Very little in this world stays fresh and life-giving for 1,500 years. But when that happens we should ask ourselves why and what that had to do with us.In this book, The Radical Christian Life: A Year with Saint Benedict, Joan Chittister encourages us to look at that question. In an introductory essay she examines how the insights and values of the sixth-century Visionary Saint Benedict can illuminate today's search for a meaningful life. Then she leads us throug...

The completion of all thirty-seven volumes of the New Collegeville Bible Commentary means an important new resource is fully available to all who wish to delve more deeply into the word of God. Now the one-volume, hardcover edition brings together every volume into a single, accessible guide to the entire Bible in a convenient and attractive format.This comprehensive resource contains the same expert commentary that characterizes the complete series of individual books. Contributor...

Reaching for God is a compendium of Benedictine life and prayer for oblates. It brings together in one volume the essence of Benedictine spirituality-its history, its relevance through the ages and in the present, and a summary of the most fundamental gifts and values it offers for living a meaningful life. Here, the meaning and purpose of the oblate way of life is explained in a clear and encouraging way. Werner offers guidance and examples of prayer to enrich any spiritual life....

For over 1,500 years, believers from all Christian traditions have looked to St. Benedict, the patriarch of Western monasticism, for spiritual wisdom. And rightly so: his rule has shown how one may experience a simple, holy, and common sense life, despite the increasingly busy pace of our daily existence. The latest addition to Liguori's popular series of seasonal meditation books provides not only Scripture readings for the seasons of Lent and Easter, but pairs them with a daily select...

This new book by Sister Aquinata Böckmann discusses the Prologue and chapters 1, 2, and 3 of the Rule of St. Benedict. In a lectio regulae she plumbs the depths of Benedict’s vision. Listen, the first word of the Prologue, is a keyword that describes the main stance of the individual monastic, the superior, and the entire community. Listening to the Scriptures and in them to Christ guides individuals and the community on how to “run on the way of God’s commandments” toward the goa...

2021 Catholic Media Association Award first place award in spirituality - contemporaryMonastic spirituality has much to offer Christians who live far beyond monastery walls. In Saint Benedict's Wisdom Luigi Gioia, OSB, demonstrates that monastic spirituality is a gift for the whole Church. Because monastic vows are fundamentally a deep dive into one's baptismal commitments, monastic experience speaks to all the faithful who wish to do the same wit...

Internet readers of the Daily Reflections with Fr. Don Talafous have long urged the author to publish selections in book form. Here is such a collection offering hope and encouragement in the face of the sadness and suffering of our world. While they come from the mind, heart, and PC of a Catholic Benedictine, the topics of these reflections appeal to church-going Christians, readers of a skeptical bent, and even those of no or minimal relation to any organized religion.

The publication of The Roman Missal, Third Edition offers an opportunity for homilists to explore the relationship between the Sunday readings and the new Roman Missal. Between the Ambo and the Altar is the first book (Year A) in a three-volume series that presents scriptural, liturgical, and preaching commentary for Sundays, solemnities, and feasts throughout the year.Each Sunday's resources are presented in three sections: exploring the Scripture, connecting the...

When St. Benedict compiled his Rule for Monasteries in the early decades of the sixth century, the Buddhist monastic code had already been in existence for about nine hundred years. Since monastic life is shaped by spiritual practices that are very similar across different religious traditions, it should not be too much of a stretch to suggest that Christians can learn from the accumulated wisdom of Buddhist monasticism.For Buddhists, celibacy, accompanied by skillful reflection on...

Some poets begin very early to write great poetry. Arthur Rimbaud wrote one of his best poems at 15, Percy Shelley published his first book of poetry at 18. But Kilian McDonnell, O.S.B., did not start until he was 75, after decades of writing as a professional theologian. Now 82 he gives us Swift, Lord, You Are Not, poems of the struggle to find God - waiting for the silence of God to break. He does not write pious verse, or inspirational poetry, but of wrestling with the illusive...

Within the Eastern tradition of Christianity, the eikon, or religious image, has long held a place of honor. In the greater part of Western Christianity, however, discomfort with images in worship, both statues and panel icons, has been a relatively common current, particularly since the Reformation. In the Roman Catholic Church, after years of using religious statues, the Second Vatican Council’s call for “noble simplicity” in many cases led to a stripping of images that in some ways help...

When Adrien Nocent's The Liturgical Year was published in the 1970s, it was the very first comprehensive commentary on the three-year lectionary in relation to the Sacramentary/Missal as these were revised following the Second Vatican Council. Expressed on nearly every page was Nocent's conviction that the liturgy and the Word of God proclaimed within it have something important to say to real people of every culture and time. He constantly returns to the question: What does this ...