Download or read book A Course in Desert Spirituality written by Thomas Merton and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2020 Association of Catholic Publishers first place award in spirituality Thomas Merton’s sessions with the young monks at the Abbey of Gethsemani showcase Merton’s brilliant ability to survey the key figures and synthesize their writings, inspiring his listeners and readers with what it means for the spiritual life. Like its companion volume, A Course in Christian Mysticism, this book is a collection of fifteen lectures that get to the heart of Merton’s belief that monastic wisdom and spirituality are applicable for everyone. This compact volume allows anyone to learn from one of the twentieth century's greatest Catholic spiritual teachers. The study materials at the back of the book, including additional primary source readings and thoughtful questions for reflection and discussion, make this an essential text for any student of Christian desert spirituality.
Download or read book Desert Fathers and Mothers written by Christine Valters Paintner and published by SkyLight Paths Publishing. This book was released on 2012 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Timeless and contemplative sayings from the earliest Christian sages of desert spirituality can be a companion on your own spiritual journey. The desert fathers and mothers were ordinary Christians living in solitude in the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Arabia who chose to renounce the world in order to deliberately and individually follow God's call. They embraced lives of celibacy, labor, fasting, prayer and poverty, believing that denouncing material goods and practicing stoic self-discipline would lead to unity with the Divine. Their spiritual practice formed the basis of Western monasticism and greatly influenced both Western and Eastern Christianity. Their writings, first recorded in the fourth century, consist of spiritual advice, parables and anecdotes emphasizing the primacy of love and the purity of heart. Focusing on key themes of charity, fortitude, lust, patience, prayer and self-control, the Sayings influenced the rule of St. Benedict and have inspired centuries of opera, poetry and art. This probing and personal SkyLight Illuminations edition opens up their wisdom for readers with no previous knowledge of Western monasticism and early Christianity. It provides insightful yet unobtrusive commentary that describes historical background, explains the practice of asceticism and illustrates how you can use their wisdom to energize your spiritual quest.
Download or read book Practical Spirituality According to the Desert Fathers written by Athanasius Iskander and published by St Shenouda Monastery. This book was released on 2011-03 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the Bible tells what people need to do to reach perfection and earn eternal life, it does not tell how. Fr. Iskander borrowed methods and techniques from the Holy Fathers and provided wise instructions on how to practically apply them to the struggles faced by young Orthodox people living in the 21st century.
Download or read book A Course in Christian Mysticism written by Thomas Merton and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas Merton's lectures to the young monastics at the Abbey of Gethsemani provide a good look at Merton the scholar. A Course in Christian Mysticism gathers together, for the first time, the best of these talks into a spiritual, historical, and theological survey of Christian mysticism--from St. John's gospel to St. John of the Cross. Sixteen centuries are covered over thirteen lectures. A general introduction sets the scene for when and how the talks were prepared and for the perennial themes one finds in them, making them relevant for spiritual seekers today. This compact volume allows anyone to learn from one of the twentieth century's greatest Catholic spiritual teachers. The study materials at the back of the book, including additional primary source readings and thoughtful questions for reflection and discussion, make this an essential text for any student of Christian mysticism.
Download or read book Gifts of the Desert written by Kyriacos C. Markides and published by Doubleday. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Kyriacos C. Markides’s newest book, Eastern Orthodox mysticism meets Western Christianity as the internationally renowned author takes readers on a deep journey back in time to unveil the very roots of authentic spirituality. In his previous book The Mountain of Silence, Markides introduced us to the essential spiritual nature of Eastern Orthodoxy in a series of lively conversations with Father Maximos, the widely revered charismatic Orthodox bishop and former abbot of the isolated monastery on Mount Athos. In Gifts of the Desert, Markides continues his examination of Easter Orthodox mystical teachings and practices and captures its living expression through visits to monasteries and hermitages in Greece and America and interviews with contemporary charismatic elders, both male and female. Markides’s pursuit of a deeper understanding of Orthodoxy takes him to the deserts of Arizona and a stay at a new monastery in Sedona; to the island of Cyprus and a reunion with Father Maximos; on a pilgrimage to holy shrines aboard a cruise ship in the Aegean Sea; and finally to the legendary Mount Athos, home to more than two thousand Orthodox monks. Markides relates his journey and reflections in a captivating style while providing important background material and information on historical events to give readers a highly accessible, in-depth portrait of a tradition little known in the West. Gifts of the Desert will appeal to a wide range of people, from Christians seeking insights into their religion and its various expressions to scholars interested in learning more about the mystical way of life and wisdom that have been preserved on Mount Athos since the fall of the Byzantine Empire and the Great Schism that separated the Eastern and Western Churches. Perhaps most important, however, is the bridge it offers contemporary readers to a Christian life that is balanced between the worldly and the spiritual.
