In his introduction to this commentary on the Rule of Benedict, Abbot Georg Holzherr offers this analogy: “The Rule is comparable to an old heavy red wine that is enjoyed in small sips. . . . Head and heart, soul and mind should taste the words of the Rule, just as the eye enjoys the color of the wine while tongue, nose, and mouth take in the delightful gift of God each in their own way.”In this new translation, based on the completely revised seventh edition of Die**Be...

The Desert Fathers were the first Christian monks, living in solitude in the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. In contrast to the formalised and official theology of the "founding fathers" of the church, the Desert Fathers were ordinary Christians who chose to renounce the world and live lives of celibacy, fasting, vigil, prayer and poverty in direct and simple response to the gospel. Their sayings were first recorded in the 4th century and consist of spiritual advice, anecdotes and ...

Aelred, abbot of the Yorkshire Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx from 1147 to 1167, wrote six spiritual treatises, seven historical treatises, and 182 liturgical sermons, most of which he delivered as chapter talks to his monks. Translations of the first twenty-eight of these sermons appeared in The First Clairvaux Collection, Advent-All Saints, published in 2001. The current volume contains eighteen sermons given on feasts beginning with the Nativity and concluding with a sermon for A...

Are there Old Testament roots of the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary? Margaret Barker traces the roots of the devotion to Mary as Mother of the Lord back to the Old Testament and the first temple in Jerusalem. The evidence is consistent over more than a millennium: there had been a female deity in Israel, the Mother figure in the Royal cult, who had been abandoned about 600BCE. She was almost written out of the Hebrew text, almost excluded from the canon.This first of two vol...

The ideal TAN book! The resurgence of tradition is rekindling devotion, zeal and, we pray, sanctity. But do some place traditionalism before Mother Church herself? This is the issue of our time a unique time, 50 years after Vatican II when much (though not all) of the misapplication of the Council s teaching and the liturgical aberrations have settled. In The Council in Question: A Dialogue With Catholic Traditionalism, journalist Moyra Doorly, an SSPX attendee and Dominican Aidan Nichols ...

Saint Bernard’s famous work, The Steps of Humility and Pride (in Latin, De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae), is a short book consisting of a mere fifty-seven paragraphs. In it, the Abbot of Clairvaux unpacks the doctrine of the very crucial chapter 7 of Saint Benedict’s sixth-century Rule for Monks, which explores the dynamic “steps” or “degrees” of both humility and pride. This chapter by Benedict could well be considered the spiritual basis of all Benedictine existenc...

This volume contains translations or summaries of the most important panegyrics in praise of Saint Bernard that were preached during the reign of Louis XIV. Some of the preachers were and are regarded as the greatest orators ever to grace the French pulpit. All the translations are extensively annotated, and there are three introductory chapters providing a necessary background for appreciating the sermons. Sixteen preachers are represented, and, with one exception, none of the material ha...

In addition to being a prolific spiritual writer and the abbot of the premier Cistercian monastery in northern England, Aelred of Rievaulx somehow found the time and the stamina to travel extensively throughout the Anglo-Norman realm, acting as a mediator, a problem solver, and an adviser to kings. His career spanned the troubled years of the civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda and reached its zenith during the early years of the reign of Henry II. In this work, Jean Tru...

In a new volume of her exegetical commentary, Sr. Aquinata Böckmann explores chapters 4–7 of the Rule of St. Benedict. They contain Benedict’s instruction of how to learn and live the spiritual art of monastic life that is focused on Christ. In her close reading of the text and its sources she pursues questions such as the following: How do general Christian rules help us to live in community? How does obedience lead us closer to Christ? How does silence build community? How does humility ...

In this intriguing new book, bestselling author Joan Carroll Cruz presents 76 mini-biographies highlighting saintly Catholics who faced intense, long-term suffering and disability with sweetness, peace and love for Jesus Christ. These stories show the triumph of God s grace where the world finds only ugliness and approaching death. They describe some lives so recent that the saint s family members are still living today, with many causes for canonization being currently active in Rome. Inc...

This book offers a complete study of the doctrine of the cross in the writings of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. Until now, this theologically rich topic has not received the attention it calls for. Anthony Lane analyzes and expounds the doctrine of the cross based on the nearly seven hundred references to the cross in Bernard's writings. Among the important topics the author explores are:* Bernard's letter against Abelard, a work of central significance for this topic* the "us...

Saint Bernard was born in 1090 near Dijon, France. He joined the fifteen-year-old monastery of Cîteaux in 1113. In 1115 he became the founding abbot of Clairvaux Abbey, whence his name, Bernard of Clairvaux. Saint Bernard was a gifted and prolific writer of theological treatises, Scriptural commentaries, letters, and many sermons. The sermons in the collection published here, styled Sermones de diversis (Sermons about Various Topics), lack the specific point of departure that char...