This book brings together God's call, the cries of the world and of the earth today, and charisms in consecrated life in a way that dynamically engages the vows, prayer, community, and ministry for the particular time and contexts in which we live. Here is a valuable theological and pastoral resource for the conversion, transformation, and revitalization needed in consecrated life today.
Written by a diverse group of younger women religious from North America, In Our Own Words offers a collection of essays on issues central to apostolic religious life today. The thirteen authors represent different congregations, charisms, ministries, and histories. The topics and concerns that shape these chapters emerged naturally through a collaborative process of prayer and conversation. Essays focus on the vows and community life, individual identity and congregational charisms, and leadership among younger members leading into the future. The authors hope these chapters may form a springboard for further conversation on religious life, inviting others to share their experiences of religious life in today's world.
Sandra Schneiders continues her rethinking of the traditional religious vows in the context of postmodernism, reaching back into the gospels for the meaning of ¿world¿ in order to discern the meaning of renunciation of the ¿world¿ by religious, examining, the vow of poverty both in its economic and spiritual sense as well as the vow of obedience.
This seminal work surveys the historical rise and fall of religious orders and congregations and reveals an unfolding pattern that gives hope for the present and future.
A guided tour through the fascinating history of Catholic religious orders From their monastic prehistory in the Egyptian desert through their political heyday in Medieval and Renaissance Europe to their present-day work of education, human care, and the pursuit of social justice, the Catholic religious orders have been a driving force in Western civilization. In The Lord as Their Portion Elizabeth Rapley paints a broad portrait of the full spectrum of religious orders spanning the vast canvas of their history. Rapley shows how religious orders led the way in learning and inventiveness throughout the early periods of Western civilization. She explores how religious orders contributed to Western politics and the global spread of Christianity. She examines the ways in which religious orders have championed the poor, marginalized, and disenfranchised throughout history and gives attention the ongoing work of religious orders today. More than simply highlighting the sweeping progress of monasticism s past and present, however, Rapley also takes time to share, in a clear and engaging fashion, the fascinating stories of many of the men and women who chose to take the Lord as their portion and whose piety, devotion, and energetic pursuit of a holy life profoundly shaped the course of history.
John-Francis Friendship spent twenty-five years as an Anglican Franciscan friar. Drawing on the whole breadth of monastic history and experience, he looks at core aspects of monastic and religious life and applies its practical wisdom for living well in today’s world. Chapters include: • Knowing your heart’s desire and pursuing it; • Counter-cultural living – the spirit of poverty, chastity and obedience; • Clothing yourself in Christ – getting into holy habits; • Living in community – how to get along together; • God in all things – seeing the whole world as divine; • For the sake of the kingdom – serving those in need; • Living with thanksgiving – shaping the eucharistic life. What Do You Seek? draws on spiritual wisdom accumulated over the centuries to offer inspiration and courage for living with integrity and hope today.
This gorgeously written memoir, A Long Retreat, tells the story of one man's search for his religious calling-a search that led him to the Dominican Republic and Central Europe, to Moscow and the South Bronx, and finally into married life with a woman whose search for God coincided with his own. In 1990 Andrew Krivak-poet, yacht rigger, ocean lifeguard, student of the classics-entered the Society of Jesus. The heart of Jesuit training is the Long Retreat, thirty days of silence and prayer in which the Jesuit novice reflects on the Gospels and tests his desire for the priesthood. For Krivak, eight years of Jesuit formation turned out to be a long retreat in its own right, as he tested all his desires-for poetry, for travel, for independence, for love-against the pledge to do all "for the greater glory of God." And in this deeply affecting book the long retreat becomes a pattern for our own spiritual lives, enabling us to embrace our desire for solitude and perspective in our own circumstances, the way Krivak has in his new life as a husband, father, and writer. The search for God is finally the search for oneself, St. Augustine wrote. Krivak's story pushes past the awful stories of scandal in the Catholic Church to reveal why a modern, forward-looking man would yearn to be a priest. Unlike those stories, it has an happy ending-one in which we can recognize ourselves.
This is the first book in English on priesthood in religious life to be published in twenty years. Its fourteen contributors search for new ways forward in the understanding of the distinct identity and ministry of religious men—committed to community, the prophetic lifestyle of vows or promises, and the particular charisms of their congregations—who have also answered the call to priesthood. Essays in this collection include reflections from a bishop, from the perspective of a lay theologian, from an expert in the social sciences, and on Pope Francis’s teachings on priesthood. Included as well are essays that are rooted in particular cultural traditions, in spirituality, and in canon law.
Are religious women in the United States disappearing and finally dying out? Or is there any new way of religious life emerging? Conversations at the Well tries to respond to this question. In the twenty-first century of the global world, newly emerging religious life would be rooted with the Jesus Movement and develop in the spirit of collaboration, networking, and intercultural living. As the liminal space, religious life is located at the margins, subverting the existing social order and creating a new vision for the world. This book explores an alternative meaning of religious life within the context of the apostolic mission. In this new religious life, the concept of community is not limited to living as a community in the convent, but extended into collaborating friendship. Primarily, the apostolic religious life is deeply related to social justice, delinking the global capitalism in which many people suffer from human trafficking, immigration, and exile. The new leader of religious women would require skill in handling uncertainty, amplifying resources, and opening to the new reality. In this new religious life, spirituality would be articulated as freedom and liberation to let go of the old frame, as well as letting the new life become reality. In this way, as radical disciples, religious women in the twenty-first century embody the Jesus Movement, building bridges between different cultures and people.
