Download or read book Ascetic Lives of Mothers written by Annalisa Boyd and published by . This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annalisa Boyd knows motherhood--its challenges, its joys, and its potential for spiritual growth. In this prayer book she offers a wide selection of prayers mothers can use to intercede for their families as well as to grow in virtue themselves.

Download or read book Way of the Ascetics written by Tito Colliander and published by St Vladimir's Seminary Press. This book was released on 1985 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Way of the Ascetics is a rich, compact introduction for modern readers to the Eastern Christian spiritual tradition that has been an inspiration to millions for centuries. These compassionate and insightful reflections on self-control and inner peace are meant to lead the readers to fuller union with God. The author makes a generous selection of succinct yet profound extracts from the spiritual Fathers and provides an illuminating commentary and practical applications for daily devotion. He tempers austerity with common sense, warmth, and even humor, as he urges us on our journey toward God. Written for lay persons living fully in the world as much as for clergy, Way of the Ascetics is an excellent resource for daily meditation, authentic spiritual guidance, and a revitalized religious life."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Download or read book The Ascetic Life written by Saint Maximus (Confessor) and published by Paulist Press. This book was released on 1955 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ascetic Life is a dialogue between a young novice and an old monk on how to achieve the Christian life. The Four Centuries is a collection of aphorisms.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Mystical Theology written by Edward Howells and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-25 with total page 719 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Mystical Theology provides a guide to the mystical element of Christianity as a theological phenomenon. It differs not only from psychological and anthropological studies of mysticism, but from other theological studies, such as more practical or pastorally-oriented works that examine the patterns of spiritual progress and offer counsel for deeper understanding and spiritual development. It also differs from more explicitly historical studies tracing the theological and philosophical contexts and ideas of various key figures and schools, as well as from literary studies of the linguistic tropes and expressive forms in mystical texts. None of these perspectives is absent, but the method here is more deliberately theological, working from within the fundamental interests of Christian mystical writers to the articulation of those interests in distinctively theological forms, in order, finally, to permit a critical theological engagement with them for today. Divided into four parts, the first section introduces the approach to mystical theology and offers a historical overview. Part two attends to the concrete context of sources and practices of mystical theology. Part three moves to the fundamental conceptualities of mystical thought. The final section ends with the central contributions of mystical teaching to theology and metaphysics. Students and scholars with a variety of interests will find different pathways through the Handbook.

Download or read book The Ascetic Ideal written by Stephen Mulhall and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-12 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Ascetic Ideal, Stephen Mulhall shows how areas of cultural life that seem to be either essentially unconnected to evaluative commitments (science and philosophy) or to involve non-moral values (aesthetics) are in fact deeply informed by ethico-religious commitments, for better and for worse. The book develops a reading of Nietzsche's concept of 'the ascetic ideal', which he used to track the evolution, mutation, and expansion of the system of slave moral values, associated primarily with Judaeo-Christian religious belief through diverse fields of Western European culture—not just religion and morality, but aesthetics, science, and philosophy. Mulhall also offers an interpretation of Nietzsche's genealogical method that aims to rebut standard criticisms of its nature, and to emphasize its potential for enhancing philosophical understanding more generally. The focus throughout is on developments in those fields which occurred after the end of Nietzsche's intellectual career, and in particular on influential modes of thought and practice that have a contemporary significance. The goal is not simply to argue that Nietzsche's diagnosis and critique retains considerable merit, but also to show that Nietzsche is himself significantly indebted to the ideals he criticizes, and that this opens up a possibility of synthesizing elements of his approach with those drawn from its target. Hence, the book also tracks various ways in which the object of Nietzsche's criticism has undergone further mutations (just as his genealogical method would suggest), and in doing so has generated ways of pursuing the values central to asceticism that avoid Nietzsche's criticisms, and might even further his own goals.

Download or read book Sites of the Ascetic Self written by Niki Kasumi Clements and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2020-05-31 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sites of the Ascetic Self reconsiders contemporary debates about ethics and subjectivity in an extended engagement with the works of John Cassian (ca. 360–ca. 435), whose stories of extreme asceticism and transformative religious experience by desert elders helped to establish Christian monastic forms of life. Cassian’s late ancient texts, written in the context of social, cultural, political, doctrinal, and environmental change, contribute to an ethics for fractured selves in uncertain times. In response to this environment, Cassian’s practical asceticism provides a uniquely frank picture of human struggle in a world of contingency while also affirming human agency in ways that signaled a challenge to followers of his contemporary, Augustine of Hippo. Niki Kasumi Clements brings these historical and textual analyses of Cassian’s monastic works into conversation with contemporary debates at the intersection of the philosophy of religion and queer and feminist theories. Rather than focusing on interiority and renunciation of self, as scholars such as Michel Foucault read Cassian, Clements analyzes Cassian’s texts by foregrounding practices of the body, the emotions, and the community. By focusing on lived experience in the practical ethics of Cassian, Clements demonstrates the importance of analyzing constructions of ethics in terms of cultivation alongside critical constructions of power. By challenging modern assumptions about Cassian’s asceticism, Sites of the Ascetic Self contributes to questions of ethics, subjectivity, and agency in the study of religion today.

