Gifts from Friends We've Yet to Meet

What does it mean to be anonymous in the Gospels? Isn’t God the one who calls us by name and knows us even before we are born? In Gifts from Friends We’ve Yet to Meet, Virginia Herbers introduces readers to nameless Gospel characters, each of whom provides us with a story, a journey, and a gift.

Reflecting on experiences in her own life, Herbers journeys through these Gospel stories, inviting us to reflect on seemingly insignificant encounters in our own lives. Who are the “anonymous figures” who have played a critical role for each of us? How do the experiences of the nameless Gospel characters continue to reach and teach us today? Can it be that their anonymity allows their experience to be both individual and universal?

In each of these anonymous characters, Herbers introduces us to dear friends we just haven’t met yet. And each of their ages-old encounters with Jesus contains a gift for all of us today.

Virginia Herbers is a retreat director, lecturer, and spiritual director who uses story and theology to shed contemporary light on traditional Scriptural texts. Virginia has been an educator in the United States and Taiwan, a blogger for the USCCB, a regular columnist for Global Sisters Report, and a frequent presenter at retreat centers and parishes across the country. Her undergraduate degrees are in theology and mathematics, and she has an MA in pastoral studies from Aquinas Institute. She currently lives in St. Louis, Missouri, serving as the Director of Mission Formation at Saint Louis University.