One of the most respected and adventurous of writers on the mystical traditions of Christianity, himself a Carmelite, Noel Dermot O'Donoghue has gathered together his definitive reflections on the three great mystical doctors of the Catholic Church: St Teresa of Avila, St John of the Cross and St Therese of Lisieux. These inter-related essays are the fruit of a lifetime, written in O'Donoghue's richly poetic way. Praise for O'Donoghue's book Heaven in Ordinarie 'Searching and moving... combines the sensibility to language and feeling of a poet with an astonishing intellectual boldness... a wonderful and visionary account of orthodox Christianity.' Rowan Williams