you came a tiny vulnerable baby lungs screaming for life, fingers grasping for something to hold on to, your whole being completely depending on us (!) to feed you change you clothe you protect you love you and we were gobsmacked. For several years now, pastor/poet Thom Shuman has written daily devotions for Advent, sending them out through his popular blogs and books. In this collection of readings for the four weeks of Advent, Thom introduces us to, among others, 'Dusty the Church Dog', Mr Pete the 'Drum man', and to his son, Teddy, and wife, Bonnie. In this collection Mary, the mother of Jesus, goes for a contemplative skate on a frozen pond where 'praises piggyback until her soul topples over', and John the Baptist tries to explain his purpose to a very perplexed Senator and chairman of the board. These are personal and universal, imaginative and biblically rooted reflections. 'Reading one of Thom's books is like walking and talking with a friend. Someone who understands the fragility and failings of being human (and himself) but who continues to laugh, and to hope and work for the coming of the Light. I can't think of a better companion to journey through Advent with.' - Neil Paynter

This second volume by Graham Loud focuses on two key centres of the south Italian church in the central Middle Ages. The first section concentrates on the 'golden age' of the abbey of Montecassino, during the 11th and 12th centuries, when it was at the height of its influence and three of its monks became popes. The studies seek to place the abbey in its context, examining its relations with the papacy, Byzantium, and the local nobility. The second part deals with Benevento and the abbey of St Sophia, and looks at its development and administration, as well as the tensions that arose from its position as a papal enclave within the Kingdom of Sicily. Based on extensive archival research, the volume as a whole presents a fresh and original insight into the society of southern Italy from the coming of the Normans to its conquest by Charles of Anjou.

The Waldenses, like the Franciscans, emerged from the apostolic movements within the Latin Church of the decades around 1200, but unlike the Franciscans they were driven underground. Not a full counter-Church, like the Cathar heretics, they formed a clandestine religious order, preaching to and hearing the confessions of their secret followers, and surviving until the Reformation. This volume begins by surveying modern historiography. Then, using both inquisition records from the Baltic to the Alps and the Waldenses' own books, the author deals with the asceticism of the Waldensian order, its practice of poverty and medicine, the culture of the Brothers and the preaching of the Waldensian Sisters, the way both used and mythicised history to support their position, and the composition of their followers. The final chapters examine their origins and authorship of the inquisitors' texts, and look through them to see how inquisitors viewed the Waldenses.

Interest in the anchoritic life in Europe, and medieval England in particular, has never been greater. And yet almost all the recent discussion tends to concentrate on the same texts - De Institutione inclusarum and Ancrene Wisse. Considerations of gender and anchoritism have been limited by the assumption that the reclusive life was 'a feminine phenomenon' pursued almost exclusively by women. This critical edition of a late-medieval English 'rule' for male anchorites will be a timely intervention in - and stimulus to - an already exciting field. The Speculum Inclusorum is an early 15th-century Latin rule or guide. It is notable particularly for the careful attention it gives to discernment and the probation of the prospective anchorite's vocation; for its frank discussion of the temptations and dangers of the reclusive life, including sexual sins; its deep consideration of the anchorite's spiritual life of prayer, meditation and reading; its anticipation of the joys of contemplation that await him; and the ecstatic quality of some of its writing. The Speculum is a work of considerable interest in its own right. Within a decade or two of its original composition it was translated into English in order to adapt it for a readership of female anchorites. This book will give the first opportunity to compare Latin and English versions of the rule, the one intended for male and the other for female anchorites. It is the first edition since 1913 of this fascinating and important text but the first English-language edition and the first complete English translation to be published. It will be an important contribution to the ongoing debates about spirituality and religious institutions in the post-Wycliffe, post-Arundel church.

This well-written, well-researched reference source brings together monastic life with particular attention to three traditions: Buddhist, Eastern Christian, and Western Christian."--"Outstanding Reference Sources," American Libraries, May 2001.

