Meditations For Each Day (new compact edition)

Meditations For Each Day

This book consists of a series of daily meditations written by the eminent Latinist Antonio Cardinal Bacci (1885–1971), who served the Holy See as one of its principal Latinists for more than forty years. Originally published in Italian in 1959, the work appeared in English in 1965 and has since become a treasured classic of Catholic spiritual reading.

In these meditations, Cardinal Bacci ranges widely over the principles of the Catholic spiritual life, drawing upon Sacred Scripture, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, the writings of the saints, and the perennial wisdom of Catholic tradition. Particular attention is given to St. Thomas Aquinas, while numerous passages from Thomas à Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ and other masters of the spiritual life enrich the volume.

Written with clarity and simplicity, the meditations are suitable both for structured daily mental prayer and for quiet spiritual reading. Taken together, they provide a complete year of Catholic reflection on prayer, virtue, the sacraments, the Christian life, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the saints, suffering, death, judgment, and the pursuit of holiness.

The Third English Edition

This third paperback edition is published in a smaller trim size. For the sake of greater readability, we have retained the editorial changes introduced in the previous edition.

Scripture citations have been incorporated into the body of the text; the lengthy Latin passage from St. Bernard of Clairvaux has been translated into English; and several editorial notes have been added to clarify points of doctrine that might otherwise prove confusing to the reader. We have also corrected errors that escaped our notice in the previous edition.

New Sewn Hardcover Edition

Meditations For Each Day is also available in a handsome sewn hardcover edition, newly typeset in a compact 5 × 7 format and produced with a durable sewn binding, thick paper, decorative headbands, and a bound-in ribbon marker. It is designed especially for readers who wish to use the book every day for many years.

Antonio Cardinal Bacci was born in Giugnola, Italy, in 1885 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1909. Already distinguished for his mastery of Latin, he was called to Rome in 1922 to serve in the Secretariat of State. In 1931 he became Secretary of Briefs to Princes, an office in which he was responsible for composing in Latin papal letters to heads of state and other important pontifical documents. He remained in this position until 1960.

One of the twentieth century’s foremost ecclesiastical Latinists, Bacci vigorously defended Latin as a bond of doctrinal precision, liturgical unity, and Catholic universality. Among his scholarly works was his celebrated Latin lexicon for the terminology of modern life. Pope John XXIII created him a cardinal in 1960, and Bacci subsequently participated in all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council.

Cardinal Bacci died in his Vatican apartment in 1971 after nearly fifty years of service to the Holy See. In Meditations For Each Day, the precision of the Latinist is joined to the simplicity of a spiritual father, offering the reader a remarkably accessible guide to prayer, virtue, and the interior life.