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Athletes of Prayer:
The monastic tradition, rooted in the lives and writings of the Desert Fathers and the Benedictine Rule, was the great birthplace and laboratory for much later Christian spirituality and liturgical development. Antony, Benedict, John Moschus, John Climacus, Cyril of Scythopolis, and Dorotheus of Gaza are only a few of the monastic fathers and saints represented here.
'Prayer is a journey, sometimes a combat There are trials, purifications, passages. It is at once the most simple and the most profound of human activities. May these pages help someone to discover its hidden joy.'Interior Prayer contains the Carthusians' traditional doctrine on prayer 'from its very beginnings to the simplicity of its highest forms. Far from being abstract and theoretical, we learn about the prayer process by sharing in the novices' concrete spiritual journey. Their problems and difficulties, and the many pitfalls they encounter on the way, are expressed in an ongoing dialogu... View More...
After sixty years of living in a Cistercian community, Michael Casey combines his down-to-earth observations about the joys and challenges of living in community with an appreciation of the deeper meanings of cenobitic life, taking into account the changes in both theory and practice that have occurred in his lifetime. He invites his readers, especially monks and nuns, to reflect on their own experiences of community as a means of seeing a path forward into the future. Many of the key components of monastic community have kept the same names for more than a millennium. In an age of paradigm s... View More...
Michael Casey is a Benedictine monk writing for monks. So what business do the masses have reading him? Well, to quote a Benedictine scholar, ''Casey knows what Benedict is trying to say. And he knows how to apply it to the modern world.'' Crunched for time and often lacking spiritual, intellectual, and emotional resources, we (being the Church as a whole) are nonetheless called--as St. Benedict advised his monks, to be ''strangers to the actions of the age.'' Brother Casey invites us to enter into the monastic experience where the universal struggle of divine grace and human sinfulness is pla... View More...
Michael Casey is a Benedictine monk writing for monks. So what business do the masses have reading him? Well, to quote a Benedictine scholar, ''Casey knows what Benedict is trying to say. And he knows how to apply it to the modern world.'' Crunched for time and often lacking spiritual, intellectual, and emotional resources, we (being the Church as a whole) are nonetheless called--as St. Benedict advised his monks, to be ''strangers to the actions of the age.'' Brother Casey invites us to enter into the monastic experience where the universal struggle of divine grace and human sinfulness is pla... View More...
Michael Casey, a monk and scholar who has been publishing his wise teachings on the Rule of St. Benedict for decades, turns to the particular Benedictine values that he considers most urgent for Christians to incorporate into their lives today. Eloquent and incisive, Casey invites readers to accept that gospel living - seen in the light of the Rule - involves accepting the challenge of being different from the secular culture around us. He encourages readers to set clear goals and objectives, to be honest about the practical ways in which priorities may have to change to meet these goals, and... View More...
Although there is some overlap of translated texts, this volume is important for its inclusion of a selection of letters (On the Faith, The Great Letter, and Letters 7, 8, 19 and 20) and a sampling of Evagrius' biblical exegesis (Notes on Job, Notes on Ecclesiastes, On the 'Our Father' and Notes on Luke). Evagrius remains a controversial figure, especially in terms of his speculative theology, he is one of the few desert fathers to have left behind a substantial collection of writings. Evagrius thus graces us with a systematic treatment of desert spirituality-he is the first to enumerate the... View More...
Mount Athos is called ''the Garden of the Virgin,'' and the stunning beauty and artistry of this book helps us a little to understand why. Published by the great Monastery of Vatopaidi on Athos, it is divided into two parts. The first is a photographic survey of the major monasteries of the monastic republic, revealing the incredible natural and architectural beauty of the place, and glimpses of the monks about their daily tasks -- worshiping, fishing, cooking, gardening, working in the libraries and workshops of the monasteries. Included in this section are brief but informative articles on t... View More...
