Download or read book The Cistercian Fathers and Their Monastic Theology written by Thomas Merton and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2016-05-12 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These conferences, presented by Thomas Merton to the novices at the Abbey of Gethsemani in 1963–1964, focus mainly on the life and writings of his great Cistercian predecessor, St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153). Guiding his students through Bernard’s Marian sermons, his treatise On the Love of God, his controversy with Peter Abelard, and above all his great series of sermons on the Song of Songs, Merton reveals why Bernard was the major religious and cultural figure in Europe during the first half of the twelfth century and why he has remained one of the most influential spiritual theologians of Western Christianity from his own day until the present. As James Finley writes in his preface to this volume, “Merton is teaching us in these notes how to be grateful and amazed that the ancient wisdom that shimmers and shines in the eloquent and beautiful things that mystics say is now flowing in our sincere desire to learn from God how to find our way to God.”
Download or read book The Cistercian Fathers and Their Monastic Theology written by Thomas Merton and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These conferences, presented by Thomas Merton to the novices at the Abbey of Gethsemani in 1963-1964, focus mainly on the life and writings of his great Cistercian predecessor, St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153). Guiding his students through Bernard's Marian sermons, his treatise On the Love of God, his controversy with Peter Abelard, and above all his great series of sermons on the Song of Songs, Merton reveals why Bernard was the major religious and cultural figure in Europe during the first half of the twelfth century and why he has remained one of the most influential spiritual theologians of Western Christianity from his own day until the present. As James Finley writes in his preface to this volume, "Merton is teaching us in these notes how to be grateful and amazed that the ancient wisdom that shimmers and shines in the eloquent and beautiful things that mystics say is now flowing in our sincere desire to learn from God how to find our way to God."
Download or read book Cassian and the Fathers written by Thomas Merton and published by Cistercian Publications Books. This book was released on 2005 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cassian and the Fathers is the initial volume in the series of Novitiate Conferences of Thomas Merton, the classes he presented to young men beginning their monastic life at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. They contain Merton's insights on important Patristic and monastic figures preceding the time of St. Benedict, above all John Cassian, the most significant bridge between the early desert fathers and the development of monastic life in the West, and they reveal the continuing relevance of their teachings for contemporary monastics and other Christians. Much of the value and interest of Cassian and the Fathers, as of the novitiate conferences in general, lies in the light it casts on Merton himself as teacher, novice master and monk. These notes provide a privileged standpoint for observing Merton functioning as an integral and important member of his monastic community. The 'public' Merton has long been visible in his works written for publication, and has more recently been complemented by the 'interpersonal' Merton disclosed in his correspondence and the 'intimate' Merton revealed in his complete journals. While the novitiate conferences may not equal in significance these other sources, they do allow access to yet another stratum of Merton's wide-ranging and immensely productive engagement with his world from the distinctive standpoint he had chosen within a tradition dating back more than sixteen centuries. While these lectures need to be used critically and carefully in evaluating Merton's own perspectives and commitments, nevertheless they do need to be used. The dialectical relationship between Merton's private and more public statements, including those made to his novice classes, makes possible a more complex and thus a richer picture of his monastic identity and so of his personal identity. In learning about Cassian and the Fathers from Merton, one learns as well about Merton as monk, as heir to the great monastic teachers, and as teacher of a new generation of monks, an easily overlooked and undervalued, yet integral, even central component of his vocation for more than half his monastic life. Thus the publication of the novitiate conferences will fill a significant lacuna in Merton studies and contribute to a balanced, holistic comprehension and appreciation of Thomas Merton's life and work. This edition includes an extensive introduction situating these conferences and Merton's years as novice master in the context of his broader life as monk and writer, an extensively annotated edition of the text of the conferences based on Merton's own typescript, and helpful appendices indicating changes Merton made to his text, correlating the written text with taped versions of the actual classes, and providing suggestions for further reading both in Merton's other works and in more recent studies of the figures he discusses here.
Download or read book Cistercian Fathers and Forefathers written by Thomas Merton and published by New City Press. This book was released on 2018-09-15 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume of previously uncollected studies makes a notable contribution to Merton's extensive and influential legacy. This volume includes pieces on eleventh- and twelfth-century monastics by Thomas Merton, perhaps the most significant American Catholic spiritual writer of the twentieth century. The essays are difficult to locate elsewhere, the conference transcriptions are available only here.
Download or read book Medieval Cistercian History written by Thomas Merton and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2019-03-28 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas Merton’s deep roots in his own Cistercian tradition are on display in the two sets of conferences on the early days of the Order included in the present volume. The first surveys the relevant monastic background that led up to the foundation of the Abbey of Cîteaux in 1098 and goes on to consider the contributions of each of the first three abbots of the “New Monastery” that would become the epicenter of the most dynamic religious movement of the early twelfth century. The second set investigates the arc of medieval Cistercian history in the two centuries following the death of Saint Bernard, in which the Order moves from being ahead of its time, in its formative stages, to being representative of its time in its most powerful and influential phase, to becoming regressive with the rise of new religious currents that begin to flow in the thirteenth century. Merton stresses the need to respect the complexity of the actual lived reality of Cistercian life during this period, to “beware of easy generalizations” and instead consider the full range of factual data. The result is a richly nuanced picture of the development of early Cistercian life and thought that serves as a fitting concluding volume to the series of Merton’s novitiate conferences providing a thorough “Initiation into the Monastic Tradition.”
