Ressourcement: A Movement for Renewal in Twentieth-Century Catholic Theology provides both a historical and a theological analysis of the achievements of the renowned generation of theologians whose influence pervaded French theology and society in the period 1930 to 1960, and beyond. It considers how the principal exponents of ressourcement, leading Dominicans and Jesuits of the faculties of Le Saulchoir (Paris) and Lyon-Fourviere, inspired a renaissance in twentieth-century Catholic theology and initiated a movement for renewal that contributed to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. The book assesses the origins and historical development of the biblical, liturgical, and patristic ressourcement in France, Germany, and Belgium, and offers fresh insights into the thought of the movement's leading scholars. It analyses the fierce controversies that erupted within the Jesuit and Dominican orders and between leading ressourcement theologians and the Vatican. The volume also contributes to the elucidation of the complex question of terminology, the interpretation of which still engenders controversy in discussions of ressourcement and nouvelle theologie. It concludes with reflections on how the most important movement in twentieth-century Roman Catholic theology continues to impact on contemporary society and on Catholic and Protestant theological enquiry in the new millennium.

On the night of September 6, 2011, terror called at the Amish home of the Millers. Answering a late-night knock from what appeared to be an Amish neighbor, Mrs. Miller opened the door to her five estranged adult sons, a daughter, and their spouses. It wasn't a friendly visit. Within moments, the men, wearing headlamps, had pulled their frightened father out of bed, pinned him into a chair, and--ignoring his tearful protests--sheared his hair and beard, leaving him razor-burned and dripping with blood. The women then turned on Mrs. Miller, yanking her prayer cap from her head and shredding it before cutting off her waist-long hair. About twenty minutes later, the attackers fled into the darkness, taking their parents' hair as a trophy for their community.

Four similar beard-cutting attacks followed, disfiguring nine victims and generating a tsunami of media coverage. While pundits and late-night talk shows made light of the attacks and poked fun at the Amish way of life, FBI investigators gathered evidence about troubling activities in a maverick Amish community near Bergholz, Ohio--and the volatile behavior of its leader, Bishop Samuel Mullet.

Ten men and six women from the Bergholz community were arrested and found guilty a year later of 87 felony charges involving conspiracy, lying, and obstructing justice. In a precedent-setting decision, all of the defendants, including Bishop Mullet and his two ministers, were convicted of federal hate crimes. It was the first time since the 2009 passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act that assailants had been found guilty for religiously motivated hate crimes within the same faith community.

"Renegade Amish" goes behind the scenes to tell the full story of the Bergholz barbers: the attacks, the investigation, the trial, and the aftermath. In a riveting narrative reminiscent of a true crime classic, scholar Donald B. Kraybill weaves a dark and troubling story in which a series of violent Amish-on-Amish attacks shattered the peace of these traditionally nonviolent people, compelling some of them to install locks on their doors and arm themselves with pepper spray.

The country's foremost authority on Amish society, Kraybill spent six months assisting federal prosecutors with the case against the Bergholz defendants and served as an expert witness during the trial. Informed by trial transcripts and his interviews of ex-Bergholz Amish, relatives of Bishop Mullet, victims of the attacks, Amish leaders, and the jury foreman, "Renegade Amish" delves into the factors that transformed the Bergholz Amish from a typical Amish community into one embracing revenge and retaliation.

Kraybill gives voice to the terror and pain experienced by the victims, along with the deep shame that accompanied their disfigurement--a factor that figured prominently in the decision to apply the federal hate crime law. Built on Kraybill's deep knowledge of Amish life and his contacts within many Amish communities, "Renegade Amish" highlights one of the strangest and most publicized sagas in contemporary Amish history.

There is currently no shared language of vocation among Catholics in the developed, post-modern world of Europe and North America. The decline in practice of the faith and a weakened understanding of Church teaching has led to reduced numbers of people entering into marriage, religious life and priesthood. Uniquely, this book traces the development of vocation from scriptural, patristic roots through Thomism and the Reformation to engage with the modern vocational crisis. How are these two approaches compatible? The universal call to holiness is expressed in Lumen Gentium has been read by some as meaning that any vocational choice has the same value as any other such choice; is some sense of a higher calling part of the Catholic theology of vocation or not? Some claim that the single life is a vocation on a par with marriage and religious life; what kind of a theology of vocation leads to that conclusion? And is the secular use of the word 'vocation' to describe certain profession helpful or misleading in the context of Catholic theology?

