In matters of religion and spirituality the simplest phrases can be the most misleading. Or, if not misleading, misunderstood. There is no doubt that this is true of the Cistercian tradition. As Sister Edith Scholl writes in the introduction to this volume: When I started reading and studying the writings of the twelfth- and thirteenth-century Cistercians years ago, I was struck by their rich vocabulary of Latin words 'words rich with resonances from...

Those who knew him, above all monks, will find Dom Anselme Le Bail again in these pages with warm gratitude. Those who have not known him will encounter his vital and original character. Both of these will be surprised and come to admire a man and a monk who has integrated a healthy humanism into a concrete ideal of his religious vocation.Fr. Dieudonne Dufrasne, a Benedictine monk of Saint Andre de Clerlande, has read, listened to, and allowed the...

In 2003 Trisha Day spent three months living inside the enclosure of Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey, a community of twenty Cistercian nuns. Although she had long been monastic associate, she was startled by the unexpected challenges and insights that emerged as the weeks went by, and began a process of profound reflection on her experience. Now, drawing on her journals and reflections, and on her own experience as a professional woman, wife, daughter,...

At Home with Saint Benedict is a selection of the author's conferences on Saint Benedict's Rule for Monasteries delivered to the monks of Assumption Abbey of Ava, Missouri, when he was abbot there. The author's intention was simply to share with his brother monks what Saint Benedict through his sixth-century Rule might have to offer monks of the early twenty-first century. It is hoped that these conferences will now speak to men and women outside...

Augustine Roberts is a New England Yankee, transplanted by circumstance first to Argentina and then to Rome, from where frequent travel took him to nearly every part of the globe. The historical era into which he was born, so fraught with personal and communal soul-searching, also made him wrestle with al the tensions of the contemporary church and world. Finding the Treasure tells of Dom Augustine's conversion to the Catholic Church while attending...

As founding abbot of Clairvaux, Bernard's giftedness and good judgment made him an often-sought resource by both church and secular powers, and in that capacity, he was sometimes delightful and sometimes dismaying to those who encountered him. But when it comes to prayer, says Maureen F. McCabe, OCSO, Bernard can only delight. Anyone who gives him a chance will discover teachings full of unction and spiritual discernment. He draws us to continual...

The Sun at Midnight offers a splendid, easily accessible summary of mystical theology in the Cistercian school. Bernardo Olivera, a master of both the theology and the practice of the spiritual life, analyzes this tradition first in its rich human, biblical, and doctrinal connotations, and then according to its most typical expressions as they are lived among Cistercian mystics, with reference also to other Christian men and women. Olivera explores...

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...

The Song That I Am: On the Mystery of Music is a short but full-to-the-brim essay on the decisive role that great music (whether Bach, Tavener, or Gregorian chant) ought to play in the spiritual life. With admirable restraint, Élisabeth-Paule Labat shares her interior experience of music and thus continually opens up fresh vistas through worlds of sound and spirit.  With her uncanny gift of language, Labat precisely describes soundings and...

Dom André Louf was abbot of the Trappist-Cistercian monastery of Mont-des-Cats in northern France from 1963 to 1997. This book brings together talks given to a variety of audiences in which he shared his spiritual experience from both his life of prayer and his life in community. Each chapter offers inspiring insights on the spiritual experience, the priority of love, and other areas of our Christian life: community life, obedience, prayer, psalms,...