Download or read book Cassian and the Fathers written by Thomas Merton and published by Bloomsbury Academic. This book was released on 2005 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas Merton entered Gethsemani Abbey on December 10, 1941. While still a novice, he was encouraged by his abbot to translate biographies of early Cistercian saints from Latin and French. In the process he became deeply familiar not only with the rich Cistercian tradition, but also with the early monks of the desert and Ireland, the hermits of the fifth and sixth centuries and the Benedictine monks of the Middle Ages. When he was appointed novice master many years later, he shared with newcomers what he had learned over a lifetime of study. His Monastic Orientation Notes constitute a goldmine of information taken from primary texts and learned studies, and distilled through Merton's own experience of monastic vocation and commitment. Book jacket.
Download or read book Monastic Sermons written by Bernard of Clairvaux and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2016-08-18 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Saint Bernard was born in 1090 near Dijon, France. He joined the fifteen-year-old monastery of Cîteaux in 1113. In 1115 he became the founding abbot of Clairvaux Abbey, whence his name, Bernard of Clairvaux. Saint Bernard was a gifted and prolific writer of theological treatises, Scriptural commentaries, letters, and many sermons. The sermons in the collection published here, styled Sermones de diversis (Sermons about Various Topics), lack the specific point of departure that characterizes his other sermons. That is, whereas the sermons on the Song of Songs are a verse-by-verse commentary on that biblical book and his Sermons for the Year follow the liturgical calendar, this collection of sermons deals with his various pastoral concerns. Since Scripture is always Bernard’s point of departure and inspiration, the sermons often read like a Scripture study, but what comes through equally is the voice of an understanding spiritual father who is a masterful student of Scripture, biblical language, and the needs of his monks.
Download or read book Monastic Observances written by Thomas Merton and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this set of novitiate conferences from the late 1950s, Thomas Merton provides a vivid and detailed introduction to the traditional pattern and practices of the monastic day during the period immediately preceding the momentous changes that would be introduced in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Combining practical instruction with spiritual and theological reflection, this fifth volume of Merton's teaching notes brings the reader into the choir and chapter room, scriptorium and cloisters of the Abbey of Gethsemani, and provides insight into the ecclesial, contemplative, paschal, and Trinitarian dimensions of Cistercian life. Patrick F. O'Connell is professor in the departments of English and theology at Gannon University, Erie, Pennsylvania. A founding member and former president of the International Thomas Merton Society, he edits The Merton Seasonaland is coauthor (with William H. Shannon and Christine M. Bochen) of The Thomas Merton Encyclopedia. He has edited four previous volumes of Thomas Merton's monastic conferences for the Monastic Wisdom series: Cassian and the Fathers; Pre-Benedictine Monasticism; An Introduction to Christian Mysticism; and The Rule of Saint Benedict.
Download or read book The Life of the Vows written by Thomas Merton and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2012-09-01 with total page 689 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As novice master of the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky, Thomas Merton presented weekly conferences to familiarize his charges with the meaning and purpose of the vows they aspired to undertake. In this setting, he offered a thorough exposition of the theological, canonical, and above all spiritual dimensions of the vows. Merton set the vows firmly in the context of the anthropological, moral, soteriological, and ecclesial dimensions of human, Christian, and monastic life. He addressed such classical themes of Christian morality as the nature of the human person and his acts; the importance of justice in relation to the Passion of Christ, to friendship and to love; and self-surrender as the key to grace, prayer and the vowed life. Merton's words on these topics clearly spring from a committed heart and often flow with the soaring intensity of style that we have come to expect in his more enthusiastic prose. The texts of these conferences represent the longest and most systematically organized of any of numerous series of conferences that Merton presented during the decade of his mastership. They may be the most directly pastoral work Merton ever wrote.
Download or read book Pre benedictine Monasticism written by Thomas Merton and published by Cistercian Publications Books. This book was released on 2006 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas Merton's two series of Pre-Benedictine Monasticism conferences form both a supplement and a sequel to Cassian and the Fathers, the first volume of Merton's conferences for novices to be published in the Monastic Wisdom series. Part One not only includes fresh insights on such leaders of early monasticism as Anthony, Pachomius, Basil, and Cassian, but also considers long overlooked key figures like Martin of Tours, Shenoute of Atripe, Melania the Younger, and the pilgrim nun Egeria. In Part Two, Merton, writing at a time when little attention was generally given to these significant but neglected sources, extends his investigations of early monastic life to the Syriac tradition. These conferences, or lectures, edited from Merton's own typescripts, make available his keen observations on the earliest phases of Christian monasticism, and also provide important background material for a number of his essays, among them "From Pilgrimage to Crusade" and "Rain and the Rhinoceros".
