Paul Murray, O.P., an Irish Dominican friar, lives in Rome, where he teaches courses at the Angelicum University on the literature of the Western mystical tradition. He was born at Newcastle, Co. Down, in the North of Ireland on 26 November, 1947. Father Paul began teaching full time at the Angelicum in 1994 and, in the same year, was appointed Spiritual Director at the Convitto Internazionale San Tommaso. In 2000-2001, he was invited by Cardinal George to occupy the Paluch Chair of Theology at the University of St Mary of the Lake, Mundelein, Chicago. From the period 2001 to 2005 he was Vice Rector of the Angelicum University and, in 2007, he was elected President of the Institute of Spirituality at the Angelicum and re-elected in 2009. In 2010 he was invited by The House of Lords, London, to deliver an hour-long lecture on Christian Contemplation. On 17 January 2012 he was conferred with the STM (Master in Sacred Theology) by the Dominican Order. Father Murray’s books, 19 in all, including 6 books of poetry, are in the general field of spirituality and literature. They have been translated into languages such as German, French, Italian, Korean, Chinese, Polish, and Arabic.