Monastic Wisdom
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Thomas Merton
Prophet of Renewal
by John Eudes Bamberger
Part 4 of the Monastic Wisdom series
Like Bernard of Clairvaux, whose last act was to leave his cloister to mediate 'successfully 'between two nobles and prevent bloodshed, Thomas Merton found in the monastic life of prayer a source of strength, empathy, and understanding. To understand Merton, one must first know him as a Prophet of Monastic renewal.
John Eudes Bamberger entered Gethsemani Abbey in 1950, having earned an MD from the University of Cincinnati the previous year and done his internship at Georgetown University Hospital. A student of Thomas Merton from 1952-1955, he worked with Merton, after his ordination in 1956, in screening applicants to the abbey. He served as abbot of the Abbey of the Genesee, in New York state, from 1971 until 2001. Since returning from a term as superior in the Philippines, he lives in a hermitage at Genesee.
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Inside The School Of Charity
Lessons from the Monastery
by Trisha Day
Part 20 of the Monastic Wisdom series
In 2003 Trisha Day spent three months living inside the enclosure of Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey, a community of twenty Cistercian nuns. Although she had long been monastic associate, she was startled by the unexpected challenges and insights that emerged as the weeks went by, and began a process of profound reflection on her experience. Now, drawing on her journals and reflections, and on her own experience as a professional woman, wife, daughter, and mother, she delves into the questions of how the centuries-old wisdom of monastic life can challenge, inspire, and guide those living outside the monastery. Organized around topics such as prayer, community, and the vows, each of Day's reflections begins with memories of her monastic experience, and then presents a perceptive and often humorous critique of the contrasting values of our present culture. For each topic she chronicles with honesty and humility her subsequent struggles to apply back home the alternative approaches learned from the sisters she lived with, and offers a wealth of practical suggestions. Filled with stories from her own life and fascinating details of daily life in the monastery, her book is sure to strike a spark with al those seeking to live in a fully human and Christ-centered way.
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Words For The Journey
A Monastic Vocabulary
by Edith Scholl
Part 21 of the Monastic Wisdom series
In matters of religion and spirituality the simplest phrases can be the most misleading. Or, if not misleading, misunderstood. There is no doubt that this is true of the Cistercian tradition. As Sister Edith Scholl writes in the introduction to this volume: When I started reading and studying the writings of the twelfth- and thirteenth-century Cistercians years ago, I was struck by their rich vocabulary of Latin words 'words rich with resonances from Scripture, the liturgy, and patristic and earlier monastic authors, words for which no exact equivalents exist in English. It seemed to me that these words could be a key to a deeper understanding of their message. . . . This study of some of the most important of them could serve as a companion to the translations being published in the Cistercian Fathers Series, enabling nonspecialists to read those translations with greater understanding and appreciation. In fact, it might prove a fruitful source for approaching the whole monastic ethos.
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Come and See
The Monastic Way for Today
by Brendan Freeman
Part 22 of the Monastic Wisdom series
Come and See is look inside the mind of a monk. The Vision of monastic life proposed here is not new; it is a Vision going back to the Desert Fathers of the fourth century. And yet, it is new because it is rooted in a place in the soul that never grows old. Come and see where I live, Jesus said to the disciples who were following him. He could just as well have said, come and see where you live; where your real life is being lived. Monastic spirituality is not some esoteric or Gnostic way of perceiving reality or understanding life. It is a treasure hidden in the field of your own heart; it is a universal spirituality that is the common inheritance of every human being; it is a search for God. From the atheist to the saint there is in the heart of al creatures a desire for ultimate meaning, a desire for God. In this sense everyone has the heart of a monk. As you read this book you will meet some of the great themes of monastic life: silence, solitude, community life, prayer. You will also be helped to find your most authentic self, the self Thomas Merton spoke of when he said at the center of our being is a point of nothingness, a point of pure truth. Nothingness, emptiness, absence are important aspects of our spiritual journey. There is a subtheme running through ancient monasticism that conceives of the monastery as a hospital 'a place for healing the soul, the spirit, the heart. The place of the heart is highlighted in these conferences and homilies as an ancient theme so relevant to the modern person.
