Best Monasticism & Asceticism Books
Here you will get Best Monasticism & Asceticism Books For you.This is an up-to-date list of recommended books.
1. The Seven Storey Mountain
Author: by Thomas Merton
B0085TK8MS
Mariner Books
October 4, 1998
One of the most famous books ever written about a man’s search for faith and peace. The Seven Storey Mountain tells of the growing restlessness of a brilliant and passionate young man, who at the age of twenty-six, takes vows in one of the most demanding Catholic ordersthe Trappist monks.
At the Abbey of Gethsemani, “the four walls of my new freedom,” Thomas Merton struggles to withdraw from the world, but only after he has fully immersed himself in it. At the abbey, he wrote this extraordinary testament, a unique spiritual autobiography that has been recognized as one of the most influential religious works of our time.
Translated into more than twenty languages, it has touched millions of lives..
2. Eat, Fast, Feast: Heal Your Body While Feeding Your Soul―A Christian Guide to Fasting
Author: by Jay W. Richards
HarperOne
English
352 pages
The New York Times bestselling author and senior fellow at the Discovery Institute blends science and religion in this thoughtful guide that teaches modern believers how to use the leading wellness trend todayintermittent fastingas a means of spiritual awakening, adopting the traditions our Christians ancestors practiced for centuries into daily life.
Wellness minded people today are increasingly turning to intermittent fasting to bolster their health. But we aren’t the first people to abstain from eating for a purpose. This routine was a common part of our spiritual ancestors’ lives for 1,500 years.
Jay Richards argues that Christians should recover the fasting lifestyle, not only to improve our bodies, but to bolster our spiritual health as well. In Eat, Fast, Feast, he combines forgotten spiritual wisdom on fasting and feasting with the burgeoning literature on ketogenic diets and fasting for improved physical and mental health.
Based on his popular series Fasting, Body and Soul in The Stream, Eat, Fast, Feast explores what it means to substitute our hunger for God for our hunger for food, and what both modern science and the ancient monastics can teach us about this practice.
3. The Practice of the Presence of God
Author: by Brother Lawrence
Whitaker House
English
96 pages
Brother Lawrence was a man of humble beginnings who discovered the greatest secret of living in the kingdom of God here on earth. It is the art of practicing the presence of God in one single act that does not end.
He often stated that it is God who paints Himself in the depths of our souls. We must merely open our hearts to receive Him and His loving presence. As a humble cook, Brother Lawrence learned an important lesson through each daily chore: The time he spent in communion with the Lord should be the same, whether he was bustling around in the kitchenwith several people asking questions at the same timeor on his knees in prayer.
He learned to cultivate the deep presence of God so thoroughly in his own heart that he was able to joyfully exclaim, I am doing now what I will do for all eternity. I am blessing God, praising Him, adoring Him, and loving Him with all my heart.
This unparalleled classic has given both blessing and instruction to those who can be content with nothing less than knowing God in all His majesty and feeling His loving presence throughout each simple day.
4. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection
Author: by Benedicta Ward
Liturgical Press
English
269 pages
The fourth-century ascetic flight to the desert indelibly marked Christianity. The faithful who did not embrace the austerity of the desert admired those who did and sought them out for counsel and consolation. The ‘words’ the monks gave were collected and passed around among those too far away or too feeble to make the trek themselves – or lived generations later.
Previously available only in fragments, these Sayings of the Desert Fathers are now accessible in its entirety in English for the first time. We have a great deal to learn from their integrity and their unrelenting courage, from their vision of God – so Holy, so great, possessed of such a love, that nothing less than one’s whole being could respond to it.
These were men and women who had reached a humility of which we have no idea, because it is not rooted in an hypocritical or contrived depreciation of self, but in the vision of God, and a humbling experience of being so loved.
They were ascetics, ruthless to themselves, yet so human, so immensely compassionate not only to the needs of men but also to their frailty and their sins; men and women wrapped in a depth of inner silence of which we have no idea and who taught by ‘Being’, not by speech: ‘If a man cannot understand my silence, he will never understand my words.’ If we wish to understand the sayings of the Fathers, let us approach them with veneration, silencing our judgments and our own thoughts in order to meet them on their own ground and perhaps to partake ultimately – if we prove able to emulate their earnestness in the search, their ruthless determination, their infinite compassionin their own silent communion with God.
5. Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism
Author: by William Harmless
Oxford University Press
English
512 pages
In the fourth century, the deserts of Egypt became the nerve center of a radical new movement, what we now call monasticism. Groups of Christians-from illiterate peasants to learned intellectuals-moved out to the wastelands beyond the Nile Valley and, in the famous words of Saint Athanasius,made the desert a city.
In so doing, they captured the imagination of the ancient world. They forged techniques of prayer and asceticism, of discipleship and spiritual direction, that have remained central to Christianity ever since. Seeking to map the soul’s long journey to God and plot out thesubtle vagaries of the human heart, they created and inspired texts that became classics of Western spirituality.
These Desert Christians were also brilliant storytellers, some of Christianity’s finest. This book introduces the literature of early monasticism. It examines all the best-known works,including Athanasius’ Life of Antony, the Lives of Pachomius, and the so-called Sayings of the Desert Fathers.
6. RB 1980: The Rule of St. Benedict in English
Author: by Timothy Fry
English
96 pages
0814612725
For fifteen centuries Benedictine monasticism has been governed by a Rule that is at once strong enough to instill order and yet flexible enough to have relevance fifteen-hundred years later. This pocket-sized, English-only edition is perfect for individual or group study.
7. The Rule of Benedict: A Spirituality for the 21st Century (Spiritual Legacy Series)
Author: by Joan Chittister
Crossroad
English
328 pages
This new edition of a classic religious text combines the timeless wisdom of Benedict of Nursia’s Rule with the perceptive commentary of a renowned Benedictine mystic and scholar. In her new introduction to the Rule, the author boldly claims that Benedict’s sixth-century text is the only one of great traditions that directly touches the contemporary issues facing the human communitystewardship, conversion, communication, reflection, contemplation, humility, and equality.
Tracing Benedict’s original Rule paragraph by paragraph, it expands its principles into the larger context of spiritual living in a secular world and makes the seemingly archaic instructions relevant for a contemporary audience. A new foreword, updated content, an appendix, and a recommended calendar for reading the entries and commentaries make this an invaluable resource for solitary or communal contemplation.
8. Curiosity: And Its Twelve Rules for Life
Author: by Buckley F.H.
English
248 pages
1641771844
Curiosity is the instinct that prompts us to act, and a book about curiosity should tell us how to live. This is the first to do so, with its twelve rules for life. While a fatal sin in Eden, curiosity is a necessary virtue in our world.
It asks us to search for new experiences, to create, to invent. It tells us to look inward, to be curious about the needs of other people and about our own motives. It tells us not to be a stick in the mud or a bore.
In particular, curiosity asks us to examine the most fundamental questions of our existence. When you put all this together, curiosity tells you how to live a life in full. While there’s a natural desire to explore, there’s also a natural desire to stay home.
We have a dark side that wants to hide from the world. We’ve also been made incurious by the rise of bitter partisanships and narrow ideologies that have sent things and people we should care about to our mental trash folders.
That’s why this book is needed today.
9. Encyclopedia of Monasticism
Author: by William M. Johnston
B00H47KKCU
Routledge
December 4, 2013
First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
10. Thoughts In Solitude
Author: by Thomas Merton
English
129 pages
0374513252
Thoughtful and eloquent, as timely (or timeless) now as when it was originally published in 1956, Thoughts in Solitude addresses the pleasure of a solitary life, as well as the necessity for quiet reflection in an age when so little is private.
Thomas Merton writes: “When society is made up of men who know no interior solitude it can no longer be held together by love: and consequently it is held together by a violent and abusive authority. But when men are violently deprived of the solitude and freedom which are their due, the society in which they live becomes putrid, it festers with servility, resentment and hate.”Thoughts in Solitude stands alongside The Seven Storey Mountain as one of Merton’s most uring and popular works.
Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk, is perhaps the foremost spiritual thinker of the twentiethcentury. His diaries, social commentary, and spiritual writings continue to be widely read after his untimely death in 1968.
11. Philokalia: Volume 5 (St George Monastery)
Author: by Anna Skoubourdis
English
318 pages
0645000906
The long awaited English translation of the fifth volume of the Philokalia. Rich in teachings from the saints about many spiritual virtues and challenges. Translated from the original Greek.The full text! The Philokalia, which means the love of the good and beautiful, was compiled by St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth and first published in Greek in 1782 as an anthology of classic spiritual texts ranging from the 4th to the 15th century.
