In the first chapters of this book it is the purpose to demonstrate that the spirit of sacrifice is the essence of the Christian life; an assertion the truth of which the author imagines is not possible to question for a moment. If that assertion is incontestable, even self-evident, it will be seen that the closest relations exist between the victim's spirit of sacrifice and the religious life, since, if the spirit of sacrifice is the foundation and essential characteristic of the Christian life, the religious life, which aspires to the attainment of the greatest perfection of the Christian life ought to aim at attaining the perfection of a victim's life of self-surrender.

In the fourth century, the deserts of Egypt became the nerve center of a radical new movement, what we now call monasticism. Groups of Christians-from illiterate peasants to learned intellectuals-moved out to the wastelands beyond the Nile Valley and, in the famous words of Saint Athanasius, made the desert a city. In so doing, they captured the imagination of the ancient world. They forged techniques of prayer and asceticism, of discipleship and spiritual direction, that have remained central to Christianity ever since. Seeking to map the soul's long journey to God and plot out the subtle vagaries of the human heart, they created and inspired texts that became classics of Western spirituality. These Desert Christians were also brilliant storytellers, some of Christianity's finest. This book introduces the literature of early monasticism. It examines all the best-known works, including Athanasius' Life of Antony, the Lives of Pachomius, and the so-called Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Later chapters focus on two pioneers of monastic theology: Evagrius Ponticus, the first great theoretician of Christian mysticism; and John Cassian, who brought Egyptian monasticism to the Latin West. Along the way, readers are introduced to path-breaking discoveries-to new texts and recent archeological finds-that have revolutionized contemporary scholarship on monastic origins. Included are fascinating snippets from papyri and from little-known Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopic texts. Interspersed in each chapter are illustrations, maps, and diagrams that help readers sort through the key texts and the richly-textured world of early monasticism. Geared to a wide audience and written in clear, jargon-free prose, Desert Christians offers the most comprehensive and accessible introduction to early monasticism.

Monica Appleby and Helen Lewis reveal the largely untold story of women who stood up to the Church and joined Appalachians in their struggle for social justice. Their poignant story of how faith, compassion, and persistence overcame obstacles to progress in Appalachia is a fascinating example of how a collaborative and creative learning community fosters strong voices. Mountain Sisters is a prophetic first-person account of the history of American Catholicism, the war on poverty, and the influence of the turbulent 1960s on the cultural and religious communities of Appalachia.

Founded in 1941, The Glenmary Sisters embraced a calling to serve rural Appalachian communities where few Catholics resided. The sisters, many of them seeking alternatives to the choices available to most women during this time, zealously pursued their duties but soon became frustrated with the rules and restrictions of the Church. Outmoded doctrine -- even styles of dress -- made it difficult for them to interact with the very people they hoped to help. In 1967, after many unsuccessful attempts to persuade the Church to ease its requirements, some seventy Sisters left the security of convent life. Over forty of these women formed a secular service group, FOCIS (Federation of Communities in Service). Mountain Sisters is their story.

The definitive story of the recent discovery of the first-century ossuary (limestone bone box) with the legend 'James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus', & it's implications for understanding Jesus, his family, his followers, the first Christians and the Jewish Christian movement in Jerusalem that was led by James.

Alcuin of York was one of the most significant figures of the Anglo-Saxon Church alongside Bede and Cuthbert. This introductory selection from his extensive writings includes Alcuin's prayers, poetry and prose. Douglas Dales is Chaplain and Head of RE at Marlborough College. His other published titles include "This is my Faith" and "Glory: the spiritual Theology of Michael Ramsey."

In honor of John W. Padbert, S.J., this collection of essays covers topics of Jesuit education and experience throughout the world during the Society's more than 450 years of existence, though most focus on more recent history and interpretations of Ignatian spirituality. Contributing authors include William A. Barry, S.J.; John W. O'Malley, S.J.; David L. Fleming, S.J.; and Michael J. Buckley, S.J.

In the spring of l996 armed men broke into a Trappist monastery in war-torn Algeria and took seven monks hostage, pawns in a murky negotiation to free imprisoned terrorists. Two months later their severed heads were found in a tree; their bodies were never recovered.

