is a book that will speak to you personally. I was particularly delighted by the appearance of St. Margaret Clitherow, the Pearl of York, whom I consider to be a Patroness of, and inspiration for, my own work. But each reader will find his or her own points of reflection.
The journey is not all contemplation: there’s action, and there’s certainly sacrifice. As well as being an enchanting meditation on the beauties of Catholicism, The Egyptian Guide delivers a powerful, and timely, warning about those twin threats: Aggressive Secularism and Radical Islam, both of which are trying so hard to crush the Church.
Hence it is not only ‘old’ saints that we meet in The Egyptian Guide. The ‘new,’ fictional saints Evelyn Oliver gives us are so vivid and wonderful that after finishing the book I occasionally found myself on the point of asking for their prayers – only to recollect that they are, well, fictional! Of course, at the moment, similar new martyrs are surely arriving in heaven on a regular basis. We may never know some of them until we (Lord willing) arrive there ourselves; others, we may know on earth in due course, once the wheels of canonisation have finished their careful revolutions. And so parts of this book feel like a compelling glimpse of things to come, a warning of the strife that could be approaching, but still it is a tale of hope, and glory.
Ultimately, one of the greatest challenges Clara faces in The Egyptian Guide, probably the greatest challenge, is exactly that faced by my own heroines, Margo in I Am Margaret and Ruth in Someday: ‘Would I die for my faith?’ This is a question that has been of vital importance for Christians ever since the earliest days of the Church, though at different times and in different places it has had more or less relevance to Christians’ everyday lives. Alas, we are again living in a time when, though we may well hope never to have to give proof of our answer, it is no longer unthinkable that we might. And that is the single most challenging message in The Egyptian Guide – that Clara could be any one of us, some day very soon.
Corinna Turner
“They have deceived my people, saying: Peace, and there is no peace.”
Ezekiel 13:10
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