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Fairacres Publications 55 For centuries theology and spirituality have been divorced, as if mysticism were for the saintly and theological study for the practical but unsaintly (to paraphrase Thomas Merton). So Archpriest Louth writes: ‘The theologian is one who prays, and one who thinks about the object of his loving prayer. So, part of the formation of a theologian is the study of spirituality, not just as another branch of the history of doctrine, or whatever, but as a deepening of their own life of prayer.’ This book seeks to show that theology—even the rigorous ‘academic’ theology—and spirituality belong together and, isolated, suffer disintegration and atrophy. It does this by suggesting that contemplation lies at the heart of both theology and spirituality, and includes an examination of the place of the contemplative in the thought of Diadochus of Photicé.
An exciting new history for anyone interested in the Early Church. Drawing on recent research and newly translated texts, it sheds significant new light on the influence of Desert spirituality, introducing us to the lives of previously unknown monastic figures.
My Darling Mick is an engaging biography of a colourful Australian personality, General Sir Granville Ryrie. Much of Ryrie's story is told through a series of candid letters, written to his wife, Mary, whom he affectionately called Mick, which describing the gruelling conditions endured by Australian troops during the Boer War and the First World War.
SLG Press Contemplative Poetry 8 In 1945 Gabriela Mistral became the first Latin American author to be awarded a Nobel Prize. She was a passionate advocate for many disadvantaged groups in her native Chile, but particularly women and children living in poverty and unable to access education that might help them to improve their lives. She spent much of her life as a teacher, but her poetry reflects the people she met and the situations she encountered through her life. It speaks of a deep empathy with those around her, and of great strength of faith. Her legacy is continued by the many foundations and schools set up in her name. Gallas’s translations bring Mistral’s words to English-speaking audiences, creating new and beautiful works in the canon of literature by Christian poets.
Fairacres Publications 213 In increasingly busy and diverse lives what might it mean to live as priests, immersed in God and the world? This book explores a personal experience of ordained priesthood shaped by the Jesus Prayer in the context of the Catholic, charismatic and evangelical traditions. It explores the contemplative disciplines of Presence and Attentiveness to the overflowing life of God in all things. There is an invitation to all, ordained or not, to enter into a life stretched through the abundance of God. While realistic about the challenges we face, this book seeks to nurture hope in the God who is always at work in Christ by the Spirit.
Fairacres Publication 16 Suffering is something which no-one can escape, and when we are confronted with it, whether in ourselves or in others, we find ourselves wrestling with a baffling problem. Dumitru St?niloae shows how the deepest meaning of suffering is revealed in Christ’s unconditional acceptance of the Cross. There we see the power of God’s love which transfigures all suffering, so that the Cross becomes the symbol of victorious love.
SLG Press Contemplative Poetry 10 This is a collection of personal reflections on faith and the struggle to meet and serve God that is part of our Christian journey. Here there are no fractured poetic experiments except in the faith-struggle itself, that is, the thinking, which is the accomplishment and power of religious poetry, just as it is of religious life. This struggle is manifest here, expressed by different people with different impulses to write. Here, the little, the personal and the tightly-imagined have the most effect. The transfer of faith, doubt, struggle, praise, prayer into poetry is hard – and that struggle too is part of this collection.
Fairacres Publications 106 Sometimes the message of optimism and hope of the fourteenth-century writer Julian of Norwich is understood rather superficially. Two lectures, given at her Shrine in Norwich, which can assist our understanding of her theology are reproduced here. Kenneth Leech shows how Julian can help us to recover a sense of the goodness of creation, and he challenges superficial interpretations of her saying that ‘all shall be well’. Sister Benedicta reconsiders Julian in the light of the solitary tradition and contemporary medieval documents, suggesting that Julian may have been a widow who had borne a child.
For those who study St Anselm, his prayers provide an intimate personal introduction to his thinking and his spirituality. For Anselm, who never considered himself a teacher of prayer, his prayers were simply personal devotions that he occasionally shared with others to encourage them to develop their own devotional style. Anselm would probably have been surprised to discover not only how widely his words were disseminated, but also the ways in which their translation and interpretation changed over the centuries. This brief study, by one of the leading scholars of early monastic life and thought, examines Anselm’s prayers as models and inspiration for mystics, saints and writers up to the present day.