Renouncing Violence: Practice from the Monastic Tradition

Written from her deep experience in the monastic tradition, Sister Mary Margaret Funk shows us that, with faith and our given vocations, we are more than strong enough to resist and renounce the violence in the world around us. This book offers, both for personal use and for the broader community, a teaching for our troubled times, a teaching that empowers the reader to renounce violence in all its bold and subtle forms. As a concrete example, Funk retrieves the practice and symbolism of using holy water to bless, cleanse, and free us from violence wherever it is emerging—in our personal lives and in our world. This practice has thrived in the monastic tradition and has a language with a voice.

Mary Margaret Funk is a Benedictine nun of Our Lady of Grace Monastery in Beech Grove, Indiana. From 1994 through 2004, she served as executive director of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue, which fosters dialogue among monastics of the world's religions. In addition to the volumes of the Matters Series, she is the author of Islam Is . . . : An Experience of Dialogue and Devotion and Into the Depths: A Journey of Loss and Vocation.