There is no published account of the history of religious women in England before the Norman Conquest. Yet, female saints and abbesses, such as Hild of Whitby or Edith of Wilton, are among the most celebrated women recorded in Anglo-Saxon sources and their stories are of popular interest. This book offers the first general and critical assessment of female religious communities in early medieval England. It transforms our understanding of the different modes of religious vocation and institutional provision and thereby gives early medieval women's history a new foundation.

This book focuses on the beginnings of the Military Orders and their heyday at the time of the Crusades, dealing with topics such as medieval hospital care, warfare in Lithuania, welfare in a large medieval town, the Reformation in Switzerland and 17th-century European diplomacy.

The papers in this volume derive from the 28th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, held for the Society for the promotion of Byzantine Studies at the Univesity of Birmingham in March 1994. Virtually from the time of their first foundation, the monastic communities of Mt Athos assumed a central position in the world of Orthodox Christianity. The spiritual, and political and economic influence of the Holy Mountain soon transcended the boundaries of the Byzantine empire within which it lay, to take on a supra-national importance and become one of the pillars of Orthodoxy after the fall of the empire. For the historian, the significance of Mt Athos is enhanced by the fact that its archives contain the most substanial body of Byzantine documentation to have survived the Middle Ages, and its libraries, treasuries and buildings have preserved much that has elsewhere been lost. These archives are now largely edited, and investigation of the art and archaeology is yielding substantial evidence. The papers in this volume, by an international set of scholars, embody the fruits of this research. Starting from Athos itself, they embrace the whole phenomenon of Byzantine monasticism, dealing with questions of asceticism, authority, community, economy, enlightenment, fortification, hesychasm, liturgy, manuscripts, music, patronage, scandal, spirituality, and women (to take an alphabetical sample). Together these papers provide a coherent and immediate view of scholarship in the field.

Theodore (759-826), abbot of the influential Constantinopolitan monastery of Stoudios, is celebrated as a saint by the Orthodox Church for his stalwart defense of icon veneration. Three important texts promoting the monastery and the memory of its founder are collected in The Life and Death of Theodore of Stoudios. In the Life of Theodore, Michael the Monk describes a golden age at Stoudios, as well as Theodore's often antagonistic encounters with imperial rulers. The Encyclical Letter of Naukratios, written in 826 by his successor, informed the scattered monks of their leader's death. Translation and Burial contains brief biographies of Theodore and his brother, along with an eyewitness account of their reburial at Stoudios. These works, translated into English for the first time, appear here alongside new editions of the Byzantine Greek texts.

The history of Christian literature took a new turn in the 8th century when monks in the monasteries of Palestine began to write theology and saints' lives in Arabic; they also instituted a veritable programme for translating the Bible and other Christian texts from Greek (and Syriac) into the language of the Qur'an, the lingua franca of the Islamic caliphate. This is the subject of the present volume. Two key factors leading to this change, as Professor Griffith indicates, were that the confrontation with the developing theology of Islam created a direct need for apologetics to face this new religious challenge in its own language; and, second, simply that as the memory of Byzantine power waned, so too did the knowledge of Greek. Issues of particular interest in this apologetic literature are those of the freedom of the will, a key topic in the controversies between Melkites and Muslims, and of the legitimacy of icon veneration, a subject of great contemporary concern at the time of Iconoclasm in the Byzantine Empire. L'histoire de la litterature chretienne a pris un nouveau tournant au 8 siecle lorsque les religieux des monasteres de Palestine commencerent A ecrire la theologie et la vie des saints en arabe. De mAme, ils instituerent un veritable programme de traduction de la Bible et autres textes chretiens du grec (et du syriaque) en langue corannique, la lingua franca du califat islamique. Tel est l'objet du present recueil. Deux facteurs determinants ayant conduit A ce changement, comme l'indique le professeur Griffith, etaient, en premier lieu, la confrontation avec une theologie islamique croissante, qui creait un besoin pressant pour les apologetiques de faire face A ce nouveau defi religieux dans la langue propre A celui-ci; en second lieu, au fur et A mesure que s'estompait la memoire du pourvoir byzantin, il en allait de mAme pour la connaissance que l'on avait de la langue grecque. Ces textes traitent de q