Its rich assortment of edifying literature provides boundless wisdom and guidance regarding prayer, the soul’s ascent to God through grace by its natural love for beauty, and its struggle to overcome its own passions and fragmentation. The fifth and final volume explores the central themes of the 14th century Orthodox theology of Hesychasm, relating to the life of stillness, the practice of the Jesus Prayer, and the contemplation and experience of God.
It includes an Exact Rule and Method for Hesychasts, Angelikoudes’ Chapters, full of mystical devotions and meditations on God and man, as well as the profoundly philosophical work On Union with God and the Contemplative Life. Lastly, it concludes with exhortations for all Christians to pray unceasingly, in accordance with St. Paul’s injunction to pray without ceasing (1 Thess.
12. Talking Back: A Monastic Handbook for Combating Demons (Cistercian Studies)
Author: by Evagrius Of Pontus
English
200 pages
0879073292
How did the monks of the Egyptian desert fight against the demons that attacked them with tempting thoughts? How could Christians resist the thoughts of gluttony, fornication, or pride that assailed them and obstructed their contemplation of God? According to Evagrius of Pontus (345 ‘399), one of the greatest spiritual directors of ancient monasticism, the monk should talk back to demons with relevant passages from the Bible.
His book Talking Back (Antirrhatikos) lists over 500 thoughts or circumstances in which the demon-fighting monk might find himself, along with the biblical passages with which the monk should respond. It became one of the most popular books among the ascetics of Late Antiquity and the Byzantine East, but until now the entire text had not been translated into English.
From Talking Back we gain a better understanding of Evagrius’s eight primary demons: gluttony, fornication, love of money, sadness, anger, listlessness, vainglory, and pride. We can explore a central aspect of early monastic spirituality, and we get a glimpse of the temptations and anxieties that the first desert monks faced.
13. Domestic Monastery
Author: by Ronald Rolheiser
Paraclete Press
English
96 pages
What is a monastery? A monastery is a place set aparta place to learn the blessings of powerlessness, and that time is not ours but God’s. Our home and our duties can, just like a monastery, teach us those things.
The vocation of monastic men and women is to physically withdraw from the world. But the principle is equally valid for those of us who cannot go off to monasteries. Certain vocations offer the same kind of opportunity for contemplation, and provide a desert for reflection.
In ten brief and powerful chapters, Fr. Ron explores how monastery life can apply to those who don’t live in a cloister: Monasticism and Family Life The Domestic Monastery Real Friendship Lessons from the Monastic Cell Ritual for Sustaining Prayer Tensions within Spirituality A Spirituality of Parenting Spirituality and the Seasons of Our Lives The Sacredness of Time Life’s Key Question
14. Contemplative Prayer (Image Classic)
Author: by Thomas Merton
Image
English
116 pages
In this classic text, Thomas Merton offers valuable guidance for prayer. He brings together a wealth of meditative and mystical influencesfrom John of the Cross to Eastern desert monasticismto create a spiritual path for today. Most important, he shows how the peace contacted through meditation should not be sought in order to evade the problems of contemporary life, but can instead be directed back out into the world to affect positive change.
Contemplative Prayer is one of the most well-known works of spirituality of the last one hundred years, and it is a must-read for all seeking to live a life of purpose in today’s world. In a moving and profound introduction, Thich Nhat Hanh offers his personal recollections of Merton and compares the contemplative traditions of East and West.
15. The Practice of the Presence of God
Author: by Brother Lawrence
B002BH3NN6
Whitaker House
June 1, 1982
Brother Lawrence was a man of humble beginnings who discovered the greatest secret of living in the kingdom of God here on earth. It is the art of practicing the presence of God in one single act that does not end.
He often stated that it is God who paints Himself in the depths of our souls. We must merely open our hearts to receive Him and His loving presence. As a humble cook, Brother Lawrence learned an important lesson through each daily chore: The time he spent in communion with the Lord should be the same, whether he was bustling around in the kitchenwith several people asking questions at the same timeor on his knees in prayer.
He learned to cultivate the deep presence of God so thoroughly in his own heart that he was able to joyfully exclaim, I am doing now what I will do for all eternity. I am blessing God, praising Him, adoring Him, and loving Him with all my heart.
This unparalleled classic has given both blessing and instruction to those who can be content with nothing less than knowing God in all His majesty and feeling His loving presence throughout each simple day.
