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"Timothy Murphy's Devotions revives this major but neglected poetic genre with variety and amplitude. In over two hundred short poems, Murphy explores the vicissitudes of modern spiritual life. Some of the poems are inspirational, celebrating the joyous mysteries of faith. Others confront the sorrows and failures of contemporary life presenting unvarnished the painful dramas of sin, despair, repentance, and redemption. Murphy celebrates the saints, but he has not forgotten the battered, the drunkards, the sinners, among whom the poet numbers himself. In these poems, the drama of redemption is not abstract but personal." -- Dana Gioia, Past Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Confessiones 10.27.38

Wrongly believing beauty lay without,
   blindly I flailed about.
   How late did I begin
to realize your beauty lay within.
   To one deprived of sight
   you said Let there be light,
   and to my deafened ear
you called, you cried! hoping that I might hear.

  I thirsted, hungered, yearned.
   You touched me, and I burned.
   How late I came to you,
Beauty ever ancient, ever new.
   How late I came to you.

--after St. Augustine

"I delight in the breadth of Timothy Murphy's fields of endeavor. He farms the Red River Valley of the North. He hunts the High Plains. He climbs the peaks of the Rockies and sails the Caribbean. He has led a vigorous outdoor life, where the Holy Spirit has done a good job of protecting one of His poets." -- Richard Wilbur