Becoming Fire: Through the Year with the Desert Fathers and Mothers (Cistercian Studies Series) (Volume 225) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0879075252 ISBN 13: 9780879075255

Publisher: Cistercian Publications, 2009

Synopsis

The insights of the desert monks of the fifth and sixth centuries amaze, and startle, readers by their wisdom. Among other things, they teach that the first step in overcoming our sinfulness is an honest perception of things as they are." By arranging these "words" in short Daily readings, Tim Vivian invites modern readers to savor the monks' advice, as did those who collected these sayings, rather than dismiss them as a fascinating but irrelevant bit of history.

Tim Vivian is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at California State University, Bakersfield. He is the author of numerous books and articles on early Christian monasticism, including The Life of Antony (with Apostolos N. Athanassakis) and Words to Live By: Journeys in Ancient and Modern Egyptian Monasticism, both published by Cistercian Publications.

About this title

Review:

This book is indeed for all those who want to deepen their spirituality by entering into this wisdom of the desert day by day, story by story.Catholic Books Review

Becoming Fire would make a good addition to any Christian’s library . . . here is a whole book full of good words.Commonweal

Anyone familiar with this always intriguing, often provocative yet consoling literature will smile at hearing again well-loved, well-known sayings. . . . I am grateful not only to Tim Vivian and the other translators for bringing these words to us but also to Cistercian publications for making them available in this excellent volume.Cistercian Studies Quarterly

This is a fascinating and inspiring collection.CR

The desert tradition is a tradition for our time, and we could do worse than allow the wisdom of the desert to shape our Christian sensibility. After all, we, too, live in a wilderness—cities and suburbs can be a wilderness just as much as any desert—and the fathers and mothers can help show us the way. Savor this book and pray with it: it is really worth it.Episcopal Life

Savor this book and pray with it: it is really worth it.The Very Reverend Peter Eaton, Saint John’s Cathedral, Denver, Colorado

About this edition

• Publisher: Cistercian Publications
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0879075252
• ISBN 13: 9780879075255
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 544
• Editor: Vivian Tim