In the history of Christian thought, St Bonaventure stands out as the pre-eminent Franciscan philosopher of the 13th century and as a key figure in the development of the spiritual theology of the Church. The four studies which constitute this volume present detailed investigations into some of the principal sources from which Bonaventure drew his inspiration, from Antiquity through to St Bernard in the century before his own. Proceeding from a careful analysis of the quotations he makes from these sources, the studies make clear the precise extent and nature of their importance in Bonaventure's own thought, and the manner in which he selected ideas and used them to serve his own purposes. The first two pieces focus on the influence exerted by the Pseudo-Dionysius, in particular as concerns his notion of hierarchy; this became a central and fertile theme in the work of the Franciscan. Father Bougerol shows how Bonaventure interpreted and developed it, in the process transforming it into a meditation on the relationship between man and God. This emphasis also emerges in the third study, on his attitude towards Aristotle, which demonstrates Bonaventure's deliberate progress towards the elaboration of his spiritual theology.

The friars represented a remarkable innovation in medieval religious life. Founded in the early 13th century, the Franciscans and Dominicans seemed a perfect solution to the Church's troubles in confronting rapid changes in society. They attracted considerable enthusiastic support, especially from the papacy, to which they answered directly. In their first two hundred years, membership grew at an astonishing rate, and they became counsellors to princes and kings, they receiving an almost endless stream of donations and gifts. Yet there were those who were not so enamored of them, who believed the adulation was misguided or even dangerous, and who saw in the friars' actions only hypocrisy, deceit, greed, and even, signs of the end of the world. In the mid-13th century, writings appeared denouncing and mocking the friars, and calling for their abolition. Their French and English opponents were among the most vocal, leaving a vivid record of condemnation. From harsh theological criticism and outrage at the Inquisition, to vulgar stories and bathroom humor, these are their stories.

Documents from the major convent at Bruges shed fresh and illuminating light on its life. The English Augustinian Canonesses at Bruges kept records of daily life and key events in their convent from its foundation in 1629. Living in exile, members of the convent were well-aware of their importance to the survival of English Catholicism for women. Keeping full records served to maintain a reputation which would attract influential and wealthy benefactors and well-qualified members; but the Bruges Chronicles are far more than window-dressing. They introduce the reader to members at every level, from impressive community leaders to candidates who failed to live up to expectations and were tactfully nudged out before profession. We meet Prioresses who take on major challenges in fund-raising to pay for building projects, manage disagreements over spiritual direction and adjust to new relationships with secular authorities, the impact of the Enlightenment and finally war. There are some intense personal dramas that unfold alongside nuns who followed the monastic rule to the letter and served the community faithfully over many years. Above all, the the Chronicles reflect the wide-ranging interests of the members, and show clearly that this enclosed community was well-connected with an extensive support network. The Chronicles edited in this volume, taking the story to the eighteenth century and a decision as to whether or not to return to England,are presented with introduction and full notes. Dr Caroline Bowden is a Senior Research Fellow, Queen Mary, University of London.

The life of a Victorian religious community, both within the privacy of the convent and in its work in the wider world, including front-line nursing. This book introduces readers to the life of a Victorian religious community, both within the privacy of the convent and in its work in the wider world, based on documents preserved by the Society of All Saints Sisters of the Poor.It begins by using the memoirs of first-generation members of the community, a colourful and human introduction to the Anglican 're-invention' of monastic life in the second half of the nineteenth century. The section on government includes the power struggles between the sisters and the religious establishment, and the community's determination to retain its identity after the death of the mother foundress. The sisters nursed with the newly-formed Red Cross in the Franco-Prussian War, work recorded in a diary which discusses the difficulties and dangers of Victorian front-line nursing. Most of all, the documents reveal the challenges and excitement of the struggle to establish awomen's community, to be unfettered in their work with the poor and suffering, and to govern themselves, in a world dominated by men largely hostile to their aspirations. SUSAN MUMM is lecturer in religious studies at the OpenUniversity, Milton Keynes.

