A Loving World: Monastic Perspectives on Contemplative Awareness in Love and Life Volume 74

A rich compendium of twenty first-century monastic thought, providing a spiritual foundation for a loving world.

This book compiles presentations shared at an annual symposium on contemplative awareness at the Fetzer Institute over several decades. The renowned monks and nuns in the Benedictine tradition featured in A Loving World explore shared understandings among the world’s great religions and offer monastic perspectives on life and love. The wide-ranging essays offer deep spiritual reflections on topics from contemplation and the human place in the cosmos to the Big Bang's part in our shared participation in the world as we know it.

By way of the lived experiences of people in relationship with one another and with God, the contributors weave in wisdom from theologians, saintly figures, poets, and authors from many periods and cultures, to present a rich compendium of twenty first-century awareness of monastic life that expresses and encourages movement on the spiritual journey. This is timely reading for anyone seeking to dive deeper into their own spiritual understanding of God’s continual creation and creative power working within their lives and in our communities.    

Contributors:
Fr. Michael Casey, OCSO – Dom Erik Varden, OCSO – Fr. Casey Bailey, OCSO – Dom Bernardo Bonowitz, OCSO+
Dom Gregory Polan, OSB – Sr. Grace Remington, OCSO – M. GilChrist Lavigne, OCSO
Fr. Isaac Slater, OCSO – Dom Bernardus Peeters, OCSO – Dom Joseph Boyle, OCSO

Marsha L. Dutton is the executive editor of Cistercian Publications. Emeritus professor of English at Ohio University, she is the author of many articles and book chapters on a variety of Cistercian subjects. Dutton is also the editor of A Companion to Aelred of Rievaulx (1110–1167) (Brill, 2017), of four volumes of Aelred’s works in translation, and of “Aelred of Rievaulx” and (with Tyler Sergent) “The Cistercians” in the Oxford Bibliographies in Medieval Studies. Her sixteen presentations on Aelred for Schola Cisterciensis appear on YouTube.