Download or read book Modern Orthodox Thinkers written by Andrew Louth and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2015-10-08 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Andrew Louth introduces us to twenty key Orthodox thinkers from the last two centuries. The colorful characters, poets and thinkers included range from Romania, Serbia, Greece, England, France and also include exiles from Communist Russia. The book concludes with an illuminating chapter on Metropolitan Kallistos and the theological vision of the Philokalia.

Download or read book Asceticism in the Graeco Roman World written by Richard Damian Finn and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-02 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pagan asceticism: cultic and contemplative purity -- Asceticism in Hellenistic and Rabbinic Judaism -- Christian asceticism before Origen -- Origen and his ascetic legacy -- Cavemen, cenobites, and clerics.

Download or read book Theatrical Shows and Ascetic Lives written by Blake Leyerle and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2001-07-28 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leyerle puts John Chrysostom's rhetoric neatly into context, discussing the place of theater in the urban life of Antioch, describing contemporary social and sexual mores and roles, and warmly defending the practice and practitioners of spiritual marriage.

Download or read book The Ascetic Self written by Gavin D. Flood and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-11-25 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 2004 book is about the ascetic self in the scriptural religions of Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism. The author claims that asceticism can be understood as the internalisation of tradition, the shaping of the narrative of a life in accordance with the narrative of tradition that might be seen as the performance of the memory of tradition. Such a performance contains an ambiguity or distance between the general intention to eradicate the will, or in some sense to erase the self, and the affirmation of will in ascetic performance such as weakening the body through fasting. Asceticism must therefore be seen in the context of ritual. The book also offers a paradigm for comparative religion more generally, one that avoids the inadequate choices of either examining religions through overarching categories on the one hand and the abandoning of any comparative endeavour that focuses purely on area-specific study on the other.

Download or read book Asceticism and Its Critics written by Oliver Freiberger and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2006-10-26 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars of religion have always been fascinated by asceticism. Scholars have often been overlooked, however, that in the history of religions ascetic beliefs and practices have also been strongly criticised, by followers of the same religious tradition as well as by outsiders. The respective sources provide sufficient evidence of such critical strands but surprisingly as yet no attempt has been made to analyse this criticism of asceticism systematically. This book is a first attempt of filling this gap. Ten studies present cases from both Asian and European traditions: classicaland medieval Hinduism, early and contemporary Buddhism in South and East Asia