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Dom Anselme Le Bail
Abbot of Scourmont 1913-1956: A Monk, an Abbot, a Community
by Dieudonne Dufrasne
Part 23 of the Monastic Wisdom series
Those who knew him, above all monks, will find Dom Anselme Le Bail again in these pages with warm gratitude. Those who have not known him will encounter his vital and original character. Both of these will be surprised and come to admire a man and a monk who has integrated a healthy humanism into a concrete ideal of his religious vocation.Fr. Dieudonne Dufrasne, a Benedictine monk of Saint Andre de Clerlande, has read, listened to, and allowed the young man, Anselme Le Bail, the monk, and finally the Cistercian Abbot of Scourmont, to speak for himself in these pages. He has the ability to allow us, in turn, to hear and understand the joys and difficulties of alive totally dedicated to God and to his brothers.
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Gethsemani Homilies
by Matthew Kelty
Part 24 of the Monastic Wisdom series
Matthew Kelty, a native of Boston, has been a monk of Gethsemani since 1960. Before that he served as an active priest in the Society of the Divine Word, both in the States, and in Papua New Guinea. His previous books include Flute Solo (Sheed, Andrews & McMeel), Sermons in the Monastery, Cal of the Wild Geese, and Singing for the Kingdom (Cistercian Publications).He was a novice of Thomas Merton, who later chose him as his confessor. After some years at Gethsemani, he became a hermit for ten years in Papua New Guinea. After returning to the monastery, he became chaplain to the guests and retreatants, to whom he gave a spiritual conference each evening after Compline.Gethsemani Homilies: Revised and Enlarged Edition was first published by the Franciscan Press in Quincy, Illinois, but after a short time the Press closed down, and the manuscript was returned to Gethsemani.
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Monastic Observances
Initiation Into The Monastic Tradition
by Thomas Merton
Part 25 of the Monastic Wisdom series
In this set of novitiate conferences from the late 1950s, Thomas Merton provides a vivid and detailed introduction to the traditional pattern and practices of the monastic day during the period immediately preceding the momentous changes that would be introduced in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Combining practical instruction with spiritual and theological reflection, this fifth volume of Merton's teaching notes brings the reader into the choir and chapter room, scriptorium and cloisters of the Abbey of Gethsemani, and provides insight into the ecclesial, contemplative, paschal, and Trinitarian dimensions of Cistercian life.
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Cistercian Spirituality
An Ashram Perspective
by Francis Acharya
Part 26 of the Monastic Wisdom series
Cistercian Spirituality: An Ashram Perspective is a spiritual directory written by Fr. Francis Acharya for the monastic community that he founded at Kurisumala (Kerala, India). As the editor, Fr. Michael Casey, relates in the introduction: This book is offered to a wider world in the hope that it will serve as a means of making and deepening contact with the spirit of the Cistercian tradition not so much as it is written but as it has been lived for over six decades by a deeply spiritual man. To those who know of Kurisumala Ashram or who have read the biography of Fr. Francis, it will provide a gateway to an understanding of the interior life of this remarkable monk. In particular, his description of the stages of the experience of prayer will certainly be helpful to many who, like him, are lifelong seekers of the unseen God. "Francis Acharya, OCSO, left the Belgian monastery of Scourmont in 1955, after twenty years as a Trappist, to live his monastic life in India. His experiences put him in contact with such other pioneering spirits as Henri Le Saux (Abishiktananda), Jules Monchanin (In Quest of the Absolute), and Bede Griffiths (Return to the Centre, The Golden String), and led to an uncommonly successful inculturation of Christian monasticism within Indian culture and spirituality at Kurisumala, where he served as Acharya, teacher, until his death in 2001.
