A brush with cancer led the much-loved writer and preacher on a quest to rediscover the romance of Christianity and what it means to be fully alive

When I was at university, years ago now, Timothy Radcliffe was sometimes invited to preach to the Catholic undergraduates at Sunday Mass. The chaplaincy was always well attended, but for this tall, rubicund, slightly shambolic-looking Dominican friar it was full to bursting. He was an electrifying speaker. He made every one of us feel that we mattered, and that as baptised Christians we were embarked on a marvellous adventure.

Radcliffe’s faith is both orthodox and open-minded, and he has an urge to share it. So when, a few years back, he was diagnosed with cancer, and threatened with death, he resolved to muster his thoughts about what it means to be fully alive. Alive in God: A Christian Imagination is his “most ambitious book yet”, but its thesis is simple: as Christians we can make the hearts of non-believers burn within them if we can communicate the truth that our religion is “not just a moral code designed to keep us in order, but a vibrant way of life”.

He writes with passion, humour and a dazzling breadth of reference: Newman rubs shoulders with Zadie Smith; Killing Eve with Beethoven; St Augustine with rap. And threading them all together is an entreaty from Deuteronomy: “I have set before you life and death … Choose life!”

We are sitting in Radcliffe’s cubbyhole study in Blackfriars, Oxford, with mugs of mahogany tea. Every surface is hidden beneath towers of books, papers, more mugs, glasses. I remember that the last time I was here was with Jean Vanier, who had come to give a talk.