The village of Tibhirine had sprung up around the monastery because it was a holy place protected by the Virgin Mary, revered by Christians and Muslims alike. But napalm, helicopters, and gunfire had become regular accompaniments to the monastic routine as the violence engulfing Algeria drew closer to the isolated cloister high in the Atlas Mountains.

Unique in the Church, the Camaldolese life is ordered to a three-fold good: solitude, community, and witness. Men and women as hermits live by a monastic rule, committed to both solitude and community life. The discipline of solitude combined with the second good, the rigors of community living are intended to widen the heart in service of the third good: bearing witness to the abundance of God's love as the self, others, and every living creature are brought into fuller communion in the one Love. The essays in The Privilege of Love convey the richness and the depth of the Camaldolese Benedictine spirit. Their diversity of expression is itself a manifestation of the magnitude of God's bonding Love. This bonding is the Spirit's own gift, weaving together the many voices found in these pages - voices of women and men, of monk, hermit, and layperson. The voices speak of historical roots, of the riches found in solitude and the grit of community life, of the psychological strength required in any pursuit of God, of the vulnerability of the human heart which is the home for wisdom's Word, and of the privilege of being in love with Love itself. Essays and contributors underPart One: A Vision in Context are Overview of Camaldolese History and Spirituality," by Peter-Damian Belisle, OSB Cam. Essays and contributors under Part Two: Sustaining the Spirit are *An Image of the Praying Church: Camaldolese Liturgical Spirituality, - by Cyprian Consiglio; *Lectio Divina and Monastic Theology in Camaldolese Life, - by Alessandro Barban; *Monastic Wisdom: The Western Tradition, - by Bruno Barnhart. Essays and contributors in Part Three: Configurations of a Charism are *The Threefold Good: Romualdian Charism and Monastic Tradition, - by Joseph Wong; *Koinonia: The Privilege of Love, - by Robert Hale; *Psychological Investigations and Implications for Living Together Alone, - by Bede Healey; *Golden Solitude, - by Peter-Damian Belisle, OSB Cam; *A Wild Bird, with God in the Center: The Hermit in Community, - by Sr. Donald Corcoran; *The Camaldolese in Dialogue: Ecumenical and Interfaith Themes in the History of the Camaldolese Benedictines, - by Thomas Matus and Robert Hale; *The Camaldolese Oblate Program: History, Tradition, Charism, - by Jeffry Spencer and Michal Fish; *Concluding Remarks - ; *Camaldoli's Recent Journey and Its Prospects, - by Emanuele Bargellini; Peter-Damian Belisle, OSB Cam., Translator. *The Bibliography for the Study of Camaldolese History and Spirituality, - provides, for the first time anywhere, a comprehensive list of Romualdian/Camaldolese source material. "

With its focus on narratives, its attention to contextual and material realities, and its collection of women-identified liturgies in global context, "Dissident Daughters" claims prominence within the growing literature on women's ways of worship. This book not only introduces liturgical texts, but focuses on the communities that create and celebrate these liturgies. "Dissident Daughters" gives voice to the women activists in these communities who show how their communities came into being; how social, cultural, and political realities shaped them and their liturgies; and how they envision their lives in and as communities of faith. In drawing the different narratives together, "Dissident Daughters" displays the expanse of the worldwide expression of women's rites, and how each is shaped by distinctly different contexts of struggle and hope.

Ancrene Wisse introduced through a variety of cultural and critical approaches which establish the originality and interest of the treatise. The thirteenth-century Ancrene Wisse is a guide for female recluses. Addressed to three young sisters of gentle birth, it teaches what truly good anchoresses should and should not do, offering in its examples a glimpse of the real life women had in England in the middle ages. It is also important for its evidence for the continuation of the Anglo-Saxon tradition of prose writing, being produced in the West Midlands where Old English writing conventions continued to develop even after the Norman conquest. The Companion addresses the cultural and historical background, the affiliations of the versions, genre, authorship and language; the various approaches also includea feminist reading of the text. Contributors ROGER DAHOOD, RICHARD DANCE, A.S.G. EDWARDS, CATHERINE INNES-PARKER, BELLA MILLETT, CHRISTINA VON NOLCKEN, ELIZABETH ROBERTSON, ANNE SAVAGE, D.A. TROTTER, YOKO WADA, NICHOLAS WATSON.

