Dom Anselme Le Bail

Dom Anselme Le Bail
Author: Dieudonne Dufrasne
Publisher: Liturgical Press
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2010-04-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0879079525

Those who knew him, above all monks, will find Dom Anselme Le Bail again in these pages with warm gratitude. Those who have not known him will encounter his vital and original character. Both of these will be surprised and come to admire a man and a monk who has integrated a healthy humanism into a concrete ideal of his religious vocation.

Living Wisdom

Living Wisdom
Author: Cristiana Piccardo
Publisher: Liturgical Press
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2014
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0879070331

Cristiana Piccardo was the long-time abbess of an unusual Cistercian community in Italy. "We have always believed," she writes, "that the monastic charism can be a precious 'talent' offered to our contemporary world, and there are moments in history when what normally remains hidden should come into the light." These words accurately describe both the force behind the story of the Vitorchiano monastic family and the account of it given in Living Wisdom, her refl ection on the meaning of that story. Over the course of four decades, the Abbey of Vitorchiano founded no fewer than six new monasteries around the world, from Argentina to Indonesia, and today this vibrant oasis of prayer and Christian living still has some eighty sisters of its own. Living Wisdom reveals the vitality of these communities and initiates us in a most concrete way into a wisdom that seeks the kingdom of God ardently yet realistically, without ever bypassing the essential human foundations that the life in Christ transforms and elevates but never supplants: hard work, communal striving, friendship, honesty in communication, a sense of humor, and, above all, love- the willingness both to ask for forgiveness and to give it with joy.

Happiness in God

Happiness in God
Author: Marie-Gérard Dubois
Publisher: Liturgical Press
Total Pages: 408
Release: 2019-06-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0879076585

This is a rich collection of memories and reflections from the long-time abbot of La Trappe, Dom Marie-Gérard Dubois, OCSO. Starting with his entry into monastic life, he walks the reader through the dramatic changes in the Strict Observance of the Cistercian Order, including its liturgical reform and developments in the role of lay brothers. Dom Dubois also shares stories about the diverse group of men who entered the Order at that time, including WWII veterans, Holocaust survivors, and members of the French literary elite, and why they decided to become monks. His stories offer a fascinating inside view into twentieth-century Cistercian life.

Can a Seamless Garment Be Truly Torn?

Can a Seamless Garment Be Truly Torn?
Author: Peter Steffen
Publisher: Liturgical Press
Total Pages: 656
Release: 2014-04-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0879077395

The conversion of Lutz Löb and Jenny van Gelder from Judaism to Roman Catholicism dramatically changed the lives of the extended Löb family. This scientific-historical study traces the personal and spiritual journey of Lutz and Jenny from their baptisms in 1907 through the lives of their children. The story benefits from historical documents and pieces of oral history from the only one of their eight children who survived the Nazi era, Paula van Broekhoven-Löb. The abbess of Koningsoord Abbey and the abbot of Koningshoeven Abbey generously provided access to the archives of the monasteries where the seven other Löb children lived as nuns and monks of the Löb family. Each chapter begins with a citation from a significant situation or event, placing the reader immediately within the lived experience of that period. Photos of the time and the family supplement the historical narrative. The secret conversion of Lutz and Jenny and their lifelong witness to their faith created a tear in the fabric of the extended family while later leading to many idealized portrayals of them and their children. It is the intent of this book to offer an accurate and balanced account, situating the Catholic Löb family within their extended Jewish family, and to correct several decades of hagiography, so restoring humanity and dignity to the memories of the Löb family.

The Waters of Siloe

The Waters of Siloe
Author: Thomas Merton
Publisher: HMH
Total Pages: 435
Release: 1979-10-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0547563957

From the author of The Seven Storey Mountain, this book looks at an order of Catholic monks dating back to eleventh-century France. “The word ‘Trappist’ has become synonymous with ‘ascetic’ and definitely indicates a monk who leads a very hard life. But . . . Penance and asceticism are not ends in themselves. If monks never succeeded in being more than pious athletes, they do not fulfill their purpose in the Church. If you want to understand why the monks lead the life they do, you will have to ask, first of all, What is their aim?” In his bestselling memoir, The Seven Storey Mountain, Catholic poet, theologian, and mystic Thomas Merton chronicled his journey to becoming a Cistercian monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky. In The Waters of Siloe, he provides an enlightening account of the Cistercian Order, better known as the Trappists. With clarity and wisdom, Merton explores the history of the Cistercian Order from its founding in 1098, its development and waning, and the seventeenth-century reforms by the Abbé de Rancé, which began the second flowering that continues today. Throughout, Merton illuminates the purposes of monasticism and its surprising resurgence in America and elsewhere. “Only Thomas Merton could have written single-handed this history of Trappist monks, for it is a work of diverse gifts and skill, an ardent collaboration of scholar and story-teller, priest and poet.” —The New York Times