Medieval Franciscans prayed in hermitages and churches, on the road and in the piazza, with song and silence. The unique stories of these men and women, as their engaging texts, stunning architecture and breath-taking artwork suggest, are narratives of souls, enfleshed in their respective worlds of the leprosarium, university, or itinerant preaching. The essays in this book foster a nuanced perspective on Franciscan beliefs and spiritual practices by resisting the temptation to reduce their myriad accounts of prayer to an exclusive, univocal spirituality. By displaying the breadth and depth of these medieval Franciscans at prayer, these essays challenge contemporary readers to look anew at this "cloud of witnesses" from the past, who, both lay and religious, promoted a diversity of spiritual expression that found a familial focus in their mutual passion for the divine and the world they shared.

Gregory the Great was pope from 590 to 604, a time of great turmoil in Italy and in the western Roman Empire generally because of the barbarian invasions. Gregory's experience as prefect of the city of Rome and as apocrisarius of Pope Pelagius fitted him admirably for the new challenges of the papacy. The Moral Reflections on the Book of Job were first given to the monks who accompanied Gregory to the embassy in Constantinople. This fourth volume, containing books 17 through 22, provides commentary on twelve chapters of Job, from 24:21 through 31:40.

The Monastic Constitutions of Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury between 1070 and 1089, has long been recognized as one of the most important historical sources for medieval monastic life. In this major new revision of Dom David Knowles's classic editions of 1951 and 1967, C. N. L. Brooke incorporates the historical scholarship of the last generation to offer further insight into and illumination of Lanfranc and the monastic world of the eleventh century.

Brill's Companion to Aelred of Rievaulx explores the life, works, and thought of Aelred, Cistercian abbot of Rievaulx Abbey from 1147 to 1167. As well as introducing the three genres of his works -sermons, spiritual teaching, and history- scholars survey such central topics as Marian devotion, love and friendship, the sacramental nature of community, lay spirituality, and saints' lives. The work also includes the first supplement to the Bibliotheca aelrediana secunda, listing publications by and about Aelred from between 1996 and 2015. Aelred is rapidly becoming one of the best-known and most loved of the 12th-century Cistercians; this book provides welcome new insights into his contributions to the spiritual and political concerns of his place and time. Contributors are Damien Boquet, Pierre-Andre Burton, Marsha L. Dutton, Elizabeth Freeman, Daniel M. La Corte, Marie Anne Mayeski, Domenico Pezzini, John R. Sommerfeldt, and Katherine Yohe.

Controversy surrounding the beatification and canonization of Edith Stein, a Catholic convert of Jewish heritage who was murdered at Auschwitz, has eclipsed scholarly and public attention to Stein's extraordinary development as a philosopher. She succeeded in extending phenomenological inquiry into the nature of person, community, and state; in analyzing the truth claims of empathic knowledge; in probing the foundations of pedagogy; and in offering a synthesis of medieval philosophy and phenomenology. Only the second woman in German history to be awarded a Ph.D. in philosophy, Stein ranks among the leading early-twentieth-century European intellectuals. She also made lasting contributions, both intellectual and practical, to women's education, freedom, and equality in Germany. The sixteen essays in this collection, written by scholars from the United States and Europe, critically examine her legacy. This volume represents the first comprehensive interdisciplinary analysis in English of Stein's life and philosophical writings. The book is divided into three sections-biographical explorations, Stein's feminist theory and pedagogy, and her creative philosophical contributions. The essays in this volume also situate Stein's life and thought in the complex historical context of early-twentieth-century Germany.

Holy Chord Within Sacred Walls examines musical culture both inside and outside seventeenth-century Sienese convents. In contrast to earlier studies of Italian convent music, this book draws upon archival sources to reconstruct an ecclesiastical culture that celebrated music internally and shared music freely with the community outside the convent walls. Colleen Reardon argues that cloistered women in Siena enjoyed a significant degree of freedom to engage in musical pursuits. The nuns produced a remarkable body of work including motets, lamentations, theatrical plays and even an opera. As a result, the convent became an important cultural centre in Siena that enjoyed the support and encouragement of its clergy and lay community.

Benedictine scholars around 1700, most prominently proponents of historical criticism, have long been regarded as the spearhead of ecclesiastical learning on the brink of Enlightenment, first in France, then in Germany and other parts of Europe. Based on unpublished sources, this book is the first to contextualize this narrative in its highly complex pre-modern setting, and thus at some distance from modernist ascriptions ex posteriori. Challenged by Protestant and Catholic anti-monasticism, Benedictine scholars strove to maintain control of their intellectual tradition. They failed thoroughly, however: in the Holy Roman Empire, their success depended on an anti-Roman and nationalized reading of their research. For them, becoming part of an Enlightenment narrative meant becoming part of a cultural project of "Germany".

