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Flirting With Monasticism: Finding God on Ancient Paths
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$ 13.20
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| Retail Value |
$ 15.00 |
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| Item Number |
48196 |
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Item Description...
This is a love story.Girl meets boy. Boy joins a monastic order. Their relationship sets a young woman on a much different path than she ever imagined.Woven together in Karen Sloan's Flirting with Monasticism are two stories of love and commitment: her exploration of monastic spirituality set against the yearlong journey of a novice class of men preparing to join the Dominican order. Each breathlessly confusing but ultimately fulfilling step leads to unexpected treasures: new ways to pray, a deeper experience of Christian community, and closer communion with God. |
Item Specifications...
Pages 162
Dimensions: Length: 8.3" Width: 5.54" Height: 0.6"
Weight: 0.45 lbs.
Binding Softcover
Release Date Dec 1, 2006
Publisher IVP-InterVarsity Press
ISBN 0830836020
EAN 9780830836024
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Availability 1 units.
Availability accurate as of May 26, 2012 01:49.
Usually ships within one to two business days from La Vergne, TN.
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Reviews - What do our customers think?
 | 3 stars Jan 5, 2007 |
*** Fascination with a young Dominican novitiate monk leads the author to learn about the contemplative life, and in this slim volume, she shares her findings about the monastic life. What begins as longing for an impossible romance becomes a romance with a facet of worship that she had never imagined. In that quest, she gives readers an image of Christian unity, reminding Protestants that there are valuable aspects to the Catholic life that we might be missing. ***
Amanda Killgore, Freelance Reviewer | | |  | Rediscovering Monasticism Dec 18, 2006 |
This is a wonderfully auto-biographical search for Christian community which starts with the prospects of connecting with a potential husband, but points toward a spousal relationship with Christ in monastic community.
Ms. Sloan taps into a need that has been constant since the foundations of God's creation: "it is not good for man to be alone." This community life finds its first realization in the human family as it embodies trinitarian love: the two become one and this one begets three.
Yet, this is a need that human family cannot fully satisfy: the need for communion with God and Him alone. This need has borne fruit in God's calls to the solitary life of hermits and also to the communal monastic tradition.
While these communities flourished from the 5th through the early 20th centuries, the monastic life has seen a serious decline these days. What's more, the general Protestant turning-away from the traditional Christian practice of celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom has largely hidden monasticism and cloaked it as some kind of forgotten medieval superstition.
Yet, the desire to live the Christian life in a radical way has not abated. More and more people are desiring to live this life in communities of like-hearted souls.
People are REDISCOVERING the long-standing monastic tradition of the Church.
This story is a story of Ms. Sloan DISCOVERING monasticism. She narrates her story to us with a tremendous willingness to open up the journey of her heart so that she might share with us the fruits of her contemplation--to use a Dominican motto.
You will find in this book a "way in" to the life of monastic spirituality. She shares her delight, frustration, hesitation, and exhileration over so many different or strange practices: the wearing of a habit, the Mass, the Rosary, Eucharistic Adoration, life lived in community, vows, obedience to a superior, etc.
Encountering all of these practices in her experiences with the Dominicans, Ms. Sloan does not simply describe them as though she's writing a history or sociology textbook. Rather, she wonderfully recounts her experiences of these practices and what they meant to her and how they changed her as she walked this path in her mega-church--seminary--pastoral shoes.
Her "flirting" with Brother Emmanuel was an interesting part of this book. At times it was clear that Ms. Sloan was sharing some very personal parts of her journey with the reader. This intimate sharing was suprising and gave me the feeling of accompanying her in many of the experiences: discovering them, delighting in them, and crying over them at times.
As a Catholic I was somewhat annoyed with the editorial practice of not capitalizing the words, "Mass," and "Church." Certainly not capitalizing "church" comes out of theological reasons, but the "Mass" is a proper name for Catholic worship--my apologies if that sounds nit-picky to some.
Yet, I always felt that Ms. Sloan treated Catholicism with a sympathetic heart, even when she didn't see eye-to-eye with this or that practice or belief. There is no sense of judgment in Ms. Sloan's story--it is, as she says, a love story...and it is simply delightful to share this journey with her.
Catholics can also rediscover so much of their heritage from sharing this journey with Ms. Sloan. Sometimes it takes a foreigner to explain it to the natives.
Perhaps this is a challenge to Catholics to step out and learn from our brothers and sisters who have been separated from us for too long.
To Protestants: for those of you familiar with the "spiritual disciplines," this book is a great way to DISCOVER how some of these "disciplines" are lived-out in the community life of a Catholic order. | | | Write your own review about Flirting With Monasticism: Finding God on Ancient Paths
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