After five hectic years of retirement from Lord's Chapel, Father Tim Kavanagh returns with his wife, Cynthia, from a so-called pleasure trip to the land of his Irish ancestors. While glad to be at home in Mitford, something is definitely missing: a pulpit. But when he's offered one, he decides he doesn't want it. Maybe he's lost his passion. His adopted son, Dooley, wrestles with his own passion -- for the beautiful and gifted Lace Turner, and his...

Having pursued intellectual matters all of his life, Father Tim discovers the joys of working with his hands when he discovers a worn-out nativity scene and begins to restore it.

The final volume in the "Mitford Years" series finds Father Tim contemplating the revival of a remote mountaintop church, a challenge he hopes will be his ultimate calling, but fears will be an impossible task.