The first black Cathotic sisterhood in the United States; Founded in Baltimore in 1828 by a French Sulpician priest and a mulatto Caribbean immigrant, the Oblate Sisters of Providence formed the first permanent African American Roman Catholic sisterhood in the United States. It still exists today. Exploring the slavery-era history of this pioneering sisterhood, which took as its practical mission the education of black children, Diane Batts Morrow demonstrates the centrality of race in the Oblate experience. By their very existence, the Oblate Sisters challenged prevailing social, political, and cultural attitudes on many levels. White society viewed women of color as lacking in moral standing and sexual virtue; at the same time, the sisters' vows of celibacy flew in the face of conventional female roles as wives and mothers. But the Oblate Sisters' religious commitment proved both liberating and empowering, says Morrow. They inculcated into their communal identity positive senses of themselves as black women and as women religious, Strengthened by their spiritual fervor, the sisters defied the inferior social status white society ascribed to them and the ambivalence the Catholic Church demonstrated toward them. They successfully persevered in dedicating themselves to spiritual practice in the Roman Catholic tradition.

In this unique work, Paul Hanson traces the concept of "community" from its early biblical origins through the end of the apostolic age. This edition includes a chapter devoted to the contemporary implications of this concept and in his new introduction, the author further explores the importance of this theme.

The astonishing and exiting story of Julie Billiart, the French peasant woman who founded the Sisters of Notre Dame out of the aftermath of the French Revolution. Myra Poole has been a Notre Dame sister for more than forty years. For much of that time was a teacher of history and a headteacher, taking early retirement to study women's theology in the USA, Holland and London. She has been instrumental in founding numerous women's groups including Catholic Women's Network; Catholic Women's Ordination and the British and Irish School of Feminist Theology.

This book intriduces readers to the essential writings of Bernard of Clairvaux, a Cistercian mink who was famous in his own time as atheologian, statesman, and mystic.

Also available as an eBook

The world-renowned Monks of New Skete have distilled their collective spiritual wisdom into a book that explains how the elements of a monk's life — self-discipline, solitude, prayer, acts of love and forgiveness — are pathways that anyone can follow to achieve true happiness and spiritual fulfillment.

J. Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was a twenty-year-old sophomore when he was introduced to fellow student Robert Lax (1915-2000) in the Columbia University cafeteria in 1935. They were brought together by an admiration for each other's writing in the college humor magazine. Upon graduation in 1938, Merton converted to Roman Catholicism; Lax began graduate study in English and took a job at the New Yorker. Three years later, Merton entered the Abbey of Gethsemani, and he and Lax saw each other only four more times. Yet their friendship was sustained for the next thirty-three years through an amazing correspondence.

Their letters show Merton as an irreverent and often hilarious critic of presidents and popes. He also turned to serious issues, such as the war in Vietnam and the dangers of nuclear holocaust. Merton and Lax's correspondence is filled with reminiscences of friends and faculty from their years at Columbia, including Mark van Doren, Lionel Trilling, Ad Reinhardt, Edward Rice, and Jacques Barzun. These letters of two poets and solitaries betray a giddy delight in wordplay, unconstrained by rules of grammar or conventions of spelling. Puns, portmanteaus, and inside jokes abound. The thirty-year exchange began when Merton dashed off a note on June 17, 1938, after spending a week with Lax's family.

The final epistle in this extraordinary correspondence was written by Lax on December 8, 1968. Merton died in Bangkok five days later and never received it. Arthur Biddle spent nearly ten years collecting every letter known to exist between Merton and Lax, a total of 346, two thirds of which have never been published. Biddle provides chronologies of their lives and places events and people in context within the letters. This volume also includes the text of a rare interview with Lax.

Arthur W. Biddle is professor emeritus of English at the University of Vermont.

Drawn from the ancient traditions, including the rule of St. Augustine and the widely known St. Benedict's rule, this enlightening and practical book takes ancient monastic rules and applies them to modern-day life -- providing concrete guidance for those who wish to experience God more fully, day by day.

After living the Rule and studying it for many years, the author introduces it to those who are encountering it for the first time. The relationship of Benedict's Rule to other early monastic legislation is treated thoroughly but the book is designed for those who are seeking a guide for christian living in this little rule for beginners'.