Download or read book St Maximus the Confessor written by St Maximus the Confessor and published by . This book was released on 2023-10-25 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: St. Maximus the Confessor (1955) is a collection of theological works by the 1st-century monk St. Maximus, as well as interpretation by Polycarp Sherwood, an American Benedictine scholar from the 20th century. Including both The Ascetic Life and The Four Centuries on Charity by St. Maximus, as well as detailed research into the life and beliefs of the monk by Sherwood, this work includes both source material and commentary. The work begins with Life by Sherwood, a deep exploration into the life and theistic beliefs of St. Maximus. Born in 580 CE, Maximus enjoyed an education that prepared him for imperial service. He fulfilled this goal early in his career, serving as first secretary to the Byzantine emperor Heraclius. But he soon withdrew to monastic asceticism at Chrysopolis, seeking a routine of solitude and thought. Throughout his life, he traveled across the Byzantine Empire, including present-day Turkey, Crete, and parts of Africa, clarifying his position on important theological issues and writing his many works. Eventually, he was drawn into one of the great Christian controversies of the day-the nature of Christ's will. Maximus supported the Chalcedonian interpretation, which stated that Christ had both a human and a divine will. This was in contrast to the Monothelite position, accepted as canon at the time, which held that Christ had both a divine and human nature, but only a divine will. For this belief, Maximus was persecuted. Eventually, his tongue was cut out and his right hand cut off, so he could no longer speak or write his "heresy." He was then exiled to modern-day Georgia, where he died after just a few weeks. He was soon after vindicated and his position was upheld by the Third Council of Constantinople just 18 years after his death. It wasn't long before he was venerated as a saint. The next section, Doctrine, is also by Sherwood, and it explores St. Maximus' views on the nature of God as "goodness itself," the nature of man as a composite of body and soul, and on the salvation and deification of man through the works of Christ and asceticism. Next, we reach the works of St. Maximus himself. The first, The Ascetic Life, is a question-and-answer book in which a young brother asks an old wise man about the Christian life and the nature of Christ. In the old man's simple words, "...the purpose of the Lord's becoming man was our salvation." The old man answers the young brother's questions about the nature of Christian love, forsaking attachment to the worldly, and how to devote oneself entirely to God. Finally, the book concludes with The Four Centuries on Charity, also by St. Maximus. This collection of aphorisms is organized into four separate "centuries," or collections of one hundred. Kept short to aid in memorization and providing subjects for prayer, these sayings were presented to a Father Elpidius for his reading and benefit. The sayings range from the simple ("Happy is the man who is able to love all men equally") to the more complex ("Of the passions, it happens that some belong to the irascible, some to the concupiscible part of the soul. But both are moved by means of the senses.") Through study and prayer, St. Maximus hoped that these aphorisms would help the reader to live a Christ-like charity and grow closer to God. A work for study and reflection, this collection of St. Maximus' writings and Polycarp Sherwood's research and interpretation illuminates the beauty of God's love and the peace of a life of charity and forgiveness.

Download or read book Ascetics Authority and the Church in the Age of Jerome and Cassian written by Philip Rousseau and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rousseau presents a survey of asceticism in the western church until about 400, including a selective study of Jerome, and then, moving into the fifth century.

Download or read book Indian Asceticism written by Carl Olson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-03 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the history of Indian religions, the ascetic figure is most closely identified with power. A by-product of the ascetic path, power is displayed in the ability to fly, walk on water or through dense objects, read minds, discern the former lives of others, see into the future, harm others, or simply levitate one's body. These tales give rise to questions about how power and violence are related to the phenomenon of play. Indian Asceticism focuses on the powers exhibited by ascetics of India from ancient to modern time. Carl Olson discusses the erotic, the demonic, the comic, and the miraculous forms of play and their connections to power and violence. He focuses on Hinduism, but evidence is also presented from Buddhism and Jainism, suggesting that the subject matter of this book pervades India's major indigenous religious traditions. The book includes a look at the extent to which findings in cognitive science can add to our understanding of these various powers; Olson argues that violence is built into the practice of the ascetic. Indian Asceticism culminates with an attempt to rethink the nature of power in a way that does justice to the literary evidence from Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain sources.

Download or read book Female Ascetics in Hinduism written by Lynn Teskey Denton and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Female Ascetics in Hinduism provides a vivid account of the lives of women renouncers—women who renounce the world to live ascetic spiritual lives—in India. The author approaches the study of female asceticism by focusing on features of two dharmas, two religiously defined ways of life: that of woman-as-householder and that of the ascetic, who, for various reasons, falls outside the realm of householdership. The result of fieldwork conducted in Varanasi (Benares), the book explores renouncers' social and personal backgrounds, their institutions, and their ways of life. Offering a first-hand look at and an insightful analysis of this little-known world, this highly readable book will be indispensable to those interested in female asceticism in the Hindu tradition and women's spiritual lives around the world.

Download or read book On Ascetical Life written by Isaac (Bishop of Nineveh) and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Ascetic of Desire written by Sudhir Kakar and published by Penguin Books India. This book was released on 2001-06 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The time is the fourth century AD, the golden age of Indian history. The locale: an ashram in the woods a little outside Varanasi. Every morning, Vatsyayana, author of the Kamasutra, recounts stories from his childhood and youth to a young pupil who plans to write the great sage's biography. Little is known of Vatsyayana's life, and the young scholar puts the pieces together in his mind along with relevant slokas of erotic wisdom from the Kamasutra, which he has learnt by heart. The story that unfolds is fascinating. Vatsyayana's mother Avantika and her sister Chandrika are famous courtesans in a brothel at Kausambi. From them and their various lovers Vatsyayana gains his first indelible impressions of sexual artifice. With characteristic insight, Kakar plumbs the psychological depths of a plethora of characters who are at various stages of discovering their sexual identities. What emerges is a powerful narrative of lust and sensuality imbued with an old-world charm and a surprising sense of irony.