Download or read book Soul Wilderness written by Kerry S. Walters and published by Paulist Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This powerful book draws on the tradition of the prophet emerging from the wasteland to help waken the mystic within each of us, guide our modern spiritual journey into our own inner desert, and there to have a direct experience of God.
Download or read book The Third Desert written by Fabrice Blee and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the course of its history the Christian monastic tradition has developed a desert spirituality" of solitude, silence, and self-knowledge that fosters openness to the divine presence and its transformative power. Today the divine presence is manifesting itself anew in the "desert of otherness," that sacred space in which we encounter the other as one whose difference, even of religion and spirituality, can enrich us, rather than as one who must be drawn to and converted to our own "truth." The encounter of Christians with other believers will increasingly become a place of hardship and testing that leads to union with the divine. This "third monastic desert" is, in reality, the nucleus of the Kingdom that is coming into being, where communication becomes communion. Such has been the experience of monastic men and women - Buddhists, Hindus, and Christians - who have engaged in dialogue. Having discovered an unanticipated bond between dialogue and silence, openness to the other and interiority, Christian monks invite the whole Church to join them on this journey into the desert of otherness. Fabrice Blee was born in epernay, France. He is a full professor on the faculty of theology of Saint Paul University, Ottawa, where he teaches in the areas of interreligious dialogue and Christian spirituality. He is also the director of a series on Spiritualties in Dialogue (MediasPaul); a member of the editorial board of Dilatato Corde, the online journal of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue; and an advisor to the board of directors of the North American commission of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue. "
Download or read book The Wisdom of the Desert written by Thomas Merton and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 1970-01-17 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Wisdom of the Desert was one of Thomas Merton's favorites among his own books—surely because he had hoped to spend his last years as a hermit. The personal tones of the translations, the blend of reverence and humor so characteristic of him, show how deeply Merton identified with the legendary authors of these sayings and parables, the fourth-century Christian Fathers who sought solitude and contemplation in the deserts of the Near East. The hermits of Screte who turned their backs on a corrupt society remarkably like our own had much in common with the Zen masters of China and Japan, and Father Merton made his selection from them with an eye to the kind of impact produced by the Zen mondo.
Download or read book A Desert in the Ocean written by David Adam and published by Paulist Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uses the early-tenth-century Celtic poem the Voyage of Brendan, an account of the saint's journeys across the sea in search of the "promised land of the Saints," as a guide to our own spiritual call and adventure.
Download or read book Treasure in the Wilderness written by Andrew D. Mayes and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2023-06-29 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This exciting resource on desert spirituality is quite unlike any other: at once a physical journey to outstanding deserts of the planet and an odyssey of the soul. A journey of discovery takes us across five continents as we venture to places few pilgrims reach: the Gazan desert, the Sahara, the Australian outback, the Athos wilderness and the Ordos Desert of China, and the Syrian desert, among others. Evocative descriptions by early travelers and by the author immerse us into a diversity of wilderness landscapes, stimulating the senses and the imagination. Physicality leads to spirituality as we listen to compelling voices that speak to us poignantly across space and time--including spiritual writers long-forgotten or not well-known. These unearth for us the treasure we seek: we uncover the distinctive charism of each desert, offering us different and challenging ways of looking at the world and at the spiritual life. We discover the unpredictable desert to contain unexpected, priceless treasures of transformative wisdom that speak uncannily into our own contemporary spiritual search. We see how these gems can energize and inspire our discipleship or spiritual practice. As we embark on this spiritual quest, we may never be the same again!