Sister Mary David Totah was a nun of the Benedictine contemplative community of St Cecilia's Abbey on the Isle of Wight. American by birth, she was educated at Loyola University, the University of Virginia and Christ Church, Oxford. After a distinguished teaching career, she entered religious life in 1985. For 22 years until her early death from cancer she guided the young nuns of her abbey with enthusiasm, wisdom and wit.

The spirituality to be found in the pages of this book demonstrates to the reader why her influence should have been so great and so deep. Her notes to the novices deal with issues of relevance to a world beyond the cloister: What is the meaning of suffering? How do we cope with living with people who annoy us? How do we relate to a God we cannot see? How do we make the big decisions of life?

Sister Mary David's teaching was both profound and intensely practical, suffused with faith in God's joy in our work, leisure, community and family life but above all in our view and understanding of ourselves. This book, with an introduction by Abbot Erik Varden OCSO (author of The Shattering of Loneliness) shows us how to realize the Joy that is God.

An exploration of how AEthelwold and those he influenced deployed the promotion of saints to implement religious reform. Bishop AEthelwold of Winchester and his associates were some of the most radical monastic reformers in tenth-century Europe. In two generations, they took over most of the powerful churches in the kingdom of England and implemented a number of the policies found in their ambitious monastic manifestos. They also had a major impact on the early development of the kingdom itself, taking a role in the establishment of a shire system that lasted a thousand years, negotiations with invaders, and attempts to create a standardized English language. AEthelwold and his circle were also enthusiastic venerators of saints. This book examines a range of sources, from hagiographies to charters, from liturgy to archaeological remains, to argue that saints' cults helped these men and women secure their power, wealth, and relationships with groups outside their monasteries. The saints that AEthelwold's circle promoted most lavishly were not necessarily the ones that they studied or the ones that matched their ideological agenda. Rather, AEthelwold's monks and nuns connected themselves to a wide range of saints, including the Virgin Mary, St Swithun, AEthelthryth of Ely, Iudoc, Grimbald, Botulf, Cuthbert, and many others. Venerating these saints helped AEthelwold and his followers appeal to other groups in society, including unreformed ecclesiastics, lay nobles, and the workers on their estates. This book therefore not only has implications for the study of early English history and literature, but also for the history of western European monasticism and saints' cults more generally.

"The Love of Learning and the Desire for God" is composed of a series of lectures given to young monks at the Institute of Monastic Studies at Sant'Anselmo in Rome during the winter of 1955-56.

From the deserts of Egypt to the emergence of the great monastic orders, the story of late antique and medieval monasticism in the West used to be straightforward. But today we see the story as far 'messier' - less linear, less unified, and more historicized. In the first part of this book, the reader is introduced to the astonishing variety of forms and experiences of the monastic life, their continuous transformation, and their embedding in physical, socio-economic, and even personal settings. The second part surveys and discusses the extensive international scholarship on which the first part is built. The third part, a research tool, rounds off the volume with a carefully representative bibliography of literature and primary sources.

The monastic experience demystifiedan essential guide to what its like to spend a week inside a Catholic monastery.

A life of quiet, work and prayer, monasticism has been a part of the Christian spiritual tradition for over 1,700 years, and it remains very much alive today. This book offers you a personal encounter with daily life inside the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, as you might encounter it on a one-week retreat. Including a detailed guide to the monastic places in North America that receive visitors, as well as a detailed glossary, Making a Heart for God is an excellent introduction for anyone interested in learning about monastic spiritualityand it is also the perfect preparation for your first retreat experience.

Whether youre simply curious about whats behind the mystery, or interested in experiencing it firsthand, this is the ideal handbook.

Also included are a helpful glossary of terms and a listing of monasteries throughout North America that receive visitors.