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At Home With Saint Benedict
Monastery Talks
by Mark A. Scott
Part 27 of the Monastic Wisdom series
At Home with Saint Benedict is a selection of the author's conferences on Saint Benedict's Rule for Monasteries delivered to the monks of Assumption Abbey of Ava, Missouri, when he was abbot there. The author's intention was simply to share with his brother monks what Saint Benedict through his sixth-century Rule might have to offer monks of the early twenty-first century. It is hoped that these conferences will now speak to men and women outside the monastic cloister. This book is a door to the chapter room of Assumption Abbey. Readers are invited to open the door, sit down with the monks and their abbot, and feel at home with Saint Benedict. Mark A. Scott, OCSO, is a monk of the Trappist-Cistercian Abbey of New Clairvaux, Vina, California, which he entered in 1-978. From 2000 to 2008 he served as appointed superior and then abbot of Assumption Abbey, Ava, Missouri.
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I Am the Way
Stages of Prayer in Saint Bernard
by Maureen McCabe
Part 28 of the Monastic Wisdom series
As founding abbot of Clairvaux, Bernard's giftedness and good judgment made him an often-sought resource by both church and secular powers, and in that capacity, he was sometimes delightful and sometimes dismaying to those who encountered him. But when it comes to prayer, says Maureen F. McCabe, OCSO, Bernard can only delight. Anyone who gives him a chance will discover teachings full of unction and spiritual discernment. He draws us to continual prayer through an unshakable confidence in the One who believes in our capacity to love without limits no matter what state we're in or stage we're at. He stirs us to continual gratitude for and reflection upon the mercies of the Lord, especially in his passion. Bernard, says Mother Maureen, is truly a father-father of the church and father of souls. In I Am the Way, she endeavors above all to allow Bernard's voice to be heard in all its resonance and penetration.
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The Sun at Midnight
Monastic Experience of the Christian Mystery
by Bernardo Olivera, OCSO
Part 29 of the Monastic Wisdom series
The Sun at Midnight offers a splendid, easily accessible summary of mystical theology in the Cistercian school. Bernardo Olivera, a master of both the theology and the practice of the spiritual life, analyzes this tradition first in its rich human, biblical, and doctrinal connotations, and then according to its most typical expressions as they are lived among Cistercian mystics, with reference also to other Christian men and women. Olivera explores the rich testimony of the monks of the twelfth century as well as the lesser-known nuns and holy women of the thirteenth century. Throughout the book, we discover Olivera's fundamental thesis: Personal mystical experience is not only the key to an adequate renewal of monastic life today but also-and above all-the foundation, the originating point, of any and all religion or religious tradition. Mystical experience is, in particular, the origin of Christianity and its rich spiritual tradition.
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Living in the House of God
Monastic Essays
by Margaret Malone, SGS
Part 32 of the Monastic Wisdom series
"How should we live in this house of God? We know that the way a building is shaped also helps in determining the way those within it live and relate. We are indeed formed by what we form. Qualities such as integrity, hospitality, humanity and beauty in a place will enable its dwellers to live lives in which such qualities are evident. The way we understand who we are and how we live will be reflected in our places and vice versa. Our places become bearers of meaning and memory." -From Chapter 1 In Living in the House of God, Margaret Malone draws on her study of and research on the Rule of Saint Benedict to show the ways in which this ancient rule can illuminate modern life. The broad gamut of topics this book examines-from Benedictine life as sacrament to Augustine's influence on Benedict to obedience and the art of listening, among others-is itself a witness to the generous flexibility of the Rule, as Benedict proposes a way of life that truly corresponds to the deepest needs of the whole of human nature.
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Finding the Treasure
Letters from a Global Monk
by Augustine Roberts
Part 34 of the Monastic Wisdom series
Augustine Roberts is a New England Yankee, transplanted by circumstance first to Argentina and then to Rome, from where frequent travel took him to nearly every part of the globe. The historical era into which he was born, so fraught with personal and communal soul-searching, also made him wrestle with al the tensions of the contemporary church and world. Finding the Treasure tells of Dom Augustine's conversion to the Catholic Church while attending Yale and of his remarkably varied monastic experience during the turbulent years of church renewal following Vatican II. These letters from a global monk will not disappoint anyone fascinated by the paradox of a monk who, rooted by vow to his monastery, becomes a globe-trotter precisely out of deep obedience. Augustine Roberts, OCSO, has been a Trappist monk since the early 1950s. After serving as abbot of St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, he became Procurator General of the Trappist Order. In the 1960s he was one of the founders of the first abbey of his Order in South America, later serving as its abbot. Today he is a much sought-after guide, called to help many communities in the delicate task of adapting the perennial monastic way of life to the needs of the twenty-first century.
