Embertide: Encountering Saint Frideswide

Embertide: Encountering Saint Frideswide
Author: Romola Parish
Publisher: SLG Press
Total Pages: 66
Release: 2024-04-17
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 0728303833

SLG Press Contemplative Poetry 14 St Frideswide, or Frithuswith, was an important saint during the medieval period and is patron of the City of Oxford. Her shrine was a place of pilgrimage but was destroyed during the Reformation and since then she has largely disappeared from view. Embertide is not a simple retelling of her biography, but engages with all the different versions of her life and seeks to understand her importance in the past and her significance today. It is liminal, elusive and delicately balanced; a kind of spiritual pilgrimage towards understanding elements of faith. Spiritual pilgrimage is a lifetime journey of rethinking and revisiting our perceptions and understanding, just as saints’ written lives have been refashioned to appeal to different audiences at different points in time. This poem is the outcome of one such spiritual pilgrimage, and each reader will encounter it differently, on their own terms. Our saints, in their afterlives, are still travelling, and we follow in their wake.

Cosmos, Crisis and Christ: Essays of Wendy Robinson

Cosmos, Crisis and Christ: Essays of Wendy Robinson
Author: Wendy Robinson
Publisher: SLG Press
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2024-05-30
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0728303736

Fairacres Publications 211 Wendy Robinson’s work was primarily interpersonal and in retreat talks or lectures where she could engage with her audience directly; many of the essays here are transcriptions of those talks. Even ten years after her death, her theology and her compassion are remembered with great fondness and gratitude, and continue to resonate both with those who knew her and those who encounter her writing for the first time.

Prayer Too Deep for Words

Prayer Too Deep for Words
Author: Sr Edmée Kingsmill SLG
Publisher: SLG Press
Total Pages: 48
Release: 2024-08-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0728303884

Fairacres Publications 215 In this short book Sister Edmée examines the importance of silence in a prayerful life, not only outward silence, but the need to achieve stillness within, and what this means in terms of our approach to God in prayer. She also examines a more active silence: that of Christ when he listened to those who brought their troubles to him for healing. Her words come from a place of understanding and sympathy, encouraging us not to despair in the noise and complexity of modern life, but to persevere in seeking God in the silence of our hearts, in prayer too deep for words.

The Desert of the Heart: Daily Readings with the Desert Fathers

The Desert of the Heart: Daily Readings with the Desert Fathers
Author: Sister Benedicta Ward SLG
Publisher: SLG Press
Total Pages: 66
Release: 2016-09-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 072830290X

Fairacres Publications 179 The way of life of the fourth-century Desert Fathers, with its emphasis on solitude, silence and unceasing prayer, has inspired many modern spiritual writers. Why do the Desert Fathers have so much to say to us? To answer this question, Sister Benedicta presents some of the best and most illuminating stories and sayings from the desert. Readers will find spiritual wisdom, along with sharp humour and startling insight into human nature.

The Road to Emmaus: A Sculptor’s Journey through Time

The Road to Emmaus: A Sculptor’s Journey through Time
Author: Rodney Munday
Publisher: SLG Press
Total Pages: 94
Release: 2024-08-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0728303914

The sculptor Rodney Munday examines the impact of the art works that have influenced his thinking and the evolution of his artistic style on his Christian faith, as well as the way in which his faith has shaped his own sculpture. This is an examination of the ways in which the context and reception of religious art through the centuries poses questions about Christianity and how both individuals and the establishment respond to new works of art. In this book we journey with him along his personal ‘road to Emmaus’, recounted with engaging warmth and honesty.

Two Medieval English Saints: Cuthbert and Alban

Two Medieval English Saints: Cuthbert and Alban
Author: Sister Benedicta Ward SLG
Publisher: SLG Press
Total Pages: 54
Release: 2024-08-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0728303825

Fairacres Publications 217 In his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the Venerable Bede (673–735) recorded not simply the biographies of the early saints of Britain, but the stories and myths about them, deliberately passed down from those who knew them, describing the impact they had on those close to them. Bede gave a very full account of Alban, despite the chronological distance separating them, but his sources for information about St Cuthbert were those who had known the saint personally, giving Bede’s account considerable authority. His texts are first-rate hagiographies, providing us with compelling prose images of the enduring power of genuine, selfless holiness in the early church. From Bede and other sources, Sister Benedicta is able to paint a picture of the spirituality of these two saints who are so crucial to understanding early Christianity in Britain.

Eight Chapters on Perfection & Angels’ Song

Eight Chapters on Perfection & Angels’ Song
Author: Walter Hilton
Publisher: SLG Press
Total Pages: 56
Release: 2024-08-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0728303922

Fairacres Publications 85 Eight Chapters on Perfection is Hilton’s translation of a Latin text by the Aragonese Friar Dom Lluis de Font, and is the only surviving record of that manuscript. It is a text of great humanity and wisdom about the possibilities of friendship and love between those drawn to prayer. In Angels’ Song Hilton’s own spirituality is revealed as he considers how, in the spiritual life, the action of grace can be distinguished from pious illusion.

Immersed in God and the World: Living Priestly Ministry

Immersed in God and the World: Living Priestly Ministry
Author: Andy Lord
Publisher: SLG Press
Total Pages: 62
Release: 2024-07-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 072830385X

Fairacres Publications 213 In increasingly busy and diverse lives what might it mean to live as priests, immersed in God and the world? This book explores a personal experience of ordained priesthood shaped by the Jesus Prayer in the context of the Catholic, charismatic and evangelical traditions. It explores the contemplative disciplines of Presence and Attentiveness to the overflowing life of God in all things. There is an invitation to all, ordained or not, to enter into a life stretched through the abundance of God. While realistic about the challenges we face, this book seeks to nurture hope in the God who is always at work in Christ by the Spirit.

Anselm of Canterbury – A Monastic Scholar

Anselm of Canterbury – A Monastic Scholar
Author: Sister Benedicta Ward SLG
Publisher: SLG Press
Total Pages: 48
Release: 2024-05-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0728304082

Fairacres Publications 62 Saint Anselm (1033–1109) was abbot of the Norman monastery of Bec, and later Archbishop of Canterbury under William Rufus and Henry I. In this short study of one of the most original thinkers of the earlier Middle Ages, Sister Benedicta discusses the relationship between Anselm’s scholarship and his life as a monk, showing how the one grew naturally out of the other. Anselm’s understanding of the inter-connections of reason and faith, thought and prayer, which can be traced throughout his writings, both theological and devotional, remains significant for Christian scholarship in any age. At the same time he was one of the most attractive, loving and compassionate of men. Simplicity, humanity and gentleness are joined in Anselm to the clear and sane mind of a great scholar.

Towards a Theology of Psychotherapy: The Spirituality of Wendy Robinson

Towards a Theology of Psychotherapy: The Spirituality of Wendy Robinson
Author: Andrew Louth
Publisher: SLG Press
Total Pages: 84
Release: 2024-05-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0728303728

Wendy Robinson (1934–2013) was a trained psychotherapist who became a member of the Russian Orthodox Church in England in 1980. To be able to combine these two vocations was, for her, to discover herself. She practised psychotherapy both with individual clients and, increasingly, with religious communities, both Catholic and Anglican, giving retreats and one-to-one counselling, and built up a strong and lasting connection with the Sisters of the Love of God in Oxford. She reflected on her dual vocation in lectures and articles, a selection of which are published in the companion volume to this book, Cosmos Crisis and Christ: Essays of Wendy Robinson, collected and edited by Andrew Louth, Fairacres Publications 211 (SLG Press, 2024)