Cassian and the Fathers

Cassian and the Fathers
Author: Thomas Merton
Publisher: Cistercian Publications Books
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2005
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

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.

The Conferences of John Cassian

The Conferences of John Cassian
Author: John Cassian
Publisher: Aeterna Press
Total Pages: 608
Release:
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

THE obligation, which was promised to the blessed Pope Castor in the preface to those volumes which with God's help I composed in twelve books on the Institutes of the Coenobia, and the remedies for the eight principal faults, has now been, as far as my feeble ability permitted, satisfied. I should certainly like to see what was the opinion fairly arrived at on this work both by his judgment and yours, whether, on a matter so profound and so lofty, and one which has never yet been made the subject of a treatise, we have produced anything worthy of your notice, and of the eager desire of all the holy brethren. But now as the aforesaid Bishop has left us and departed to Christ, meanwhile these ten Conferences of the grandest of the Fathers, viz., the Anchorites who dwelt in the desert of Scete, which he, fired with an incomparable desire for saintliness, had bidden me write for him in the same style (not considering in the greatness of his affection, what a burden he placed on shoulders too weak to bear it)--these Conferences I have thought good to dedicate to you in particular, O blessed Pope, Leontius, and holy brother Helladius. Aeterna Press

The Desert Fathers

The Desert Fathers
Author:
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2003-03-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0141907002

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.

Conferences

Conferences
Author: John Cassian
Publisher: Paulist Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 1985
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780809126941

Drawing on his early experience as a monk in Bethlehem and Egypt, John Cassian (c. 365-c. 435) journeyed to the West to found monasteries in Marseilles and the region of Provence. Conferences is his masterpiece, a study of the Egyptian ideal of the monk.

The Grace of "Nothingness"

The Grace of
Author: Fr Cassian Koenemann
Publisher:
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2021-12-20
Genre:
ISBN: 9781621388104

In the early twentieth century, Blessed Columba Marmion's dogmatically-grounded spiritual theology, expressed in artful prose, set the Catholic world on fire. A century later, in The Grace of "Nothingness," Fr Cassian Koenemann seeks to rekindle that fire for a new generation with his inspired presentation of Marmion's key spiritual insights. To this task he brings a monk's sensitivity to friendship with God, a schoolteacher's focus on the fruits of theology, and a spiritual theologian's attentiveness to grounding it all in proven sources. Marmion reminds us that God heals and perfects us to the extent we allow him to do so, but that we often block that transformation through prideful "self-reliance," trying to solve our problems by our own efforts. If only we place our confidence in God, however, we will receive the grace we need.

The Desert Fathers

The Desert Fathers
Author: Helen Waddell
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 220
Release: 1957
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780472060085

The words of the 4th-century monastics who founded the Desert Rule

Tradition and Theology in St John Cassian

Tradition and Theology in St John Cassian
Author: A. M. C. Casiday
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2007
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0199297185

John Cassian (d. c.435) brought the teachings of the Egyptian desert fathers to the Latin West. A. M. C. Casiday offers a revisionist account of his work, restoring the stories he tells to a position of importance as an integral part of his monastic theology.

A Newly Discovered Greek Father

A Newly Discovered Greek Father
Author: Panayiotis Tzamalikos
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 733
Release: 2012-06-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004224416

A critical edition an ancient manuscript, which has resulted in discovery of Cassian the Sabaite, whom Medieval forgery extinguished, by attributing heavily interpolated Latin translations of this Greek original to a figment called ‘John Cassian’. This erudite Sabaite intellectual is Pseudo-Caesarius and the author of Pseudo Didymus' De Trinitate.

Western Asceticism

Western Asceticism
Author: Owen Chadwick
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
Total Pages: 136
Release: 1881
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

Students of church history and the monastic ascetic life will find this volume of much interest. Contained are three important documents of the early Christian Church: The Sayings of the Fathers, The Conferences of Cassian, and The Rule of Saint Benedict.Long recognized for the quality of its translations, introductions, explanatory notes, and...