Gregory the Great was pope from 590 to 604, a time of great turmoil in Italy and in the western Roman Empire generally because of the barbarian invasions. Gregory's experience as prefect of the city of Rome and as apocrisarius of Pope Pelagius fitted him admirably for the new challenges of the papacy. The Moral Reflections on the Book of Job were first given to the monks who accompanied Gregory to the embassy in Constantinople. This sixth volume, containing books 28 through 35, provides commentary on five chapters of Job, from 38:1 through 42:17. The present volume contains the Lord's appearing to Job out of the whirlwind, the Lord's two lengthy speeches to Job and Job's responses, and, finally, the Lord's rebuke to Job's friends and restoration of Job's fortunes. Finally, Gregory speaks of his intention in writing this long work and requests that his readers grant him their prayers and tears. Includes comprehensive indexes for volumes 1-6.

Marie de l'Incarnation (1599 - 1672), renowned French mystic and founder of the Ursulines in Canada, abandoned her son, Claude Martin, when he was a mere eleven years old to dedicate herself completely to a consecrated religious life.
In 1639, Marie migrated to the struggling French colony at Quebec to found the first Ursuline convent in the New World. Over the course of the next thirty-one years, the relationship between Marie and Claude would take shape by means of a trans-Atlantic correspondence in which mother and son shared advice and counsel, concerns and anxieties, and joys and frustrations.
From Mother to Son presents annotated translations of forty-one of the eighty-one extant full-length letters exchanged by Marie and her son between 1640 and 1671. These letters reveal much about the early history of New France and the spiritual itinerary of one of the most celebrated mystics of the seventeenth century. Uniting the letters into a coherent whole is the distinctive relationship between an absent mother and her abandoned son, a relationship reconfigured from flesh and blood to the written word exchanged between professed religious united in Jesus Christ as members of the same spiritual family.
In providing a contemporary translation of Marie's letters to Claude, Mary Dunn renders accessible to an English-speaking readership a rich source for the history of colonial North America, providing a counterpoint to a narrative weighted in favor of Plymouth Rock and the Puritans and a history of New France dominated by the perspectives of men both religious and secular.
Dunn expertly contextualizes the correspondence within the broader cultural, historical, intellectual, and theological currents of the seventeenth century as well as within modern scholarship on Marie de l'Incarnation.
From Mother to Son offers a fascinating portrait of the nature and evolution of Marie's relationship with her son. By highlighting the great range of their conversation, Dunn provides a window onto one of the more intriguing and complicated stories of maternal and filial affection in the modern Christian West.

The Knights of St John of Jerusalem, also known as the Hospitallers, were a military religious order, subject to monastic vows and discipline but devoted to the active defence of the Holy Land. After evacuating the Holy Land at the beginning of the fourteenth century, they occupied Rhodes, which they held into the sixteenth century, when their headquarters moved to Malta. Branches of the order existed throughout Europe, and it is the English branch in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that is examined here. Among the major subjects researched by O'Malley are the recruitment of members of the Hospital and their family ties; the operation of the order's career structure; the administration of its estates; its provision of spiritual and charitable services; and the publicity and logistical support it provided for the holy war carried on by its headquarters against the Ottoman Turks. It is argued that the English Hospitallers in particular took their military and financial duties to the order very seriously, making a major contribution to the Hospital's operations in the Mediterranean as a result. They were able to do so because they were wealthy, had close family and other ties with gentle and mercantile society, and above all because their activities had royal support. Where this was lacking or ineffective, as in Ireland, the Hospital might become the plaything of local interests eager to exploit its estates, and its wider functions might be neglected. Consequently the heart of the book lies in an extended discussion of the relationship between senior Hospitaller officers and the governing authorities of Britain and Ireland. It is concluded that rulers were generally supportive of the order's activities, but within strict limits, particularly in matters concerning appointments, the size of payments to the east, and the movement and foreign allegiances of senior brethren. When these limits were breached, or at times of political or religious sensitivity such as the 1460s and 1530s, the Hospital's personnel and estates would suffer. In addition, more general areas of historical debate are illuminated such as those concerning the relationship between late medieval societies and the religious orders; 'British' attitudes to Christendom and holy war, and the rights of rulers over their subjects. This is the first such book to be based on archival records in both Britain and Malta, and will make a major contribution to understanding the order's European network, its place in the ordering of Latin Christendom, and in particular its role in late medieval British and Irish society.

