The Loving Struggle Between God and the Soul - Hardcover

De Los Angeles, Fray Juan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1901157261 ISBN 13: 9781901157260

Publisher: Saint Austin Pr, 2000

Synopsis

In this ground-breaking new translation of Juan de los Angeles's treatise on the spiritual life (Lucha espiritual y amorosa), one of the great sixteenth-century Spanish mystics becomes accessible to the English-speaking public for the first time.

What makes his work strikingly original is the way in which his contemplative approach is centered on the sacraments. Sometimes one gets the impression that certain mystics have found a way to God that bypasses these channels of grace, but for Juan de los Angeles, the mystical union of the human soul with our Lord is precisely a Eucharistic one; the individual believer in fact builds up the Church by his participation in this union with the One Body of Christ.

Juan de los Angeles (1532-1609) also teaches the accessibility of holiness: the universal call to contemplation of the divine mysteries. He did not place too much weight on scholarship, after all: the book ends with the charming story of Brother Giles telling the idiotic old women that if they love God they will be holier than St. Bonaventure. Holiness has never been reserved for the learned and the clever: It belongs to all those who struggle to love.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

In an age full of competing spiritualities, people are entitled to good spiritual instruction in the main-stream of Catholic teaching. Many great books are no longer available, or only in unsuitable formats, lost within inaccessible editions or in unreadable translations. The aim of this new series is to bring these great classics, many of which have been neglected in recent years, back into the public domain for use by today's Catholics. The name "HONEYCOMBE" has been chosen to represent the noble industry of the bee, which can be seen as a type of the Christian scholar, collecting wisdom from Scripture and from the Fathers and Doctors, as a bee collects nectar from many different flowers. The name also refers to the sweetness of the Law of the Lord which the Psalmist describes as "sweeter than honey from the comb".

Object: to provide sound spiritual reading for priests, lay people and religious to help them to pray and to grow in love of God and neighbour. Means: to select, translate and edit suitable writings from all periods of the Church's history, from both East and West, all in accordance with doctrinal and moral teaching of the Catholic Church; and to publish these in an attractive and durable format. Procedure: a panel of editorial advisors chaired by the Series Editor. Fr. Jerome Bertram, will suggest and select suitable texts, which will be submitted for 'Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur' "Well ordered words are as a honeycombe: sweet to the soul and health to the bones." Proverbs, 16:24.

About the Author:

Juan de los Angeles was born in the village of Corchuela in Oropesa, near Toledo, in 1532, and studied at the University of Alcala. He joined the Friars Minor before 1562, and was a member of the Province of San Josi, based in Madrid. His life and ministry were spent travelling, as a friar should, preaching, writing and hearing confessions. His first published book was the Triumphs of the Love of God (1589), followed by the Dialogues of the Conquest of the Spiritual and Secret Kingdom of God in 1593. He continued to write, despite a busy active life. The Loving Struggle came out in 1600, followed by the Spiritual Treatise of the Divine Sacrifice of the Mass (1604) and the Manual of Perfect Life (1608). By far the longest of his works is the Spiritual Considerations upon the Book of the Song of Songs of Solomon, which he published in 1607. While engaged in these works he held various offices in his Order, being Guardian of the Friary of San Antonio in Guadalajara in 1595, and in 1598 of San Bernardino in Madrid. In 1601 he was elected Provincial, a post that involved much more travelling and administration: his health was already poor, and he had to resign the post due to ill-health in 1603. Though most of his work must have lain among the poor, he was able to be spiritual director to a princess, the Infanta who entered religion under the name of Sor Margarita de la Cruz, and he preached on occasion before the imperial court. These contacts with royalty seem to have provoked some resentment among the friars, who also disapproved of his having resigned the Provincialate: this partly accounts for the obscurity into which his writings fell. He died in Madrid in 1609, having remained active in his pastoral ministry until the end.

About this edition

• Publisher: Saint Austin Pr
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1901157261
• ISBN 13: 9781901157260
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 205