Wheat That Springeth Green Summary
J.F. Powers

Wheat That Springeth Green Overview

More than 20 years in the writing, Wheat That Springeth Green, J. F. Powers’ second and final novel, explores the spiritual evolution of a 40-something Midwestern Catholic priest, a disillusioned mystic enthralled by the idea of the pursuit of perfect holiness and absolute sanctity. Set during the turbulent upheavals of the late 1960s, the novel follows Father Joe Hackett as he copes, often comically, with the practical day to day busyness of running a comfortable middle-class parish in Inglenook, Minnesota, a fictional suburb of Minneapolis. Powers tackles, among others, the themes of the soul and spirituality, the pull of sin, the lure of materialism, and the role of the conscience in matters of faith.