The Macarian writings are among the most important and influential works of the early Christian ascetic and mystical tradition. This book offers an introduction to the work of Macarius-Symeon (commonly referred to as Pseudo-Macarius), outlining the lineaments of his teaching and the historical context of his works. The book goes on to examine and re-evaluate the complex question of his relationship with the Messalian tendency and to explore the nature of his theological and spiritual legacy in the later Christian tradition. In so doing the book also offers substantial treatments of the work of Mark the Monk, Diadochus of Photice, Abba Isaiah, and Maximus Confessor. It stands therefore not only as an exploration of the teaching and legacy of Macarius-Symeon but also as a chapter in the history of the Christian spiritual tradition.

"Early Irish Monasticism" is an exploration of the ascetical theology and praxis of sixth to eighth century Irish monasticism as a radical response to the Gospel. It claims that the radicality of this response arose from the distinctive cultural consciousness of the Celts. It concentrates on the Irish Celts and makes use of a wide variety of sources including pre and post-Christian elements: social organisations, sagas, Brehon Laws and druidism to emphasise that culture to a great extent determines one's response to life. Syncretism, which the study sees as indicative of the Irish proclivity to accept other peoples' religions tradition, is an element of the study that may not be familiar to some readers. Some of the photos are included in the appendices to reinforce the concrete evidence for this in both Scotland and Ireland. The primary sources utilized include: Irish penitentials, monastic rules, the Vita of ColumCille and the Sermons of Columbanus. These sources, especially the monastic rules and penitentials, have often been read 'out of context' and have so given rise to the allegation that the Irish were overly harsh in their living and that they were obsessed with sexual sins. Both aspects of Irish monasticism are treated in a reassessed understanding of the basics of asceticism drawing on the earlier formulation of Cassian in his theory of Contraries. The Sermons of Columbanus, the quintessential Irish wanderer on the Continent, are goldmines of ascetical theology while also being important extant historical documents.

St Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022) is regarded as one of the most significant figures in Byzantine mysticism. Though a very controversial figure in his own lifetime, he is now revered both in Orthodox and other Christian traditions. After beginning his monastic life while still comparatively young, he became hegumen of the monastery of St Mamas, and held that position for several years. Many of his writings, including the Discourses and Hymns, have appeared in print, but his four epistles have not been published in their entirety until now.
In these four letters, besides criticising those contending against him, Symeon writes as a pastor, concerned to give practical moral guidance. He focuses on confession, repentence, and the role of the spiritual father. H. J. M. Turner details the biographic and textual context of this scholarly annotated edition. He uses the previously unpublished Greek text established by Joseph Paramelle to provide an authoritative basis for his translation. Clearly and accessibly presented, these letters serve to reinforce our understanding of Symeon's life and work.

A.G. Dickens is the most eminent English historian of the Reformation. His books and articles have illuminated both the history and the historiography of the Reformation in England and in Germany. Late Monasticism and the Reformation contains an edition of a poignant chronicle from the eve of the Reformation and a new collection of essays. The first part of the book is a reprint of his edition of The Chronicle of Butley Priory, only previously available in a small privately financed edition which has long been out of print. The last English monastic chronicle, it extends from the early years of the sixteenth century up to the Dissolution. Besides giving an intimate portrait of the community at Butley, it reveals many details concerning the local history and personalities of Suffolk during that period. The second part contains the most important essays published by A.G. Dickens since his Reformation Studies (1982). Their themes concern such areas of current interest as the strength and geographical distribution of English Protestantism before 1558; the place of anticlericalism in the English Reformation; and Luther as a humanist. Also included are some local studies including essays on the early Protestants of Northamptonshire and on the mock battle of 1554 fought by London schoolboys over religion.

Considers many facets of the medieval church, dealing with institutions, buildings, personalities and literature. The text explores the origins of the diocese and the parish, the history of the See of Hereford and of York Minster. It discusses the arrival of the archdeacon, the Normans as cathedral builders and the kings of England and Scotland as monastic patrons. The studies of monastic life deal with the European question of monastic vocation and with St Bernard's part in the sensational expansion of the early 12th century. An epilogue takes us to the 14th century, contrasting Chaucer's parson with an actual Norfolk rector.

This study presents research by specialists of monastic history, literature, and spirituality. Covering the period from 1150 to 1500, this volume demonstrates that monastic preaching was not only carried out in the cloister by monks, but also in public arenas by monks and nuns. The topics range from questioning if the sermons of Bernard of Clairvaux were ever preached, to an analysis of Hildegard of Bingen's preaching against the Cathars. Sermons addressed to monastic communities by secular preachers are also analysed. The diversity of monastic preaching - e.g., cloistered preaching, preaching against heretics, preaching by heretical monks, preaching by nuns - and a geographical range of monastic pastoral history is studied. "Medieval Monastic Preaching" offers a preliminary step in understanding how sermons and preaching shaped monastic identity in the Middle Ages.