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The Art of Winning Souls
Pastoral Care of Novices
by Michael Casey
Part 35 of the Monastic Wisdom series
In his chapter on the procedure for the reception of new brothers, Saint Benedict makes provision for entrusting them to the care of "a senior who is skilled in winning souls who will diligently pay attention to them in everything" (58. 6). In The Art of Winning Souls: Pastoral Care of Novices, Michael Casey, OCSO, reflects on what this means today, based on his own experience and observation of the fruitful ministry of others. Here Casey focuses on the pastoral care given in the name of a monastic community to those who enter it, from initial contact up to the point where their vocation has recognizably stabilized. His reflections are not intended to be prescriptive. They are, rather, descriptive of what he considers to be best practice, as he has encountered this in his experience of many different expressions of the monastic and Benedictine charism. This book promises to serve as an indispensible resource for vocation directors, novice directors, and junior directors for years to come.
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Light in the Shoe Shop
A Cobbler's Contemplations
by Agnes Day
Part 36 of the Monastic Wisdom series
Light in the Shoe Shop offers readers a unique and intimate glance into the day-to-day experience of living the cloistered life in feminine mode. In her cobbler's contemplations"no metaphor here: the author did indeed make and mend her sisters' shoes for many years. Mother Agnes reveals the very simple secret of monastic life, a secret she shows to be an inseparable combination of mindfulness and fidelity. It is continual mindfulness of God's transformative presence and action and, in response, equally continual fidelity to each of the minutely detailed ways in which that loving divine presence woos the contemplative's heart. Even those who strive for a more contemplative life outside of literal cloisters will find her reflections to be a great gift and inspiration. This book is decidedly not just one more item in the picturesque genre of the nun's story.' Rather, for all its slenderness, the volume bears a strong witness to the fact that a human life that stakes it's all on loving will gradually become transfused with light." From the foreword by Simeon Leiva, OCSO
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Lovers of the Place
Monasticism Loose In The Church
by Francis Kline
Part 38 of the Monastic Wisdom series
The monastery has often been likened to a powerhouse of prayer, providing light and energy for the countless numbers who make up the Body of Christ. This image has inadvertently furthered the view of monasticism as separate from the rest of the Church, apart from the concerns of "the world." In Lovers of the Place, Abbot Kline provided a fresh vision of the monastic life as one form of the Christian vocation which now must struggle to find its place alongside other expressions of Christian life, for he firmly believes that as monasticism renews itself for the Church, it will in turn renew the Church. Abbot Kline shows that monasticism can renew itself in its very essence by giving of itself for the sake of the Church. In looking to the baptized, who discern in the monastic way their own journey, monastics can find new energies for the journey ahead. Having had their own treasury blessedly looted by the baptized, the monastics find themselves loose in a world which has become more and more their place and their home. By exploring this theme of monasticism in the Church and the Church in monasticism, readers will find answers to such questions as How do we belong to the Church? and What can we give to the Church in a more obvious way? Lovers of the Place weaves together allegory, narrative, and poetic intuition, gathering images and insights around an experience of conversion to the monastic way of humility. Through his insight and experience, Abbot Kline invites all the baptized to a participation in the monastic charism now loose in the Church at large.