Chitty is unbelievably fluent in the primary sources available for this period (4th-7th c.), and his narrative reveals it: His concern for accuracy never overshadows the color, the eccentricity, wit, shrewdness, and above all the holiness of those who made ''the desert a city.'' CONTENTS: The Call: The Three Heads--Athanasius, Antony, Pachomius - The Institution: Antony in Relation to Other Communities - The World Breaks In: Foreign Visitors and Monks in Egypt and Palestine - After Three Generations - New Beginnings: Euthymius Comes to Palestine, A.D. 405 - Battle for the Faith: Chalcedon at i... View More...
''Why another book on the spirituality of the desert monastics?'' this reviewer wonders aloud. Maybe because, as the preface states, ''The Desert Fathers possess the imprint of eternity,'' which implies not only longevity but also the comprehension of truth and beauty and goodness. That's why reviewer Belden Lane comments ''The resolute honesty of an Ed Abbey, the prophetic freedom of a Wallace Stegner, the profound love of a Charles de Foucauld - these were the qualities of the Desert Christians who thrived in Egypt and Palestine.'' These desert fathers and mothers continue to birth and nurtu... View More...
Written in the fifth century, during one of the most formative periods of christian monasticism in Egypt and Palestine, The Ascetic Discourses show a strong influence of the Scripture, both Old and New, and of Early monastic writers. They are marked by a faithfulness to tradition, yet equally by a note of originality distinctive to the Gaza region. Abba Isaiah has set forth a practical guide for monks, ever aware of the challenges that interpersonal relationships present within monastic communities.
Written in the fifth century, during one of the most formative periods of christian monasticism in Egypt and Palestine, The Ascetic Discourses show a strong influence of the Scripture, both Old and New, and of Early monastic writers. They are marked by a faithfulness to tradition, yet equally by a note of originality distinctive to the Gaza region. Abba Isaiah has set forth a practical guide for monks, ever aware of the challenges that interpersonal relationships present within monastic communities.
Melania the Younger: From Rome to Jerusalem explores the richly detailed story of Melania, an early fifth-century Roman Christian aristocrat who renounced her staggering wealth to lead a life of ascetic renunciation. Hers is a tale of "riches to rags." Born to high Roman aristocracy in thelate fourth century, Melania encountered numerous difficulties posed by family members, Roman officials, and historical circumstances in disposing of her wealth, property (spread across at least eight Roman provinces), and thousands of slaves. Leaving Rome with her entourage a few years beforeAlaric the Goth'... View More...
The pearlers we meet in this book were early monks of Syria, Mesopotamia (Iraq), and Persia (Iran), They saw themselves as pearl-divers and pearl-merchants searching, through asceticism and prayer, for the precious pearls of mystical experience. Their quest led them into the wilderness, to a state of silent solitude in remote caves and hermitages. Working from Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum and the Vatican Library, and from the Greek monastery of Saint Catherine in the wilderness of Sinai and the Coptic monastery of the Syrians (Der es-Suriani) in the Egyptian desert, Brian E. Colles... View More...
The pearlers we meet in this book were early monks of Syria, Mesopotamia (Iraq), and Persia (Iran), They saw themselves as pearl-divers and pearl-merchants searching, through asceticism and prayer, for the precious pearls of mystical experience. Their quest led them into the wilderness, to a state of silent solitude in remote caves and hermitages. Working from Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum and the Vatican Library, and from the Greek monastery of Saint Catherine in the wilderness of Sinai and the Coptic monastery of the Syrians (Der es-Suriani) in the Egyptian desert, Brian E. Colles... View More...
Athletes of Prayer:
The monastic tradition, rooted in the lives and writings of the Desert Fathers and the Benedictine Rule, was the great birthplace and laboratory for much later Christian spirituality and liturgical development. Antony, Benedict, John Moschus, John Climacus, Cyril of Scythopolis, and Dorotheus of Gaza are only a few of the monastic fathers and saints represented here.
