Discerning Vocations To The Apostolic Life The Contemplative Life And The Eremitic Life

Throughout the spiritual journey, God’s love engenders within every Christian active, contemplative, and solitary inclinations. Consequently, each person wants to do some good, to have a basic receptivity to God, and at times to be alone with God. As life unfolds, God’s love also calls forth within a person an overriding attraction toward one of those three orientations, which in due course impels the individual toward a corresponding vocational lifestyle: an apostolic life, a contemplative life, or an eremitic life. In this book, the authors identify the core features of those three vocational lifestyles. In light of each vocational core, they then discuss an ensemble of signs and patterns that point to an authentic calling from God. This study offers wisdom and insight to those pondering the mystery of their personal vocations, to those discerning their vocational direction, and to spiritual directors, formation personnel, ecclesial leadership, and Christian educators who accompany them in their quest.

The Protestant doctrine of vocation has had a profound influence on American culture, but in recent years central tenets of this doctrine have come under assault. Vocation: Discerning Our Callings in Life explores current responses to the classic view of vocation and offers a revised statement and application of this doctrine for contemporary North American Christians. According to Douglas Schuurman, many Christians today find it both strange and difficult to interpret their social, economic, political, and cultural lives as responses to God's calling. To renew this biblical perspective, Schuurman argues, Christians must recover the language, meaning, and reality of life as vocation, and his book helps do just that. Developed in dialogue with audiences as diverse as college students, industrial workers, business leaders, church leaders, and professional theologians and ethicists, the book examines the theological and ethical dimensions of vocation as these have been understood historically and in relation to our modern social setting.

Father Cornelius Wencel, Er.Cam. was born in Gosty , Poland, in 1964. He made his final vows as a Camaldolese hermit in 1993 and was ordained priest in 1999. He now serves as prior and novice master at the Hermitage of the Five Martyrs in Bieniszew, Poland. Father Cornelius has published four books in Polish, and this is the first one to be translated into English. He received a doctorate in theology in 2004, successfully defending his dissertation on "The Trinitarian-Christological Perspective of Theological Anthropology in the Theodramatic of Hans Urs von Balthasar". The author profits from the insights of Balthasar, Kierkegaard, Merton, and various contemporary Polish thinkers. Topics treated in this book include seeking God, existential openness, discipline, simplicity, contemplation, interreligious dialogue, and ecology.

What do you really want to do with your life? Who do you want to be in your life? How does God speak to you about your life? This volume, like the Catholics on Call program at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, raises these important questions. The highly respected essayists shed light on the variety of vocational paths in the church while providing insights about discernment, ministry, and prayer. They seek to offer young men and women information, guidance, and inspiration as they discern a life of ministry, and help them to discover that discerning a vocation is not a matter of choosing the more appealing of a variety of options; rather, it is an openness to discovering God's will. Contributors: Robin Ryan, CP, editor Thomas P. Rausch, SJ Donald Senior, CP Sheila McLaughlin Robert Schreiter, CPPS Charlene Diorka, SSJ Bishop Robert Morneau Stephen Bevans, SVD

If you have ever wondered about how hermits live, or if you are an active participant in the eremitical life, then its time to make this ultimate resource guide part of your book collection. Written by the editors of Ravens Bread, an international quarterly newsletter that provides guidance on hermit life, Consider the Ravens is a seminal study on eremitism as it has developed since the 1950s. Learn about All aspects of the vocation, including spiritual, practical, and juridical Hazards of the hidden life Practical recommendations for beginners in eremitical life Extensive citations from desert fathers and mothers Exploration of eremitical spirituality. Essentially, youll learn about the eremitic life straight from the hermits themselves, and its never an easy task to get their opinions and advice! The voices of many of todays hermits can now be heard loud and clear for the first time. Find the answers to your questions about a vocation as old as spirituality itself and discover why eremitism is becoming more popular than ever in Consider the Ravens.

The monk Grimlaicus (ca. 900) wrote a rule for those who, like himself, pursued the solitary life within a monastic community. Never leaving their cell yet participating in the liturgical life of the monastery through a window into the church, these enclosed" sought to serve God alone. Beyond the details of horarium, reception of newcomers, diet, and clothing, Grimlaicus details practical measures for maintaining spiritual, psychological, and physical health, and for giving counsel to others. Scripture, the Rule of St. Benedict, and the teachings of early ecclesial and monastic writers form the kernel of Grimlaicus's wise and balanced rule, presented here for the first time in English translation. Andrew Thornton is a monk of Saint Anselm Abbey and associate professor in the department of Modern Languages at Saint Anselm College, where he teaches German language and Chinese philosophy. He is organist in the abbey church. He translated the poems of the twelfth-century recluse Ava, the first woman to write in a European vernacular (The Poems of Ava, Liturgical Press). "

The American trappist monk outlines means of reorganizing monastic life to meet the needs of contemporary man

What is the good work to which I am called? Gordon T. Smith acknowledges that this is not a simple question to answer in the midst of our very complicated lives. That's why he has written this brief and accessible book—to help us explore six core questions we need to ask in order to discover our calling, in community with God and others.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.