The following version of this book, originally published in 1988, was used to create the guide: Powers, J. F. Wheat That Springeth Green. New York Review of Books Press, 2000.

Powers' novel is divided into three parts, each devoted to a phase in the life of Joe Hackett, a Catholic priest. Although the novel is a spiritual biography that covers more than forty years, the major section, Part Two, is devoted to Joe Hackett’s tenure as pastor of SS. Francis and Clare parish in suburban Minneapolis.

Part One recounts Joe Hackett's formative years in 1920s Minnesota. Joe Hackett grows up in a small rural town in an upper middle-class Catholic family. His father and uncle run a profitable coal distributorship. Joe Hackett early on is torn between pursuing a career in his family business or devoting himself to the priesthood. As a boy serving at Mass, Joe is fascinated by the importance of the priesthood and by the power of the sacraments, particularly Confession and the Eucharist. He is intrigued by the idea of sanctity, of living apart from the relentless materialism of the real-time world to contemplate the glory and grace of God. He yearns to be nothing less than a saint.

In high school, Joe develops into a promising blue-chip track star. He finds himself torn between his lingering devotion to the spiritual world and the discovery of the temptations of the flesh. With his friends, he explores typical adolescent experiences, smoking, weekend binge drinking, and promiscuous sex. When he contracts a venereal disease after spending time with the town prostitute, however, Joe decides to pursue the seminary.

In the seminary, Joe finds himself at the center of a small group of misfit seminarians similarly attracted to the ascetic life of intense study, rigorous meditation, and quiet contemplation. As part of his seminary training for a life of self-denial and hard-core sacrifice, Joe takes to wearing under his cassock a bulky, scratchy Medieval-styled hair shirt woven from the hide of goats. The discomfort is a way to remind him to continually fight the urgencies of the flesh.

Once he has completed seminary work, Joe Hackett, now Father Hackett, is assigned as curate, or assistant pastor, at Holy Faith Church, a small parish in rural Minnesota. There, the pastor, the intimidating and reclusive Father Van Slaag, has all but withdrawn from attending to the day to day work of running a parish. Rather the much older priest stays within his study, there parsing the Scripture and devoting long periods to intense prayer. It is up to Joe to run the parish. In a short time, Joe sees the problem with Father Van Slaag’s life of detachment., Joe begins to realize the spiritual reward of helping parishioners through the ordinary tragedies and mundane triumphs of their daily lives. He comes to find the business end of parish affairs distasteful—he refuses to use the Sunday pulpit to encourage bigger collections and delegates the bookkeeping responsibilities to the parish secretary. Apart from that, however, Joe finds himself responding to the energy and community of parish life.

After five years under Father Van Slaag, Joe completes a brief stint doing clerical work with the archdiocese’s massive Catholic Charities organization where he must deal with finances. Then, at last, he is assigned his own parish, the Church of SS. Francis and Clare, in the comfortable upscale suburban town of Inglenook just outside Minneapolis. He is only in his early forties and is perceived by the Archbishop as an up and coming prelate. Joe finds his parishioners are well to do and committed to the parish’s success. He quickly goes about addressing the parish’s long-standing issues with deteriorating facilities, completing the much-delayed work on both the parish rectory and school.

Joe becomes consumed by the business side of the parish. He is frustrated at critical turns by the backroom politicking of the Church’s diocesan administration. He finds his early commitment to the contemplative life unavailable, even ironic. Even as he immerses himself in the day to day workings of his parish, Joe turns to alcohol. He is a regular at the state store, buying cases of inexpensive gin. Alcohol (along with nights spent watching baseball on television) become his coping mechanisms to handle his bouts of depression and spiritual anxiety. Approaching 50, Joe is at something of a crossroads, a midlife spiritual crisis.

It is with the arrival of a young curate, Bill, that Joe’s spiritual life turns. Bill is fresh out of the seminary. With his idealism and his naïve enthusiasm for the sacred life, Bill reminds Joe of himself in his younger days. The two create a kind of priestly bond, a loose fellowship centered on long conversations about the role of the Church in an increasingly materialistic America. The Archbishop levies the parish $50,000 for its annual assessment to the diocesan charities fund over and above the expected revenue from the weekly collection. It is an exorbitant amount. Joe and Bill struggle to find ways to raise that money. They go door to door in what they regard as an unseemly pitch for donations, enduring lame excuses and rudeness from parishioners. At the same time, Joe gets involved with a young parishioner, a pacifist who decides, under Joe’s counsel, to relocate to Canada to avoid being drafted to serve in the increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam.

The bond between Joe and Bill will complete Joe’s spiritual recovery. Their long and often drunken conversations about the role of the priesthood convinces Joe that he must make a change. Even as Joe shows the young curate the realities of running a parish, the young curate reminds Joe of the reasons he originally pursued the priesthood, the power of Catholic sanctity in a secular world of chaos and immorality. As the novel closes, Joe accepts a new assignment: he will be the new pastor at Holy Cross parish in one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in inner city Minneapolis.