Theology in Practice: A Beginner's Guide to the Spiritual Life

What is theology? It is nothing more, or less, than the study of God. All who pray are, in a sense, theologians. All who believe in Christ are called not only to sanctity, but to theology. "Be transformed by the renewal of your mind" (Rom 12:2).

Yet the field of theology, as taught in universities, can sometimes look like a distant abstraction, reserved for an intellectual elite. This cannot be not the case. To prove it, Cistercian Fathers Roch Kereszty and Denis Farkasfalvy of the University of Dallas, both veteran spiritual directors, bring us Theology in Practice: A Beginner's Guide to the Spiritual Life.

Guiding readers from the first inklings of God's presence, to the fire of married love, to the miracle of the Eucharist, and even to the hour of death, this book completes the circuit between theological study and human experience. Never before has the Church believed as strongly as she does today that spirituality must, like leaven, penetrate and transform the ordinary, "average" walks of life. It ought not be limited to those who withdraw from the world.

This unique work, written by two longtime friends and brothers in religious life, draws on the riches of the Cistercian founder Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—and with him the whole tradition of the Church Fathers—to communicate Christ's peace to hearts and minds.

Fr. Roch Kereszty, O.Cist., was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1933, during Communist rule. He escaped to Rome to study theology and was ordained a priest in 1960. He earned his doctorate from the Benedictine University Sant'Anselmo and taught theology for fifty-six years at the University of Dallas and the Cistercian Preparatory School. He lives and works as a spiritual director at the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Dallas, where he served as the novice master between 1975 and 2010. He has authored or edited fourteen books.