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Saint Bernard's Three Course Banquet
Humility, Charity, and Contemplation in the De Gradibus
by Bernard Bonowitz
Part 39 of the Monastic Wisdom series
Saint Bernard's famous work, The Steps of Humility and Pride (in Latin, De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae), is a short book consisting of a mere fifty-seven paragraphs. In it, the Abbot of Clairvaux unpacks the doctrine of the very crucial chapter 7 of Saint Benedict's sixth-century Rule for Monks, which explores the dynamic steps" or degrees" of both humility and pride. This chapter by Benedict could well be considered the spiritual basis of all Benedictine existence. In Saint Bernard's Three-Course Banquet, Dom Bernard Bonowitz makes the teaching of both Bernard and Benedict accessible to modern readers in a set of conferences originally conceived for and delivered to a group of Cistercian juniors," that is, monks and nuns who had completed their novitiate but had not yet made their solemn vows. With Dom Bernard as a guide, many more readers can be sure of drinking at the purest sources of the monastic tradition, which at that depth becomes one with the Gospel itself. A convert from Judaism with a degree in Classics from Columbia University, Bernard Bonowitz was a Jesuit for nine years before entering St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts. Immediately upon professing vows, his abbot named him master of novices, a position he held for ten years and that gave him ample opportunity to share considerable gifts of mind and heart while initiating newcomers into monastic life, at the levels of both classroom teaching and spiritual direction. In 1996 he was elected superior of the monastery of Novo Mundo in Brazil, which he soon shepherded into a true monastic springtime. In 2008, he became abbot of Novo Mundo, now a community attracting an impressive number of young men anxious to follow the way of Cistercian discipleship.
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Charter, Customs, and Constitutions of the Cistercians
Initiation into the Monastic Tradition 7
by Thomas Merton
Part 41 of the Monastic Wisdom series
As master of novices for ten years (1955-1965) at the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky, Thomas Merton was responsible for the spiritual formation of young men preparing for monastic profession. In this volume, three related sets of Merton's conferences on ancient and contemporary documents governing the lives of the monks are published for the first time: • On the Carta Caritatis, or Charter of Charity, the foundational document of the Order of Cîteaux. • On the Consuetudines, the twelfth-century collection of customs and regulations of the Order. • On the twentieth-century Constitutions of the Order, the basic rules by which Merton and his students actually lived at the time. These conferences form an essential part of the overall picture of Cistercian monastic life that Merton provided as part of his project of 'initiation into the monastic tradition' that is evident in the broad variety of courses that he put together and taught over the period of his mastership. As Abbot John Eudes Bamberger, ocso, himself a former student of Merton, notes in his preface to this volume, 'The texts presented in this present book eventually gave rise to the Cistercian way of spiritual living that continues to contribute to the Church's witness in this new millennium. This publication is a witness to the process of transformation that ensures the continuity of the Catholic monastic tradition that witnesses to the God who, as Saint Augustine observed is 'ever old and ever new.''
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Medieval Cistercian History
Initiation into the Monastic Tradition 9
by Thomas Merton
Part 43 of the Monastic Wisdom series
Thomas Merton's deep roots in his own Cistercian tradition are on display in the two sets of conferences on the early days of the Order included in the present volume. The first surveys the relevant monastic background that led up to the foundation of the Abbey of Cîteaux in 1098 and goes on to consider the contributions of each of the first three abbots of the "New Monastery" that would become the epicenter of the most dynamic religious movement of the early twelfth century. The second set investigates the arc of medieval Cistercian history in the two centuries following the death of Saint Bernard, in which the Order moves from being ahead of its time, in its formative stages, to being representative of its time in its most powerful and influential phase, to becoming regressive with the rise of new religious currents that begin to flow in the thirteenth century. Merton stresses the need to respect the complexity of the actual lived reality of Cistercian life during this period, to "beware of easy generalizations" and instead consider the full range of factual data. The result is a richly nuanced picture of the development of early Cistercian life and thought that serves as a fitting concluding volume to the series of Merton's novitiate conferences providing a thorough "Initiation into the Monastic Tradition."
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Monastic Practices
by Charles Cummings
Part 47 of the Monastic Wisdom series
For three decades, Monastic Practices has been a valued resource for English-speaking aspirants to monastic life. In this second edition, updated and expanded, Charles Cummings, OCSO, explores the common practices of the monastic life in order to rediscover them as viable means of leading persons to a deeper encounter with God. How do monks and nuns occupy themselves throughout the day? Have they modernized their lifestyle or is it still cluttered with medieval customs? Could any of the monastic practices be of use to those outside the monastery? A certain wisdom is necessary to know how to use such practices and how to give oneself to them until they lead one to God. After long monastic experience, Cummings shows us how the ordinary things people do constitute their paths to God. In the art of living life, he argues, we are always beginners, searching for God through our concrete circumstances and actions.
