Purity Of Heart In Early Ascetic And Monastic Literature

These essays honor the memory of Juana Raasch, O.S.B. (1927-1974), one of the first Benedictine women in America to consider the subject of early monasticism by returning to the texts and sources of the early ascetical movements. A student of classical languages as well as monasticism, she researched in particular the subject of "purity of heart" in early Christian texts. Her work is a valuable resource for those interested in monastic movements or in patristic studies.

A study of how Christians understood the Holy Spirit in the 5th and 6th centuries. Humphries argues that we can see various schools of thought within Christianity in this period, but that many of them are occupied with similar questions about how to understand human life and how to understand divine life.

The Pelagian Controversy (411-431) was one of the most important theological controversies in the history of Christianity. It was a bitter and messy affair in the evening of the Roman Empire that addressed some of the most important questions that we ask about ourselves: Who are we? What does it mean to be a human being? Are we good, or are we evil? Are we burdened by an uncontrollable impulse to sin? Do we have free will? It was comprised by a group of men who were some of the greatest thinkers of Late Antiquity, such as Augustine, Jerome, John Cassian, Pelagius, Caelestius, and Julian of Eclanum. These men were deeply immersed in the rich Roman literary and intellectual traditions of that time, and they, along with many other great minds of this period, tried to create equally rich Christian literary and intellectual traditions. This controversy--which is usually of interest only to historians and theologians of Christianity--should be appreciated by a wide audience because it was the primary event that shaped the way Christians came to understand the human person for the next 1,600 years. It is still relevant today because anthropological questions continue to haunt our public discourse.

This book probes the texts of Paul Ricoeur and Edith Stein to disclose the role of silence in the creation of meaning. To understand and live out of contemplative awareness as a way to think through transformative human experience is an ethical and spiritual task, one that warrants explanation and interpretation.

Aiming to develop a less studied literary genre, this book provides a well-rounded picture of spiritual and physical diseases and their remedies as they were ingrained in the imagination and practices of Middle Eastern Abrahamic cultures, with a special emphasis of Christian communities (Greeks/Byzantines, Syrians, Armenians, Georgians, Ethiopians). The volume traces traditions dealing with the onset of a disease in the body and soul, the search for remedy, the maintenance of healing, and the engagement of these processes with faith—either through their affirmation in the public sphere or remaining within the personal framework, as in monastic traditions. A recurring presence in religious literature and the history of the intellectual world, the confrontation between disease and healing may well still be current for our modern understanding of the paths to seeking and maintaining the health of one’s body and soul, without excluding the factor of faith as a core principle.

What does it mean to live for God alone? “Prefer nothing to the love of Christ”; “My God and my all”; “God alone suffices”—these statements from the saints express the single desire that unified their hearts and gave direction to their lives. “God alone” was the constant theme of Saint Rafael Arnaiz (1911–1938), the expression of the search for God that informs any monastic vocation. Saint Rafael was profoundly and thoroughly a monk, even though ill health repeatedly forced him to leave the monastery, and he was never formally professed. With his single-hearted love for Christ and for the Blessed Virgin, he faithfully walked a path of trials and suffering that matured his faith, sharpened his longing, taught him to wait and to hope in God, and opened his heart to love. To Live for God Alone invites the reader into the compelling story of Rafael’s personal journey and into his penetrating insight into the cross and the Christian vocation.