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Prayer must necessarily involve a discipline, but it need not involve a system...In our prayer we must return to the primary purpose of what we are trying to do: we are trying to bring worship to God. The greatest act of worship that man can give to God is to refer back to him what God has already given. Man has nothing of his own to offer, nothing that has not been lent by God." Almost everyone who has believed in God has wondered how to pr...

Before a piece of sculpture can be called Christian we must be sure that it can be called sculpture." With the insight and charm characteristic of his spiritual meditations, in this volume Benedictine monk and artist Hubert van Zeller examines sacred art from the angle of his own artistic specialty: sculpture. First published in 1959, these reflections on the relationship of sculptor and sculpture, spirituality and artistic inspiration, rema...

In a word, the service of God is meant to be beautiful, because a true instinct of man makes him realize, even when he is in a state of retrogression and barbarism, that all that is best and noblest must be made subservient to the worship of the Lord and Creator of all." Dom Ernest Graf begins his work The Priest at the Altar with this declaration that beauty is the fundamental form of the Liturgy. The ensuing chapters vividly unfold how the...

In the hundred years that have passed since Blessed Columba Marmion's death in 1923, his contributions to the Church as handed down in his books, letters, and example have only become increasingly relevant and necessary. It was a great blessing to the Church, then, when Pope St John Paul II beatified Columba Marmion on September 3, 2000. As the pope said: 'Marmion left us an authentic treasure of spiritual teaching for the Church of our time. ...

From a young age, (now St) Pierre-Julien Eymard wanted nothing more than to be a priest. Once ordained, young Fr Eymard quickly developed a deep devotion to his Lord in the Holy Eucharist. Consumed by his great love, Fr Eymard devoted his life to increasing devotion to Jesus in all tabernacles. In this biography of the "Priest of the Eucharist", Fr Tesnière, a novice trained by St Pierre-Julien, showcases the prayerful devotion to the Most B...

Vandeur's The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass serves as an important testament to the grandeur and magnificence of the Mass. In the modern era, marked by an increasing trend of secularisation and heightened participation of the laity in the Mass, this profound meditation proves vital for the clergy and faithful throughout the Catholic Church. As it elucidates the splendour, glory, and thanksgiving inherent in this sacred rite, it also delves into t...

Love is the cause and crown of everything, but the key to everything is faith." The phrase, "I'm spiritual, not religious" is commonly heard today. Yet, as Van Zeller points out in Approach to Spirituality, there is no spirituality without true faith, and there can be no faith without true religion. He demonstrates the necessity of a life truly conformed to God, particularly through prayer, in order for spirituality to have any root or effect...

One of the vital concerns for Fr Willie Doyle in his life as a Christian and a priest was holiness, not only seeking it for himself, but encouraging it and supporting it in those he served", writes Fr John Hogan in his Introduction. Indeed, the invitation to perfection is held out to all, and Fr Willie in his pamphlets offers practical wisdom to both laity and religious in pursuing the life of holiness. With a brief introduction to Fr Willie'...

Dom Hubert, in summing up this book's theme, quotes Joubert: "How many people eat, drink, marry, buy, sell, build, make fortunes, acquire friends and enemies, enjoy pleasure, endure pain, in short are born, grow up and die-but asleep." It is this sleep which Dom Hubert desires to combat in this series of reflections upon the relations of man with his fellow humans and God. Prayer and the life of grace, married love and friendship, modernity an...

What does it mean to live as a child of God? In this book, Fr. Piotr Rostworowski offers timeless advice and spiritual counsel to a nun under his direction, aimed at helping her live a life of perfect unity with God. In simple, loving, honest language, this holy father sets out clear guidance and practical methods for how to attain perfection. Likewise, the universality of the issues with which Fr. Rostworowski deals, issues ranging from how t...

While the figure of St Benedict looms large in the landscape of saints, it is more on account of his Rule and his order than his person. Yet the life of St Benedict stands second only to the Rule itself in guiding the order throughout the course of history, "for the holy man could not otherwise teach than he himself lived." Therefore, the Little Flowers sets forth the true spirit of the order for all. Filled with stories reminiscent of the gre...

On re-reading this book, Dom Hubert confessed "to being surprised at the tone of attack which runs through a lot of it." But he continues, "I would like to say in this connexion that any blows which are met with in these pages are primarily aimed at myself. All the more combative passages were occasioned by my saying to myself: 'This won't do-it's a misconception (or a mood or a willy) and must be exploded at once.' Then I have sat down and wr...

If personal holiness is thought of as being a name at the top of a list it is understood wrong. If it is thought of as something which merits a feast in the Church's calendar it is understood wrong....There is nothing 'superior, ' in the sense of being one up on everybody else, about it. The way to think of sanctity is as something which, by being generous and faithful to grace, gives back to God the love which he has given to the soul." Whi...

Monastic life is a beginning, a becoming. It does not pretend to be anything more. It proposes a constant renewal, demanding of the soul a willingness to persevere in the light of what is shown by grace." Not seeking to romanticize monastic life but to give a plain account of the vocation, Van Zeller presents here the real joys and difficulties of monastic life that are encountered in the various stages of one's formation. Since the monk seeks...

This book invites the reader into a cloister of poems, there to look with eyes of faith through the arches of rhythm and rhyme onto the wide vistas, terrible chasms, and hazy mountains of Mystery, Beauty, and Love. Written by monks of Silverstream Priory, some poems let memory and imagination search the corners of the earth, there to glean the sorrows, hopes, and joys of men, and so present them to the Father. Others draw from the deep wells o...

The end of penance is God, not more penances. Thus the approach to penance has to be by way of love, not by way of steeling the will to toughness. Penance must have its roots in charity, not austerity." With characteristic Benedictine discretion, Van Zeller here sets straight common misapprehensions of penance, steering the reader past the Scylla of extremism on the one hand and the Charybdis of avoiding this essential virtue of the Christia...

Holy Trinity, Whom I wish to love with all my heart, with all my strength and with all my mind, I beg Thee to look upon this little Note-book and consider it as being an "Appendix of my heart", into it I shall pour out all the overflowings of my soul and shall note down all my most intense desires. May these lines be, before Thee, like a prayer forever for all who are dear to me. This Note-book then, is Thine own- "God's Notebook"-and the firs...

Born in the silence and simplicity of rural New-England, this book gathers some brief reflections and sermons of a parish Priest. The sermons fix their attention upon the Mother of God, and the author's approach is essentially liturgical. Side-stepping the language of apologetics and controversy, he studies the texts of the Roman liturgy and shares what he finds there. The meditations-concentrated and pithy-consider, beneath the light of inspi...

This book invites the reader into a cloister of poems, there to look with eyes of faith through the arches of rhythm and rhyme onto the wide vistas, terrible chasms, and hazy mountains of Mystery, Beauty, and Love. Written by monks of Silverstream Priory, some poems let memory and imagination search the corners of the earth, there to glean the sorrows, hopes, and joys of men, and so present them to the Father. Others draw from the deep wells o...

Even to me, Protestant as I am, it did seem completely suitable that an event so stupendous could scarcely be approached by any other process than that of a sacred dramatic dance, with an accompaniment of rigid and minute Court etiquette. To leave the conduct of such a thing to the individual personality and the private taste of a simple clergyman in a surplice, would be nothing else than bathos of the worst description, human outlines must be...