The Spiritual Wisdom of the Syriac Book of Steps

The Spiritual Wisdom of the Syriac Book of Steps
Author: Robert A. Kitchen
Publisher: SLG Press
Total Pages: 22
Release: 2013
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0728302381

Fairacres Publications 171 The anonymous fourth-century Syriac author of the Book of Steps wrote to and about his local Christian community. It is a manual of Christian living written before monasticism had taken its traditional shape. However, the distinction between the duties and expectations of ‘the Perfect’ and ‘the Upright’ hint at a development towards monastic life. Robert Kitchen points out that the text has always had trouble getting noticed; to put this teaching into a modern context he summarizes the content of its thirty chapters, and gives a short commentary on a core passage from each one.

Breaking the Mind

Breaking the Mind
Author: Kristian S. Heal
Publisher: CUA Press
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2014
Genre: History
ISBN: 0813221668

This collection of sixteen new critical essays offers fresh perspectives on the Book of Steps, adding greater detail and depth to our understanding of the work's intriguing picture of early Syriac asceticism as practiced within the life of a local church and community.

The Book of Steps

The Book of Steps
Author: Robert A. Kitchen
Publisher: Cistercian Publications
Total Pages: 389
Release: 2004
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780879076962

Intentionally anonymous and lacking concrete details of historical and cultural setting-and for many years suspected of messalianism-this collection of thirty memre [discourses] has been long recognized as an important, yet understudied, work of the fourth century Syriac Church. The Liber Graduum records the ups and downs of a real christian community and is not a theoretical projection. The author meanders through many themes, but always calls the readers back to the steps of Uprightness and Perfection. "So it is also with a person once he has lowered himself from all things that are on earth, has broken his mind night and day, who counts everyone else better than himself, has emptied himself from all he possessed and kisses the feet of his enemies. Our Lord will look upon this person's lowliness and send him the Spirit, the Paraclete, and he shall know the whole truth."(translation of the script on the cover).

Early Syriac Theology

Early Syriac Theology
Author: Seely J. Beggiani
Publisher: CUA Press
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2014
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0813227011

Presents the insights of St. Ephrem and Jacob of Serugh, two of the earliest representatives of the theological world-view of the Syriac church.

Prayer & Holiness

Prayer & Holiness
Author: Dumitru Staniloae
Publisher: SLG Press
Total Pages: 54
Release: 2023
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0728303485

Fairacres Publication 82 In five essays originally given as addresses to the Benedictine monks at the Monastery of Chevetogne in Belgium, the author gives us the essentials of his teaching on prayer. They are the fruit not only of personal experience and long familiarity with the hesychast writings of Orthodox monasticism, but also of the spiritual tradition of his native Romania. We are given the outline of an icon of restored humanity through texts which we can appropriate for ourselves to allow the love of God to live and work in us.

Love Will Come with Fire

Love Will Come with Fire
Author: Sisters of the Love of God
Publisher: SLG Press
Total Pages: 80
Release: 2023-05-30
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 0728303515

SLG Press Contemplative Poetry 10 This is a collection of personal reflections on faith and the struggle to meet and serve God that is part of our Christian journey. Here there are no fractured poetic experiments except in the faith-struggle itself, that is, the thinking, which is the accomplishment and power of religious poetry, just as it is of religious life. This struggle is manifest here, expressed by different people with different impulses to write. Here, the little, the personal and the tightly-imagined have the most effect. The transfer of faith, doubt, struggle, praise, prayer into poetry is hard – and that struggle too is part of this collection.

An Ecology of the Heart

An Ecology of the Heart
Author: Duncan Forbes
Publisher: SLG Press
Total Pages: 80
Release: 2023-05-10
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0728303531

Terms such as ‘climate grief’ and ‘ecological anxiety’ describe the sadness and desolation triggered in many people in response to our changing climate. What are we to do with this aching that is sometimes dull, sometimes sharp? Nowhere is immune from extreme weather events, from physical suffering and even death. How should we react to this? These are questions that are central to every religious account of the world and its peoples. This book looks at the insights that can be gained from the world’s faith traditions, particularly Christianity. By considering the extent of the ecological crises that humanity faces, this book discusses the new and searching questions that these crises raise for us and for our faith, and how those questions reflect our approach to our environment and our responsibility in and for the world.

Doors

Doors
Author: Sister Raphael SLG
Publisher: SLG Press
Total Pages: 108
Release: 2023-01-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0728303469

Fairacres Publications 199 Through writing gathered over a lifetime of meditation on doors as ways into the understanding and fulfilment of a Christian life, Sister Raphael SLG guides us gently to an understanding that every aspect of life can be a door into the Love of God, and an opportunity for prayer, reflection and spiritual growth. This is a collection of thoughts and quotations for every situation, for everyone who is looking for a sympathetic and thoughtful support for their daily spiritual life, or for a series of meditations to use on retreat.

The Monastic Letters of Saint Athanasius the Great

The Monastic Letters of Saint Athanasius the Great
Author: Saint Athanasius
Publisher: SLG Press
Total Pages: 54
Release: 2023
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0728303574

Fairacres Publications 120 Scholars have often concentrated on the theological writings of St Athanasius (c. 296-373 AD) and on his influence as a religious leader, so that his contribution to the monastic life has not received due recognition. In these six letters addressed to monks, Athanasius is revealed as a wise spiritual guide and loving pastor, determined that the monks should receive sound teaching, so as to avoid the pitfalls of heresies current at that time. As Leslie Barnard notes in his Introduction, ‘The permanent significance of these letters lies in their wisdom, moderation and balance.’

Divine Themes and Celestial Praise

Divine Themes and Celestial Praise
Author: Henry Vaughan
Publisher: SLG Press
Total Pages: 88
Release: 2023-06-27
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 0728303523

SLG Press Contemplative Poetry 9 This book contains poems by Henry Vaughan, all of them selected from the 1655 edition of Silex Scintillans. Almost all are followed by a related poem from George Herbert’s 1633 collection, The Temple. For Vaughan, Herbert was that ‘blessed man, whose holy life and verse gained many pious Converts’: poets who wisely exchanged ‘vain and vicious subjects’ for ‘divine Themes and Celestial praise’. Vaughan thought of himself as ‘the least’ of those converts, but the poetry in Silex Scintillans shows him matching and even sometimes surpassing his master’s work.