Spiritual accompaniment-patient listening and honest openness has become widespread among Christians of many traditions in recent years. Is this modern application of an ancient 'discernment of spirits' the best way for individual persons and groups of Christians to be formed as the People of God?

Can anyone today accompany another person's spiritual experience without a sound knowledge of psychology? Do spiritual accompaniment and psychological therapy overlap? Can one replace the other? Should an accompanist also be a therapist, as some have suggested?

Writing from his years of experience in a cistercian monastery, in which spiritual accompaniment is a living tradition, the author reflects on some first steps towards answering these questions.

Dom Andre Louf (+2010) was abbot of the Trappist-Cistercian monastery of Mont-des-Cats in northern France from 1963 to 1997. This book brings together talks given to a variety of audiences in which he shared his spiritual experience from both his life of prayer and his life in community. Each chapter offers inspiring insights on the spiritual experience, the priority of love, and other areas of our Christian life: community life, obedience, prayer, psalms, the liturgy, and more. In this book we enter "a school of contemplation" wherein the monastic experience enlightens our lives and service to the world and the Church.

Andre Llouf's probing essay on the nature of humility reVisions this fundamental Christian virtue away from the misunderstandings of both the scholastic tradition and its modern counterparts to locate humility in the ancient sources of the monastic tradition. His incisive study prefaces a collection of primary texts which range from the early desert fathers to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. The translator has added further information about the author and his other writings as well as a bibliography for further reading.

"Andre Louf served as abbot Cistercian Abbey of Mont des Cats in northern France until his retirement in 1997 and now lives as a solitary. Previous books in English include "Teach Us To Pray, Tuning into Grace, Grace Can Do More: Spiritual Accompaniment, "and "Mercy in Weakness: Meditations on the Word.

"Lawrence S. Cunningham is Professor of Theology at Notre Dame and book notes columnist for "Commonweal.

How can we attune ourselves to God's grace? It always takes a lifetime to do - and this is because God wants it so. When first surprised by grace, people speak of a 'conversion'. Some consider this the end of the journey. Those familiar with spiritual development realize that conversion is merely the beginning of an ongoing process. Throughout our lives God's grace continues to draw us and help us turn ever and again back to him and his great, guiding love. Cistercian abbot Andre Louf writes of the power of faith, growth through testing, contrition of heart, spiritual companionship, prayer and the fruits of the spirit. Andre Louf is abbot of the cistercian monastery of Katzberg (Mont-des-Cats), France.

A sketch of the unique tradition of the 'white monks' as they have sought 'men and women alike 'to leave al things to follow the Gospel.