This book tells the stories of 40 hard working men and women from all walks of life who became saints by doing small things in a great way for the love of God. The author, Brother Tom-Nicholas, is a lay brother in the Franciscan th ird order and serves as liturgical assistant at St. James' Episcopal church in South Pasadena, California. He always manages to bring home the modern message of each saint in a funny yet inspirational way. From ex-lawyers and soldiers, to housewives, he rbalists, and hair-dressers, each special story has something to make you smile, maybe make you laugh, and always make you think about the simple things we can all do to make a difference. If you-'re looking for the patron saint of television, a monthly meditation series, or just a special book you can share with those you love, Calling All Saints is for you.

William Short summs up the Franciscan tradition as 'chaotic and intuitive, creative and affectionate, radical and obedient', and shows it to be as appealing a way of life today as in the past. He focuses on St Francis of Assisi and St Clare, the Franciscan founders, offers an historical introduction to the Order before illuminating their vision and reflects on key themes of the Incarnation, poverty as a way to God, suffering and healing, and of creation - humanity and nature in harmony. The book forms a bridge between contempoary concerns and the wisdom of the past.

The Templars' and Hospitallers' daily business of recruitment, fund-raising, farming, shipping and communal life explored alongside their commitment to crusading. The military and religious orders of the Knights Templar (founded 1120) and Knights Hospitaller (founded c.1099) were a driving force throughout the long history of the crusades. This study examines the work of the two orders closely, using original charters to analyse their activities in their administrative heartland in south-west France, and sets them in the context of contemporary religious life and economic organisation. Recruitment, fund-raising, farming, shipping, and communal life are all touched upon, and the orders' commitment to crusading through control and supply of manpower, money, arms and supplies is assessed. Dr Selwood shows the orders at the centre of religious life in Occitania, highlighting their success compared with other new orders such as the Cistercians, and looking at their relationships with the secular and monastic Church. Other themes addressed include the orders' relationshipto Occitanian society and to the laiety, their involvement with pilgrimage to Jerusalem, their innovative administrative structures, and their logistical operations. DOMINIC SELWOOD gained his Ph.D. at Oxford; he is now a barrister at Lincoln's Inn, and practices from chambers in the Inner Temple.

25 presentations on the spiritual life, with four major talks by H.H. the Dalai Lama.>

These diary entries written by Dorothy Day in 1948 provide an intimate look into Day's personal life as well as essential background for understanding the Catholic Worker movement, which she founded. In this book, Day writes about all facets of her life. Yet whether describing her visits to her daughter's farm or the writings of the saints, a common theme emerges, namely, the gifts of God's love and our need to respond to them with personal and social transformation. The concerns of the Catholic Worker movement are no less vital in our day: the disenfranchised poor, the benefits of the meaningful work, the significance of family, the dangers of increasing commercialism and secularism, the decline of moral standards, and the importance of faith. Available for the first time since it was originally published, this edition includes a foreword by Michael O. Garvey and an introduction by Mark and Louise Zwick that gives an overview of Day's early life and her commitment to the Catholic worker movement.

Made doubly marginal by their gender and by their religion, American nuns have rarely been granted serious scholarly attention. Instead, their lives and achievements have been obscured by myths or distorted by stereotypes. Placing nuns into the mainstream of American religious and women's history for the first time, Spirited Lives reveals their critical impact on the development of Catholic culture and, ultimately, the building of American society. Focusing on the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, one of the largest and most diverse American sisterhoods, Carol Coburn and Martha Smith explore how nuns directly influenced the lives of millions of Americans, both Catholic and non-Catholic, through their work in schools, hospitals, orphanages, and other social service institutions. Far from functioning as passive handmaidens for Catholic clergy and parishes, nuns created, financed, and administered these institutions, struggling with, and at times resisting, male secular and clerical authority. A rich and multifaceted narrative, Spirited Lives illuminates the intersection of gender, religion, and power in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century America. |Reveals the critical impact of nuns on the development of Catholic culture and American society between 1836 and 1940. Focusing on the sisters of St. Joseph of Carondolet, this book shows how nuns directly influenced millions of Americans through their work in schools, hospitals, orphanages, and other social service institutions.

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 provides 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. Francis Kline, OCSO, is abbot of Mepkin, a Cistercian (Trappist) monastery near Charleston, South Carolina. He has studied at The Julliard School in New York and at the Pontifical Athenaeum Saint' Anselmo in Rome. "