Monasticism category: 212 books

A series of reflections on living by the Rule of the Iona Community, exploring its history, inner life and public witness.

Michael Casey, a monk and scholar who has been publishing his wise teachings on the Rule of St. Benedict for decades, turns to the particular Benedictine values that he considers most urgent for Christians to incorporate into their lives today. Eloquent and incisive, Casey invites readers to accept...

Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki's The Training of the Zen Buddhist Monk invites you to step inside the mysterious world of the Zendo, where monks live their lives in simplicity. This is perhaps the best introduction to Zen and the life of the Zen monk. By means of a direct and succinct description of...

The thirteen Discourses of Philoxenos of Mabbug (445-523) were delivered to new monks at a monastery under his episcopal care. Written in elegant Syriac, the Discourses deal with the fundamentals of the monastic and ascetic life-faith, simplicity, fear of God, renunciation, and the struggle against...

If Christians and Muslims are to live in peace, encouraging one another to grow in holiness and working together for the good of all God's creation, they must move beyond politicized and often negative images of one another. Monastic/Muslim dialogue-issuing from friendship and focused on revelation,...

St Francis of Assisi is one of the most admired figures of the Middle Ages - and one of the most important in the Christian church, modelling his life on the literal observance of the Gospel and recovering an emphasis on the poverty experienced by Jesus Christ. From 1217 Francis sent communities of...

Few people have ever seen or heard of The Spirit of Simplicity: it has been hidden for almost seventy years after quietly being published by the Abbey of Gethsemani in 1948. Anonymously translated and annotated by a young monk named Thomas Merton, the book’s author—who also is not mentioned by...

The Cistercians (White Monks) were the most successful monastic experiment to emerge from the tumultuous intellectual and religious fervour of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. By around 1150 they had established houses the length and breadth of Western Christendom and were internationally renowned....

“This advice is from a spiritual father who loves you and gives you the sort of counsel that will shape your whole life.” “Listen, my child. I want you to put the ear of your heart to the solid ground of the master’s wisdom (what I received, I’m passing on to you). It’s advice from a spiritual...

A full spiritual life goes beyond Sunday mornings and bedtime prayers, encompassing the way we work and play, eat and breathe, love and learn. Since ancient times monastic communities have recognized this and used guidelines to focus on the sacred in all aspects of life and to strengthen their love...

Daily readings for the four weeks of Advent. 'Reading one of ThomA's books is like walking and talking with a friend. Someone who understands the fragility and failings of being human (and himself) but who continues to laugh, and to hope and work for the coming of the Light.'

Desire is at the heart of what it is to be human. The power of desire, while embodied and sensuous, is God-given and the key to all human spirituality. Humanity is blessed with a deep longing that is infinite in extent and can only ultimately be satisfied in God. Befriending Our Desires portrays the...

A classic, prize-winning novel about an epic migration and a lone woman haunted by the past in frontier Waipu.In the 1850s, a group of settlers established a community at Waipu in the northern part of New Zealand. They were led there by a stern preacher, Norman McLeod. The community had followed him...

Light in the Shoe Shop offers readers a unique and intimate glance into the day-to-day experience of living the cloistered life in feminine mode. In her “cobbler’s contemplations”—no metaphor here: the author did indeed make and mend her sisters’ shoes for many years—Mother Agnes reveals...