Download or read book Extraordinary Conversations with Monastics written by M. O’Reilly and published by Balboa Press. This book was released on 2016-10-10 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a guide for seekers of meaning between extraordinary experiences and their developing a more personal relationship with God. The honest and sincere revelations of the monastics whose stories appear within invite you to reflect on how your experiences may draw you closer to Jesus. These are the inside storiesjourneys of monks and nuns from the budding of their calls to follow the path of Jesus to the blooming of their final vocationsthat are often not known beyond the cloistered and sacrosanct walls of the monastery. The stories sprang from recorded narrations collected by the author during her travels to Benedictine monasteries around the world. Some reveal a pattern of a crisis or a turning point that incited the pursuit of a spiritual vocation. Others show the slow but steady work of the Holy Spirit, guiding aspiring monastics on their intended paths. Often the monastics give examples of surprise messengers they encountered or spiritual nourishment they received along their paths to God. Reading these stories may ignite within you a spiritual yearning that will encourage changes in your consciousness and awaken you to the closeness between the material and spiritual worlds. You may begin to better understand some of the unusual events that occur in life that can deepen your relationship with God. By paying attention to these experiences, as did the monastics in this book, you can better hear the divine messages that you receive from within, discovering a secret door into your spiritual and sacrosanct world.
Download or read book I Am that written by Nisargadatta (Maharaj) and published by Bombay : Chetana. This book was released on 1973 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discourses of a Hindu religious leader of the Navnath sampradaya.
Download or read book Faith beyond Belief written by David Steindl-Rast and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2016-03-15 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A personal, surprising, and heart-warming book wherein two spiritual masters of our time advance the central questions of life and faith.“Brother David Steindl-Rast and Father Anselm Grün are figures of hope, people who by the power of their example can offer an orientation in a world that has become too complex to comprehend. The spirituality they radiate is an everyday thing that is nevertheless both profound and vivid. . . . “Our conversations, on which this book is based, could be read as a ‘crash course’ in Christian spirituality. This book will be an inspiration and an aid to spiritual life for many people of our time, whether they are believers or not.”Johannes KaupFrom the Introduction
Download or read book Disciples of the Desert written by Jennifer L. Hevelone-Harper and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2005-07-12 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book More Travels on Grace Street written by Jeff Blake and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2014-08-20 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praise for More Travels on Grace Street: “Jeff Blake strikes me as one of the most persistent and discerning seekers—after experience, knowledge, beauty, integrity, love, and grace—whom I have ever known, and his writings about travel, history, poetry, race relations, family, and faith resonate with all of the qualities that one would expect of a committed lifelong seeker. I have recommended Traveling on Grace Street to many people as Blake’s bona fide gift to the world, which he returns to it out of both love and gratitude, and More Travels on Grace Street derives from the same uplifting wellsprings. I recommend it just as heartily as I continue to do his earlier book.” —Michael Bishop, author of Ancient of Days and Who Made Stevie Crye?, Pine Mountain, Georgia “Nobody will ever show you what grace actually looks like better than Jeff Blake, who continues his travels on Grace Street with this excellent volume. He is a genius about grace. The grace of God. The grace that carries us through the rough patches of life. The grace of sacred places. The grace of ordinary life. He is my teacher.” —Joanna Adams, minister, Presbyterian Church (USA), Atlanta, Georgia “I got to know Jeff Blake through his writings and our occasional bird-watching. In fact, I have followed his words for at least ten years. We share a common passion for nature, including Texas wildflowers. I’ve read with interest of his encounters with poets and writers and other interesting folks. I have observed his journey through various trials, which are common to all of us, and count him as a friend. Jeff’s reflections on the meaning of grace interest me and make for good reading.” —Robert Nunnally, attorney, Allen, Texas “Jeff Blake invites and guides on a journey of grace. With courage, vulnerability, and strength, his full and open heart lights the thread that connects. We are held, embraced, enticed into stepping more fully, lovingly, and deeply into and onto our own sacred path. Jeff opens doors as he leads us through a garden of possibility. His words ring with support. We enclose in the intimacy of tenderness as compassion and grace guide knowing and faith.” —Cathy Edgett, author of Breast Strokes: Two Friends Journal through the Unexpected Gifts of Cancer and Love Letters: To My Daughters-in-Law, Mill Valley, California
Download or read book In Sweet Company written by Margaret Wolff and published by Lotus Press (WI). This book was released on 2002 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a renaissance going on, a grass roots spiritual revolution that is changing the way Americans think about every aspect of our lives. At the center of this rebirth are women of all ages, races and creeds -- mothers and daughters, sisters and wives -- who are embracing the religions of their childhood or are adopting new traditions to create a living faith that speaks to their deepest needs.
Download or read book Benedict in the World written by Linda Kulzer and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Benedict in the World presents biographical sketches of nineteen men and women who were oblates of the Order of St. Benedict, that is, members of the Benedictine family of a given monastery who lived in the world, observing the Rule of St. Benedict as they raised families and pursued professions and careers. Dorothy Day, Rumer Godden, Jacques and Raïssa Maritain, Walker Percy, H. A. Reinhold, and Elena Cornaro are among the oblate subjects of this book.