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In the School of Contemplation
by Andre Louf
Part 48 of the Monastic Wisdom series
Dom André Louf was abbot of the Trappist-Cistercian monastery of Mont-des-Cats in northern France from 1963 to 1997. This book brings together talks given to a variety of audiences in which he shared his spiritual experience from both his life of prayer and his life in community. Each chapter offers inspiring insights on the spiritual experience, the priority of love, and other areas of our Christian life: community life, obedience, prayer, psalms, the liturgy, and more. In this book, readers enter 'a school of contemplation' wherein the monastic experience enlightens their lives and service to the world and the Church.
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Your Hearts Will Rejoice
Easter Meditations from the Vita Christi
by Ludolph of Saxony
Part 49 of the Monastic Wisdom series
The Vita Christi, a spiritual classic of the fourteenth century by the Carthusian Ludolph of Saxony, was an early and extremely comprehensive book of meditations on the events recorded in the gospels. A popular and influential book for centuries, it was instrumental in the conversion of Ignatius Loyola, and Teresa of Avila directed that every convent of her reform include "the Carthusian" in its library. This volume, which consists of excerpts from the full Vita Christi (forthcoming from Cistercian Publications), presents Ludolph's meditations on the resurrection and the appearances of the risen Christ, concluding with Pentecost. Although shelves of books are dedicated to Christ's passion, comparatively little spiritual reading for the Easter Season exists. This book is intended to help fill that lacuna and to introduce readers to this classic text.
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An Elemental Life
Mystery and Mercy in the Work of Father Matthew Kelty, OCSO
by Louis A. Ruprecht
Part 56 of the Monastic Wisdom series
Father Matthew Kelty was an especially beloved monk at the historic Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. Perhaps best known as Thomas Merton's colleague and confessor in the year prior to Merton's death, Father Matthew was also an enormously gifted spiritual writer in his own right, one whose homilies at Gethsemani attracted a wide following. This is the first book-length study of Matthew Kelty's life in relation to his spiritual writings and his profound reflections on the virtues of the monastic life in the modern age.
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The Letters of Blessed Maria Gabriella with the Notebooks of Mother Pia Gullini
by Gabriella Sagheddu
Part 57 of the Monastic Wisdom series
During her short life as a Cistercian nun in the Italian monastery of Grottaferrata, Blessed Maria Gabriella Sagheddu wrote detailed letters about her life there to her family in Sardinia and to her former parish priest. These letters are collected here, along with notes and letters by and to her abbess, Mother Pia Gullini, OCSO, and M. Pia's notes and recollections about Bl. Gabriella. Also included are letters to M. Pia from Father Benedict Ley, a monk of the English Anglican abbey of Nashdom, regarding the hope for Christian unity.
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Happiness in God
Memories and Reflections of the Father Abbot of La Trappe
by Marie-Gérard Dubois
Part 58 of the Monastic Wisdom series
This is a rich collection of memories and reflections from the long-time abbot of La Trappe, Dom Marie-Gérard Dubois, OCSO. Starting with his entry into monastic life, he walks the reader through the dramatic changes in the Strict Observance of the Cistercian Order, including its liturgical reform and developments in the role of lay brothers. Dom Dubois also shares stories about the diverse group of men who entered the Order at that time, including WWII veterans, Holocaust survivors, and members of the French literary elite, and why they decided to become monks. His stories offer a fascinating inside view into twentieth-century Cistercian life.
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Clothed in Language
by Pauline Matarasso
Part 59 of the Monastic Wisdom series
At the heart of Clothed in Language lies a journal, but the writing, while personal, has been given a thematic structure. Seeing language as a vital medium through which the divine is made present to us, scholar and poet Pauline Matarasso explores the ways in which this God-given language, with its overcoat of metaphor and undertow of rhythm, serves to reflect the truth and, on occasion, mask it. This book also includes an essay that looks at certain features common to myth, fairy tale, lore, and Scripture.
