The Rev. Jim Martin muses over merging Jesus’s spiritual and historical personas

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/the-rev-jim-martin-muses-over-merging-jesuss-spiritual-and-historical-personas/2014/03/07/00e75a68-a642-11e3-bf3d-63f593e487a9_story.html

By Michelle Boorstein, Published: March 7

The Rev. Jim Martin is probably America’s best-known Catholic priest. He appears on “The Colbert Report” when a Jesus expert is needed. He is a Christian spiritual figure to tens of thousands of Twitter followers and has written several best-selling books about God. Yet the dry-witted former business executive had never been to Jesus’s birthplace. He was afraid that visiting the Holy Land would kill his “pristine” ideas about Jesus with images of “cheesy tourist sites.”

Yet a few years ago, the 53-year-old Jesuit changed his mind. Merging the historical Jesus with the “Christ of faith” — the spiritual figure Martin and so many millions turn to — was essential, he decided, not just for him, but for others, too.

The result is “Jesus: A Pilgrimage,” a new book that’s part travelogue, part memoir and part a very Martinesque — that is, funny, conversational and deep — meditation on how one rational modern person merges biblical history with the miraculous.

We spoke with Martin about his book, being part of Pope Francis’s tribe (the Jesuits) and what he is giving up for Lent.

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