Handbook of Medieval Culture. Volume 3

Handbook of Medieval Culture. Volume 3
Author: Albrecht Classen
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 748
Release: 2015-08-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 3110377616

A follow-up publication to the Handbook of Medieval Studies, this new reference work turns to a different focus: medieval culture. Medieval research has grown tremendously in depth and breadth over the last decades. Particularly our understanding of medieval culture, of the basic living conditions, and the specific value system prevalent at that time has considerably expanded, to a point where we are in danger of no longer seeing the proverbial forest for the trees. The present, innovative handbook offers compact articles on essential topics, ideals, specific knowledge, and concepts defining the medieval world as comprehensively as possible. The topics covered in this new handbook pertain to issues such as love and marriage, belief in God, hell, and the devil, education, lordship and servitude, Christianity versus Judaism and Islam, health, medicine, the rural world, the rise of the urban class, travel, roads and bridges, entertainment, games, and sport activities, numbers, measuring, the education system, the papacy, saints, the senses, death, and money.

Religious Institutes in Western Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries

Religious Institutes in Western Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries
Author: Jan de Maeyer
Publisher: Leuven University Press
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN: 9789058674029

In the 19th century, religious institutes (orders and congregations) underwent an unprecedented revival. As partners in a large-scale religious modernisation movement, they were welcomed by the Roman Catholic Church in its pursuit of a new role in society (especially in the educational and health-care sectors). At the same time, the Church also deemed it necessary to keep their spectacular growth in check. Until the 1960s religious institutes played an important role both in society at large as well as within the church (for example, at the level of the missions, liturgy and art). Yet, relatively little research has been done on their development either in ecclesiastical or in broad cultural history. As a basis for further study, The European Forum on the History of Religious Insitutes in the 19th and 20th Centuries offers this study of the historiography of religious institutes and of their position in civil and canon law.

The Letters of Blessed Maria Gabriella with the Notebooks of Mother Pia Gullini

The Letters of Blessed Maria Gabriella with the Notebooks of Mother Pia Gullini
Author: Gabriella Sagheddu
Publisher: Liturgical Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2019-03-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0879074574

During her short life as a Cistercian nun in the Italian monastery of Grottaferrata, Blessed Maria Gabriella Sagheddu wrote detailed letters about her life there to her family in Sardinia and to her former parish priest. These letters are collected here, along with notes and letters by and to her abbess, Mother Pia Gullini, OCSO, and M. Pia’s notes and recollections about Bl. Gabriella. Also included are letters to M. Pia from Father Benedict Ley, a monk of the English Anglican abbey of Nashdom, regarding the hope for Christian unity.

Finding the Treasure

Finding the Treasure
Author: Augustine Roberts
Publisher: Liturgical Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2011
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 087907034X

Augustine Roberts is a New England Yankee, transplanted by circumstance first to Argentina and then to Rome, from where frequent travel took him to nearly every part of the globe. The historical era into which he was born, so fraught with personal and communal soul-searching, also made him wrestle with all the tensions of the contemporary church and world. Finding the Treasure tells of Dom Augustine's conversion to the Catholic Church while attending Yale and of his remarkably varied monastic experience during the turbulent years of church renewal following Vatican II. These letters from a global monk will not disappoint anyone fascinated by the paradox of a monk who, rooted by vow to his monastery, becomes a globe-trotter precisely out of deep obedience. Augustine Roberts, OCSO, has been a Trappist monk since the early 1950s. After serving as abbot of St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, he became Procurator General of the Trappist Order. In the 1960s he was one of the founders of the first abbey of his Order in South America, later serving as its abbot. Today he is a much sought-after guide, called to help many communities in the delicate task of adapting the perennial monastic way of life to the needs of the twenty-first century.