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Northern Light
by The Cistercian Nuns of Tautra Mariakloster
Part 60 of the Monastic Wisdom series
For at least eight centuries, the Norwegian island of Tautra in the Trondheim fjord has been known for its spiritual waves and special light. In the Middle Ages, Cistercian monks established the northernmost monastery of the Order, living God-centered lives and developing skills such as land use and animal husbandry until the Reformation.
In 1999, Cistercian nuns reestablished Tautra Mariakloster, the monastery of Our Lady of the Safe Island. Visitors to the modern monastery, distinguished by its glass-roofed church, quickly sense the silence, peace, and light of the place.
Four of the women who live at Tautra have contributed to this volume of monastic wisdom from the north. They write of their experiences as monastics living close to the land, sky, and water on this island, following the liturgical year of the monastery with its enduring rhythm while experiencing the changing seasons and landscape that help to shape their life of faith and light.
Includes color photos.
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Truly Seeking God
by Bernard Bonowitz
Part 62 of the Monastic Wisdom series
"Truly seeking God" is the one requirement Saint Benedict establishes for the admission of a candidate to the monastery. Once inside, that is exactly what he or she will be doing. In the first part of the book, "From the Rising of the Sun to its Setting," Bernard Bonowitz recounts the ways in which the monk actively seeks God in all the practices and places of the monastic life-in silence and liturgical prayer, work and leisure, solitude and community, spiritual direction and fraternal friendship, the encounter with nature and the encounter with the unsuspected recesses of his or her own heart.
Grace is ever at work through the ongoing fidelity of a monk or nun to the monastic vocation. In the second half of the book, "The Making of a Monk," Bonowitz describes the gradual transformation that grace effects, transforming the innocently self-centered novice into the young solemnly professed, content to carry the weight of responsibility within the community, and finally into the beautiful elder, joyfully focused on God and neighbor and filled with desire for eternal life.
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Saint Mary of Egypt
A Modern Verse Life and Interpretation
by Bonnie B. Thurston
Part 65 of the Monastic Wisdom series
From its origins in the fourth and fifth centuries, first in monastic circles and then in wider Christian communities, the story of Mary of Egypt was wildly popular. From early Christianity through the medieval periods, from Egypt to Scandinavia, verse lives in Greek, Latin, and vernacular languages portray her as the model of repentance. Continuously venerated in the liturgy and icons of the Orthodox Churches, she is now seldom known in the West. This modern verse life and the accompanying essay reintroduces St. Mary's extraordinary life, its theological and spiritual implications, and its remarkable depiction of gender complementarity.
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To Live for God Alone
The Life and Spirit of Saint Rafael Arnaiz
by Mark O'Keefe
Part 68 of the Monastic Wisdom series
What does it mean to live for God alone? "Prefer nothing to the love of Christ", "My God and my all", "God alone suffices"-these statements from the saints express the single desire that unified their hearts and gave direction to their lives. "God alone" was the constant theme of Saint Rafael Arnaiz (1911—1938), the expression of the search for God that informs any monastic vocation. Saint Rafael was profoundly and thoroughly a monk, even though ill health repeatedly forced him to leave the monastery, and he was never formally professed. With his single-hearted love for Christ and for the Blessed Virgin, he faithfully walked a path of trials and suffering that matured his faith, sharpened his longing, taught him to wait and to hope in God, and opened his heart to love. To Live for God Alone invites the reader into the compelling story of Rafael's personal journey and into his penetrating insight into the cross and the Christian vocation.
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Loving Jesus
Monastery Talks on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew
by Mark A. Scott
Part of the Monastic Wisdom series
In the gospel of Saint Matthew, Jesus is "Emmanuel," God-with-us, or, as Jesus himself puts it, he is "I-Desire," "Coming-I-Will-Heal," and "I-Am-with-You-Always."
