Entering the Twofold Mystery
On Christian Conversion
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- $25.99
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
A book about the insight, comfort, and direction our troubled age can find in monastic wisdom.
Erik Varden published The Shattering of Loneliness in 2018. Now, with the world in the throes of uncertainty and turbulence, he helps us interpret the signs of the times, convinced that the perennial experience of monks and nuns has much to teach us.
The principles of monasticism have become attractive to many, awakened as we are to the importance of integrity, the pursuit of peace, asceticism as a path to freedom, hospitality and contemplative seeing.
After a deeply personal introduction, Varden invites us to consider what makes a monk. He then takes us on a pilgrimage through the Church's year, drawing on Scripture, tradition and literary and religious figures of our time.
Varden lets the reader discover the generous breadth and depth of a monk's outlook on life. In so doing he provides inspiration, enjoyment and enlightenment in equal measure.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Trappist monk and bishop Varden (The Shattering of Loneliness) muses about a contemporary devout approach to life in this sophisticated treatise. Through homilies, scriptural analysis, and biographical sketches of saints, Varden shares lessons for everyday Catholics as he reflects on the monastic life and explores its history and traditions. On following divine principles, the author describes the examples set by Jesus in the gospels and Saint Benedict in his precepts, suggesting that "the bedrock of obedience... is determined goodwill exercised with resolute trust." Varden also takes readers through a year of his reflections with journalesque meditations on Christian holidays, such as when he unpacks the "proto-Lent" story of Satan tempting Jesus in the desert and observes that "even the truth, the Gospel truth, can be twisted if taken out of context." The author assumes from his readers a high degree of familiarity with the Bible and historical works of Catholic exegesis, meaning that specialists will get the most out of this. Still, Varden's erudition in this edifying work of Catholic monasticism should earn him comparisons to Edith Stein.