Download or read book Being a Buddhist Nun written by Kim Gutschow and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They may shave their heads, don simple robes, and renounce materialism and worldly desires. But the women seeking enlightenment in a Buddhist nunnery high in the folds of Himalayan Kashmir invariably find themselves subject to the tyrannies of subsistence, subordination, and sexuality. Ultimately, Buddhist monasticism reflects the very world it is supposed to renounce. Butter and barley prove to be as critical to monastic life as merit and meditation. Kim Gutschow lived for more than three years among these women, collecting their stories, observing their ways, studying their lives. Her book offers the first ethnography of Tibetan Buddhist society from the perspective of its nuns. Gutschow depicts a gender hierarchy where nuns serve and monks direct, where monks bless the fields and kitchens while nuns toil in them. Monasteries may retain historical endowments and significant political and social power, yet global flows of capitalism, tourism, and feminism have begun to erode the balance of power between monks and nuns. Despite the obstacles of being considered impure and inferior, nuns engage in everyday forms of resistance to pursue their ascetic and personal goals. A richly textured picture of the little known culture of a Buddhist nunnery, the book offers moving narratives of nuns struggling with the Buddhist discipline of detachment. Its analysis of the way in which gender and sexuality construct ritual and social power provides valuable insight into the relationship between women and religion in South Asia today.
Download or read book Lotus Blossoms and Purple Clouds written by Brian J. Nichols and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2022-08-31 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Southeast China is a traditional stronghold of Buddhism, but little scholarly attention has been paid to this fact. Brian Nichols’s pioneering book, Lotus Blossoms and Purple Clouds, centers on a large Buddhist monastery in Quanzhou and combines ethnographic detail with stimulating analysis to examine religion in post-Mao China. Nichols conducted more than twenty-six months of field research over a fourteen-year period (2005–2019) to develop a re-description of Chinese monastic Buddhism that reaches beyond canonical sources and master narratives to local texts, material culture, oral history, and living traditions. His work decenters normative accounts and sheds light on how Buddhism is lived and practiced. It introduces readers to Quanzhou Kaiyuan Monastery and its community of clergy striving to revive traditions after the turmoil of the Maoist era; the lay Buddhists worshiping in the monastery’s courtyards and halls; the busloads of tourists marveling at the site’s buildings and artifacts, some dating as far back as the Tang Dynasty (ninth century); and the local officials dedicated to supporting—and restricting—the return of religion. Using gazetteers, epigraphy, and other archival sources, Nichols begins by tracing the history of Quanzhou Kaiyuan Monastery from the Tang Dynasty to the present, noting the continued relevance of preternatural events like the lotus-blooming mulberry trees and auspicious purple clouds associated with the founding of the monastery. The contemporary monastery is then explored through ethnographic participation/observation and interviews. Nichols uncovers a number of unexpected features of Buddhist religious life, making a case for the fundamentally liturgical nature of Buddhist monastic practice—one marked by a program of daily dharaṇi (sacred text) recitation, esoteric traditions, and ancestor veneration. Finally, he presents an innovative spatial analysis of the Quanzhou Kaiyuan Monastery temple that reveals how different groups engage with the site to create a place of religious practice, a tourist attraction, and a community park.
Download or read book Monasticism in Modern Times written by Isabelle Jonveaux and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-10-14 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a broad sociological perspective on the contemporary issues facing Christian monasticism. Since the founding work of Max Weber, the sociology of monasticism has received little attention. However, the field is now being revitalized by some new research. Focusing on Christian monks and nuns, the contributors explore continuity and discontinuity with the past in what superficially might appear a monolithic tradition. Contributors speak not only about monasticism in Europe and the United States but also in Africa and Latin America, a different landscape where the question of recruitment does not figure among issues considered as problematic.