Download or read book Desert Spirituality and Cultural Resistance written by Belden Lane and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-07-10 with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The wholeness of the life we seek is one that we are seldom able to envision in advance. It takes a shape that only the desert knows.” Desert Spirituality and Cultural Resistance: From Ancient Monks to Mountain Refugees is a passionate exploration of the theme of wilderness in the spiritual life. These three lectures by accomplished storyteller and theologian Belden Lane are inspirational in a way that lectures rarely are. Lane urges us to think courageously about the place of wilderness in Christian life. He contemplates the radical lives of the fourth-century Desert Fathers and Mothers, as well as the courageous example of sixteenth-century Anabaptists. He speaks of the ways in which wilderness can relate to the practice of a counter-cultural spirituality today, and he asks: Can desert and mountain gift us with a language to understand the experiences in our lives when we are taken to the edge, finding ourselves isolated and alone, both spiritually and culturally? “The wilderness is a place of suffering, out on the edge. It is a place of letting go, a place for dying, and yet also a place for coming alive. The desert is where things fall apart and where things may come together for us in an unanticipated way.”
Download or read book Silence and Honey Cakes written by Rowan Williams and published by Lion Books. This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Archbishop of Canterbury explores the lessons we can learn from the wisdom and spirituality of the desert fathers.
Download or read book Praying with the Desert Mothers written by Mary Forman and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Introduces the reader to the lives, sayings, and stories of the fourth- and fifth-century women who were foundational members of the early Christian community in the Mediterranean region; invites readers to explore their own spiritual journeys"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book The Desert Fathers written by and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2003-03-27 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Desert Fathers were the first Christian monks, living in solitude in the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. In contrast to the formalised and official theology of the "founding fathers" of the church, the Desert Fathers were ordinary Christians who chose to renounce the world and live lives of celibacy, fasting, vigil, prayer and poverty in direct and simple response to the gospel. Their sayings were first recorded in the 4th century and consist of spiritual advice, anecdotes and parables. The Desert Fathers' teachings and lives have inspired poetry, opera and art, as well as providing spiritual nourishment and a template for monastic life.
Download or read book Balance of the Heart written by Lois Farag and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2012-11-06 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Desert spirituality speaks to the mind and heart. It is a spirituality that helps us balance our work and daily obligations and figure out our priorities and the place of God in our lives. Desert spirituality addresses our most intimate thoughts and helps us analyze the roots of our spiritual setbacks. Its essence is to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and mind (Matt 22:37). Starting in fourth-century Egypt, desert spirituality has become a global phenomenon. It has endured through the centuries because it is practical and simple; it tells us how to live out Scripture in our daily lives. It is also profound; it is deeply rooted in the theology of the incarnation and the renewal of creation by the resurrection. The desert fathers and mothers left us short wisdom sayings, revealing their inner experience in their long journey toward being with God. They speak about Scripture and prayer, but also about how to love our neighbors, discern our thoughts, and evaluate our daily activities. Come, learn from these desert dwellers as they teach us about the examination of thoughts, the discernment of the soul, and the balance of the heart.
Download or read book The Solace of Fierce Landscapes written by Belden C. Lane and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-02-26 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of Kathleen Norris, Terry Tempest Williams, and Thomas Merton, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes explores the impulse that has drawn seekers into the wilderness for centuries and offers eloquent testimony to the healing power of mountain silence and desert indifference. Interweaving a memoir of his mother's long struggle with Alzheimer's and cancer, meditations on his own wilderness experience, and illuminating commentary on the Christian via negativa--a mystical tradition that seeks God in the silence beyond language--Lane rejects the easy affirmations of pop spirituality for the harsher but more profound truths that wilderness can teach us. "There is an unaccountable solace that fierce landscapes offer to the soul. They heal, as well as mirror, the brokeness we find within." It is this apparent paradox that lies at the heart of this remarkable book: that inhuman landscapes should be the source of spiritual comfort. Lane shows that the very indifference of the wilderness can release us from the demands of the endlessly anxious ego, teach us to ignore the inessential in our own lives, and enable us to transcend the "false self" that is ever-obsessed with managing impressions. Drawing upon the wisdom of St. John of the Cross, Meister Eckhardt, Simone Weil, Edward Abbey, and many other Christian and non-Christian writers, Lane also demonstrates how those of us cut off from the wilderness might "make some desert" in our lives. Written with vivid intelligence, narrative ease, and a gracefulness that is itself a comfort, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes gives us not only a description but a "performance" of an ancient and increasingly relevant spiritual tradition.
Download or read book Acedia Me written by Kathleen Norris and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kathleen Norris's masterpiece: a personal and moving memoir that resurrects the ancient term acedia, or soul-weariness, and brilliantly explores its relevancy to the modern individual and culture.
