The Church is experiencing a new Pentecost this is the theme that permeates Fr Orsy's book. The author, who has assisted dozens of religious communities in the updating urged by Vatican II, draws out the implications of this new Pentecost for the religious life. The themes and images he uses are not the usual but rather unhelpful juridical ones associated with the theology of the religious life, but positive ones in line with post Vatican II thinking. In an early chapter entitled 'prophets of the new covenant', Fr Orsy expresses in human terms some of the divine riches revealed in the life of consecrated communities, and he deals with the question of the relevance of the religious life to the Church as a whole.