This collection of essays by an international team of prominent New Testament scholars is in honour of David Catchpole, recently retired from his position as the Saint Luke's Foundation Professor of Theological Studies at the University of Exeter, UK.
The essays represent a range of approaches and topics, connected together by a focus on various kinds of christological claim, whether by the historical Jesus, in the Q tradition, John, Paul or the synoptics, and their connection with controversy and the construction of early Christian community.
The contributors are: Stephen Barton, Peder Borgen, Richard Burridge, Marinus de Jonge, James Dunn, Earle Ellis, Birger Gerhardsson, Michael Goulder, Morna Hooker, John Kloppenburg Verbin, Robert Morgan, John Painter, Ronald Piper, Peter Richardson, Christopher Rowland, Graham Stanton, N.T. Wright, and the editors.

Early medieval religious communities were filled with monks and nuns who spent almost their entire lives within the monastic confines. Many had arrived in childhood, through an irrevocable act of parental sacrifice (oblatio). According to Benedict's Rule, parents were to donate their sons 'to God in the monastery', following the biblical example of Hannah offering her son Samuel at the Temple.
From the twelfth century onwards, this once widespread practice became increasingly controversial. Why did parents give away their children? Were they driven by economic necessity?
This book argues that child oblation was anything but a religious disguise for abandoning superfluous offspring. Instead, it was a sacrifice, and should be viewed within the context of gift-giving, religious and otherwise, which assumed such a central importance in early medieval societies.

Discussion around the bestseller The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher has led many people to want to know more about Benedictine principles.??????? Listen, my child. I want you to put the ear of your heart to the solid ground of the master's wisdom (what I received, I'm passing on to you). It's advice from a spiritual father who loves you-the sort of counsel you receive by letting it shape your whole life. Listening is hard work, but it's the essential work. It opens us up to the God we've rejected by only listening to ourselves. If you're ready to give up your addiction to yourself, this message is for you: to listen is to equip yourself with the best resources available to serve the real Master, Christ the Lord. So begins the famous opening paragraph of Benedict's Rule in Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove's vital, new, contemporary paraphrase. The entire text of the Rule is here plus a lengthy introduction from Jonathan, and detailed explanatory notes throughout that explain difficult passages. The result is a classic re-introduced that will enliven any 21st century expression of religious community.

Forming Catholic Communities assesses the histories of Irish, English and Scots colleges established abroad in the early-modern period for Catholic students. The contributions provide a co-ordinated series of case studies which reflect the most up-to-date research on the colleges. The essays address interactions with European states, international networking, educational frameworks, financial challenges, print culture and institutional survival into the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. From these essays, the colleges emerge as unexpectedly complex institutions. With their financial, pastoral, and intellectual networks, they provided an educational infrastructure that, whatever its short-comings, remained crucial to the domestic and international communities they served during more than two centuries.

Abbo of Fleury was a prominent churchman of late tenth-century France--abbot of a major monastery, leader in the revival of learning in France and England, and the subject of a serious work of hagiography. Elizabeth Dachowski's study presents a coherent picture of this multifaceted man with an emphasis on his political alliances and the political considerations that colored his earliest biographical treatment. Unlike previous studies, Dachowski's book examines the entire career of Abbo, not just his role as abbot of Fleury. When viewed as a whole, Abbo's life demonstrates his devotion to the cause of pressing for monastic prerogatives in a climate of political change. Abbo's career vividly illustrates how the early Capetian kings and the French monastic communities began the symbiotic relationship that replaced the earlier Carolingian models. Despite a stormy beginning, Abbo had, by the time of his death, developed a mutually beneficial working relationship with the Capetian kings and had used papal prerogatives to give the abbey of Fleury a preeminent place among reformed monasteries of northern France. Thus, the monks of Fleury had strong incentives for portraying the early years of Abbo's abbacy as relatively free from conflict with the monarchy. Previous lives of Abbo have largely followed the view put forward by his first biographer, Aimoinus of Fleury, who wrote the Vita sancti Abbonis within a decade of Abbo's death. While Aimoinus clearly understood Abbo's goals and the importance of his accomplishment, he also had several other agendas, including a glossing over of earlier and later conflicts at Fleury and validation of an even closer (and more subservient) relationship with the Capetian monarchs under Abbo's successor, Gaulzin of Fleury. Abbo's achievements set the stage for the continuing prosperity and influence of Fleury but at the expense of Fleury's independence from the monarchy. With Abbo's death, the monastery's relationship with the French crown grew even closer, though Fleury continued to maintain its independence from the episcopacy.