Download or read book Charter Customs and Constitutions of the Cistercians written by Thomas Merton and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2015-06-09 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As master of novices for ten years (1955–1965) at the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky, Thomas Merton was responsible for the spiritual formation of young men preparing for monastic profession. In this volume, three related sets of Merton’s conferences on ancient and contemporary documents governing the lives of the monks are published for the first time: • on the Carta Caritatis, or Charter of Charity, the foundational document of the Order of Cîteaux • on the Consuetudines, the twelfth-century collection of customs and regulations of the Order • on the twentieth-century Constitutions of the Order, the basic rules by which Merton and his students actually lived at the time These conferences form an essential part of the overall picture of Cistercian monastic life that Merton provided as part of his project of “initiation into the monastic tradition” that is evident in the broad variety of courses that he put together and taught over the period of his mastership. As Abbot John Eudes Bamberger, ocso, himself a former student of Merton, notes in his preface to this volume, “The texts presented in this present book eventually gave rise to the Cistercian way of spiritual living that continues to contribute to the Church’s witness in this new millennium. This publication is a witness to the process of transformation that ensures the continuity of the Catholic monastic tradition that witnesses to the God who, as Saint Augustine observed is ‘ever old and ever new.’”
Download or read book Charter Customs and Constitutions of the Cistercians written by Thomas Merton and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As master of novices for ten years (1955-1965) at the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky, Thomas Merton was responsible for the spiritual formation of young men preparing for monastic profession. In this volume, three related sets of Merton's conferences on ancient and contemporary documents governing the lives of the monks are published for the first time: * on the Carta Caritatis, or Charter of Charity, the foundational document of the Order of Cîteaux * on the Consuetudines, the twelfth-century collection of customs and regulations of the Order * on the twentieth-century Constitutions of the Order, the basic rules by which Merton and his students actually lived at the time These conferences form an essential part of the overall picture of Cistercian monastic life that Merton provided as part of his project of "initiation into the monastic tradition" that is evident in the broad variety of courses that he put together and taught over the period of his mastership. As Abbot John Eudes Bamberger, ocso, himself a former student of Merton, notes in his preface to this volume, "The texts presented in this present book eventually gave rise to the Cistercian way of spiritual living that continues to contribute to the Church's witness in this new millennium. This publication is a witness to the process of transformation that ensures the continuity of the Catholic monastic tradition that witnesses to the God who, as Saint Augustine observed is 'ever old and ever new.'"
Download or read book The Last of the Fathers written by M. Basil Pennington and published by St. Bebe's Publications. This book was released on 1983 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Passing from Self to God written by Robert Thomas and published by Cistercian Publications Books. This book was released on 2006 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this book an experienced spiritual master, a monk of Sept-Fons abbey in France, provides an intensive directed retreat which relies heavily on the rich Cistercian spiritual tradition. Readers are at liberty to read and digest at their own pace, while savoring the author's contagious enthusiasm for the values and attitudes he learned from the monastic way and the Cistercian Fathers he studied throughout his long life."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book An Introduction to Christian Mysticism written by Thomas Merton and published by Cistercian Publications Books. This book was released on 2008 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In these conferences dating to 1961, Thomas Merton provides for his audience of young monks an overview of major themes and figures in the Christian mystical tradition as an integral part of their religious inheritance and a crucial part of their spiritual formation. From Fathers of the Church such as St Athanasius and St Gregory of Nyssa, through such important medieval theologians as St Bonaventure, Hadewijch and Meister Eckhart, to the great Spanish Carmelites St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross, Merton traces such key topics as the integration of theology and spirituality; the importance of "natural contemplation"--recognizing the divine presence in creation; the centrality of apophatic or "dark" contemplation; and the role of spiritual direction in forming mature and balanced contemplatives.
Download or read book Monastic Practices written by Charles Cummings and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For three decades, Monastic Practices has been a valued resource for English-speaking aspirants to monastic life. In this revised edition, updated and expanded, Charles Cummings, OCSO, explores the common practices of the monastic life in order to rediscover them as viable means of leading persons to a deeper encounter with God. How do monks and nuns occupy themselves throughout the day? Have they modernized their lifestyle or is it still cluttered with medieval customs? Could any of the monastic practices be of use to those outside the monastery? A certain wisdom is necessary to know how to use such practices and how to give oneself to them until they lead one to God. After long monastic experience, Cummings shows us how the ordinary things we do constitute our path to God. In the art of living life, he argues, we are always beginners, searching for God through our concrete circumstances and actions.
Download or read book The World of Medieval Monasticism written by Gert Melville and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2016-03-04 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book surveys the full panorama of ten centuries of Christian monastic life. It moves from the deserts of Egypt and the Frankish monasteries of early medieval Europe to the religious ruptures of the eleventh and twelfth centuries and the reforms of the later Middle Ages. Throughout that story the book balances a rich sense of detail with a broader synthetic view. It presents the history of religious life and its orders as a complex braid woven from multiple strands: individual and community, spirit and institution, rule and custom, church and world. The result is a synthesis that places religious life at the center of European history and presents its institutions as key catalysts of Europe’s move toward modernity.