Essays provide evidence for the vigour and involvement of religious orders in the years immediately prior to the reformation. It continues to be assumed in some quarters that England's monasteries and mendicant convents fell into a headlong decline - pursuing high living and low morals - long before Henry VIII set out to destroy them at the Dissolution.The essays in this book add to the growing body of scholarly enquiry which challenges this view. Drawing on some of the most recent research by British and American scholars, they offer a wide-ranging reassessment of the religiousorders on the eve of the Reformation. They consider not only the condition of their communities and the character of life within them, but also their wider contribution - spiritual, intellectual and economic - to English societyat large. What emerges is the impression that the years leading up to the Dissolution were neither as dark nor as difficult for the regular religious as many earlier histories have led us to believe. It was a period of institutional and religious reform, and, for the Benedictines at least, a period of marked intellectual revival. Many religious houses also continued to enjoy close relations with the lay communities living beyond their precinct walls. Whiletheir role in the devotions of many ordinary lay folk may have diminished, they still had a significant part to play in the local economy, in education and in a wide range of social and cultural activities. Contributors:JEREMY CATTO, JAMES G. CLARK, GLYN COPPACK, CLAIRE CROSS, PETER CUNICH, VINCENT GILLESPIE, JOAN GREATEX, BARBARA HARVEY, F. DONALD LOGAN, MARILYN OLIVA, MICHAEL ROBSON, R.N. SWANSON, BENJAMIN THOMPSON.

With the election of a new Abbot at the Abbey of Gethsemani, Merton enters a period of unprecedented freedom, culminating in the opportunity to travel to California, Alaska, and finally the Far East – journeys that offer him new possibilities and causes for contemplation. In his last days at the Abbey of Gethsemani, Merton continues to follow the tumultuous events of the sixties, including the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy. In Southeast Asia, he meets the Dalai Lama and other Buddhist and Catholic monks and discovers a rare and rewarding kinship with each. The final year is full of excitement and great potential for Merton, making his accidental death in Bangkok, at the age of fifth-three, all the more tragic.

A vivid account of the nature and significance of intense female spirituality in one of England's greatest medieval cities. The religious attachments and charitable activity of women in and around late medieval Norwich are used here as a case study to consider women and religion in the period more generally. Drawing on uniquely rich and varied sources,the book demonstrates, far more fully and effectively than studies for other cities have been able to do, how links with continental Europe enriched female life. Norwich's successful status as an international depot - especiallyits trade with the Low Countries and with Germany -- became the vehicle for the transmission of various cults, artistic expression and books related to continental female mysticism. Norwich women's special attraction to aspects ofincarnational piety is demonstrated by their devotion to the Body of Christ and to his earthly family, exemplified by the popular cults of St Anne and her daughter, the Virgin Mary. The wealth of fifteenth-century literature, much of local provenance, which survives highlights both this and other religious preoccupations of Norwich women. Among them are, of course, Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, who are here reinterpreted within the wider context ofthe religious life of the medieval city, and of women's contributions to it. CAROLE HILL gained her PhD from the University of East Anglia.

The Order of the Knights Templar, whose original purpose was to protect pilgrims to the Holy Land, was first given its own Rule in 1129, formalising the exceptional combination of soldier and monk. This translation of Henri de Curzon's 1886 edition of the French Rule is derived from the three extant medieval manuscripts.

Both monastic rule and military manual, the Rule is a unique document and an important historical source. It comprises the Primitive Rule, Hierarchical Statutes, Penances, Conventual Life, the Holding of Ordinary Chapters, Further Details on Penances, and Reception into the Order. There are details of clothing, armour and equipment; instructions on conduct while on campaign; information on the daily life of members of the order and on the discipline which made it a formidable fighting force. The Rule evolved over almost 150 years of the Order's history, and is thus a dynamic piece of work, showing how the Templars adapted to political change and formulated their disciplinary code.

An introduction gives the historical background to the Rule and summarises the various sections. An appendix by MATTHEW BENNETT discusses the military implications.

The Power of Religious Societies in Shaping Early Modern Society and Identities studies the value system of the French Catholic community the Filles de la Charite, or the Daughters of Charity, in the first half of the seventeenth century. An analysis of the activities aimed at edifying morality in the different strata of society revealed a Christian anthropology with strong links to medieval traditions. The book argues that this was an important survival strategy for the Company with a disconcerting religious identity: the non-cloistered lifestyle of its members engaged in charity work had been made unlawful in the Council of Trent. Moreover, the directors Louise de Marillac and Vincent de Paul also had to find ways to curtail internal resistance as the sisters rebelled in quest of a more contemplative and enclosed vocation.