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A Guide to Living in the Truth : Saint Benedict's Teaching on Humility
by: Michael Casey
Product Information
Condition: New
Binding: Paper Back
Author: Michael Casey
Publisher: Liguori Publications (April 2001)
ISBN: 0764807390
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On the understanding of written texts, philosopher and classicist Allan Bloom remarks, ''The hardest thing of all is the simplest to formulate: every word must be understood. It is hard because the eye tends to skip over just those things which are most shocking or call into question our way of looking at things.'' Michael Casey, a monk of Tarrawarra Abbey in Australia, first encountered St. Benedict's Rule over thirty years ago. He offers here the ''hardest thing'': the fruit of his listening, his understanding of humility. Humility is naturalness, Casey writes. It is ''being at home with ourselves. Being ourselves. Grace extroverts itself. It begins subtly in the depths of our spirits, but in the course of a lifetime evangelizes all levels of our being until it becomes outward, visible, communicable.'' Noting that the modern understanding of humility is stunted, Brother Michael evenhandedly discusses legitimate reservations about humility (such as passivity, temperament, low self-esteem and institutionalism) before presenting the entire text of Benedict's chapter and launching into a systemized exegesis. Casey's book is a translation in the best sense -- an active reading of, and interaction with, the hard questions the text implicitly asks. It's also work, but the ''narrow way'' need not be claustrophobic. True humility leads to our humanity -- ''a wide and spacious place'' says the Psalmist -- through which communion with God becomes delight. 225 pp.
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