The brief commentaries collected here, initially presented by Cistercian abbot Mark A. Scott in a series of chapter talks to his monastic community, will welcome the reader into an intimate encounter with the love of Jesus, as the evangelist Matthew presents him in chapters four through nine of his gospel. These reflections also weave insights from the Rule of Benedict along with reflections on monastic life offering to all ecclesial communities and individual Christians rich nourishment for their loving Jesus in return.
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God for All Days
The Final Monastic Chapters Of Christian De Chergé
by Various Authors
Part of the Monastic Wisdom series
Gain deeper insights into Christian de Chergé's search for God in community.
Christian de Chergé was the prior of the Trappist community of Our Lady of Atlas in Tibhirine, Algeria, until his assassination with six of his fellow monks in 1996. Drawn from the last two years of his life, these chapter talks to his brothers offer deeper insight into the monastic search for God in community during tumultuous times. These talks are a treasury of inspiration for those interested in Benedictine spirituality, and a valuable source of reflections on Muslim-Christian relations to accompany those who engage in religious encounter in a pluralistic environment.
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The Way of the Heart
The Spiritual Experience Of André Louf
by Charles Wright
Part of the Monastic Wisdom series
Award-winning French author shares the biography and spiritual journey of Cistercian abbot Dom André Louf.
Based on a wide variety of interviews, printed sources, and Dom André Louf's spiritual journal, The Way of the Heart narrates Louf's spiritual journey from his childhood in Flanders through his becoming a monk in a Cistercian monastery, his ten years of retirement as a hermit in a Benedictine monastery in the south of France, and his death. Throughout his life he periodically struggled with conflicting vocational desires-sometimes wishing to serve as a pastor, academic, abbot, or to immerse himself in eremitic contemplation. That struggle is the leading thread through this biography, which portrays a man whose immense gifts pulled him in many directions, while always endeavoring to submit himself to God's will.
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No End to the Search
Experiencing Monastic Life
by Mark Plaiss
Part of the Monastic Wisdom series
A monastery is not just for monks. Laypeople enjoy visiting monasteries and learning from the women and men who live there. The silence of the monastery is a retreat from the clatter and bluster of city and suburb. In No End to the Search Mark Plaiss, married with a wife, children, and grandchildren, writes of his visits to various monasteries while striving to delve into the experience and meaning of monasticism. What is behind that wall? What is the appeal of monastic life? To what degree can such a life be lived by persons who are married, and why would they wish to do so? This book explores the relationship between the vowed life of monks and the life of laypersons who are unable to live such vows but desire to share just a sliver of it.
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The Song That I Am
On the Mystery of Music
by Elisabeth-Paule Labat
Part of the Monastic Wisdom series
The Song That I Am: On the Mystery of Music is a short but full-to-the-brim essay on the decisive role that great music (whether Bach, Tavener, or Gregorian chant) ought to play in the spiritual life. With admirable restraint, Élisabeth-Paule Labat shares her interior experience of music and thus continually opens up fresh vistas through worlds of sound and spirit. With her uncanny gift of language, Labat precisely describes soundings and yearnings of the soul that many of us glimpse fleetingly. Because 'only the lover sings' (St. Augustine), her final illumination is that the experience of profound music ought to transform us into the beauty that we hear.
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Diving for Pearls
Exploring the Depths of Prayer with Isaac the Syrian
by Andrew D. Mayes
Part of the Monastic Wisdom series
This book invites the reader to a spiritual odyssey. It opens before the reader an itinerary for venturing forth with God, aided by the astonishing writings of seventh-century Isaac the Syrian. Long-lost manuscripts have recently been discovered, translated, and published in scholarly works; this book aims to make them accessible to readers who want to experience their wisdom personally and so progress in a spiritual adventure. Isaac's writings are explored through the lens of his beloved metaphor of diving for pearls, which opens many avenues for reflection and spiritual practice.
This is a book to inspire preachers and teachers on prayer. It will stimulate and offer a resource to spiritual directors and retreat givers, and it provides material ideally suited to quiet days and retreats. A practical resource, it includes questions for individual or group reflection at the end of every chapter and a range of prayer exercises. Above all, it is offered to those who want to leave the shallows and launch out into the deep in their spiritual journey.
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