Download or read book Buddhist Monastic Discipline written by Charles S. Prebish and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publ.. This book was released on 1996 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buddhist Monastic Discipline contains two significant Buddhist monastic disciplinary texts for the first time, translated into English. They are printed on facing pages for ease of comparison. One of the texts is that of a very early Buddhist school fi
Download or read book English Monastic Life written by Abbot Gasquet and published by METHUEN & CO.. This book was released on with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: English Monastic Life The regular or monastic life was instituted to enable men to attain with greater security to the higher ideals of the Christian life proposed to them in the Gospel. In the early ages of the Church the fervour of the first converts, strengthened and purified by the fierce persecutions they had to endure for religion, enabled them, or a considerable number of them, to reach this high standard without withdrawing from the world, its business, or society. The belief that, by the means of regulated labour and strict discipline of the senses and appetites, it was in the power of man to perfect his moral nature and rise to heights in the spiritual order, not otherwise attainable, seems almost inherent in man’s nature. Well-regulated practices founded upon this principle have been existent in all forms of religious worship other than Christian, and they can be recognised no less in the observances of ancient Egypt than in those of the lamas of modern Thibet. In the pagan world this doctrine seems to have dictated much of the peculiar teaching of the Stoics; and among the Jews the Essenes governed their[Pg 2] lives in theory and practice upon this belief. Even among the early Christians there were some, who by striving to master their lower nature desired to attain the true end of human life as the Gospel taught them, the knowledge and love of God and obedience to His will. These were known as Ascetae, and in one of the earliest Christian documents they are mentioned as a class of Christians between the laity and the clergy. They were, however, in the world though not “of the world,” and strove to reach their goal whilst living their ordinary life by means of perseverance in prayer, voluntary chastity and poverty, as well as by the exercise of mortification of all kinds. Though the practice of seeking seclusion from the world for the purpose of better carrying out these ideals was apparently not unknown in the third century, it was not until after the conversion of Constantine that it can be said to have become general. The triumph of Christianity not only freed Christians from the spiritual stimulus of persecution, but it opened the door of the Christian home to worldly habits and luxury which were hitherto unknown, and which made the practice of the higher ideals of the spirit difficult, if not impossible, in the ordinary surroundings of the family life. To use the expression of Walter Hilton, the baptism of Constantine “brought so many fish into Peter’s net that it was well-nigh rent by the very multitude.” Henceforth it became necessary for Christians, who would satisfy the deeply seated instinct of human nature for the higher life, to seek it mostly in the solitudes of the desert, or later within the sheltering walls of the monastery. For a right understanding of monastic history and monastic practices in the West generally, and even in[Pg 3] England, it is necessary to have some idea at least of the main features of Eastern monachism. It has been pointed out by Dom Butler, in his masterly introduction to the Lausiac History of Palladius, that monachism developed along two lines in Egypt. The first was the system initiated and directed by St. Anthony, when about the year a.d. 305, after living a life of seclusion for some twenty years, he undertook the direction and organisation of the multitude of monks which the reputation of his sanctity had drawn to his neighbourhood. The second was due to St. Pachomius, who, just about the same time, at the beginning of the fourth century, whilst yet quite a young man, founded his first monastery at Tabennisi in the far south of Egypt.
Download or read book English Monastic Life written by Francis Gasquet and published by Litres. This book was released on 2021-03-16 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Human Embrace written by Ronald L. Hall and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Starting from S&øren Kierkegaard's insight that fully accepting the human condition requires one to live with the persistent temptation to escape from it, Ronald Hall finds similar concerns reflected in the work of two modern-day philosophers, Stanley Cavell and Martha Nussbaum, who equally find in a philosophy of love and marriage the key to understanding how humans may achieve happiness in the acceptance of their humanity. All three thinkers follow a &"logic of paradox&" in showing how success in the human quest to be human depends crucially on the struggle humans experience with the ever-present opportunities to pursue alternative paths. What Kierkegaard called &"living existentially&" can be achieved only after confronting and refusing the possibilities of living in &"aesthetic,&" &"ethical,&" or even &"religious&" denial of one's true humanity. By creating this dialogue between the nineteenth-century Danish thinker and two eminent twentieth-century philosophers, Hall reveals the continuing relevance of Kierkegaard's thought to our own age and its cogency as an interpretation of the human predicament.
Download or read book Monks and Nuns Saints and Outcasts written by Sharon Farmer and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-06 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new generation of historians today is borrowing from cultural anthropology, post-modern critical theory, and gender studies to understand the social meanings of medieval religious movements, practices, figures, and cults. In this volume Sharon Farmer and Barbara H. Rosenwein bring together essays—all hitherto unpublished—that combine some of the best of these new approaches with rigorous research and traditional scholarship. Some of these essays re-envision the professionals of religion: the monks and nuns who carried out crucial social functions as mediators between living and dead, repositories for social memory, and loci of vicarious piety. In their religious life these people embodied an image of the society that produced them. Other contributions focus on social categories, usually expressed as dichotomies: male/female, insider/outsider, saint/outcast. Monks and Nuns, Saints and Outcasts is the first book to show the interaction of seemingly antithetical groups of medieval people and the ways in which they were defined by, as well as against, each other. All of the essays, taken together, form a tribute to Lester K. Little, pioneer in the study of religion in medieval society.
Download or read book The Monks of Mount Athos written by M. Basil Pennington and published by SkyLight Paths Publishing. This book was released on 2003 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the rich spirituality of monastic life on Mount Athos--a place like no other on earth. Twenty-five years ago, M. Basil Pennington, OCSO, was the first Western monk to live on Mount Athos for more than the usually permitted overnight visit. The Monks of Mount Athos chronicles his extraordinary stay, his experiences of the East, and lively conversations with his hosts about theological differences and unfamiliar spiritual practices. Listen in as Abbot Basil wrestles with historical differences between Christianity's East and West, learns the Orthodox practice of "the prayer of the heart," and explores the landscape, the monastic communities, and the food of Athos--a monastic republic like no other place on earth. New to this edition, Archimandrite Dionysios, a monk from "the Holy Mountain," reflects on the ecumenical openness fostered as a result of, and since, Abbot Basil's stay. The abbot's experiences on Mount Athos motivated him to re-examine his role as a monk and his relationship to God. His inspiring meditations will help you to explore your own relationship to God and to others.
Download or read book Legends of the Monastic Orders written by Mrs. Jameson (Anna) and published by . This book was released on 1852 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
