In the 1950s and ’60s, Thomas Merton, a monk of the Trappist monastery of Gethsemani in Kentucky, published a string of books that are among the most influential spiritual books of the twentieth century—including the mega–best seller The Seven-Storey Mountain. He was something of a rock star for a cloistered monk, and from his monastic cell he enjoyed a wide and lively correspondence with people from the worlds of religion, literature, and politics. During that period he also explored and wrote extensively on Buddhism, Sufism, art, and social action. The man to whom he owed obedience in the cloistered life was a much more traditional Catholic, his abbot, Dom James Fox. To say that these two men had a conflicted relationship would be an understatement, but the tension their differences in orientation brought actually led to creative results on both sides and to a kind of hard-won respect and love. Roger Lipsey’s portrait of this unusual relationship is compelling and moving; it shows Merton in the years his imagination was taking him far beyond the walls of the monastery, and eventually, literally to Asia.

Thomas Merton is one of the most important spiritual voices of the last century. He has never been more relevant as new generations look to him for guidance in addressing some of life's biggest questions: how can we find God, how should we engage with other faiths, and how can we oppose violence and injustice? Looking carefully, one can find, tucked away in Merton's prodigious writings, his response to another timeless question: Why do we suffer? Why does an all-powerful and all loving God permit evil and suffering? By carefully examining all of Merton's work, we find that he repeatedly confronted this question throughout most of his adult life. Intriguingly, Merton's approach to this question changed dramatically a few years before he died in 1968. An examination of all aspects of his life yields evidence that Merton's immersion in Zen during this time contributed most to that change.

The Sacred Art of Marriage explores married life as an art studio with fifty-two tools to creatively craft your spiritual life together. Drawing upon the fourth chapter of The Rule of St. Benedict, this book offers married couples fifty-two weeks of spiritual practices and ancient wisdom to deepen your marriage. Newlywed couples planning and preparing for married life will encounter in this book a variety of creative plans and patterns to put into practice, including daily, weekly, seasonal, and annual patterns of healthy, married living. Journeying through a year of marriage, readers move seasonally through this four-part book, from Summer, into Fall, through Winter, and around to Spring. In The Sacred Art of Marriage, you'll discover ancient wisdom and practical ways to deepen your spiritual life together across seasons as you grow together in God's gift of marriage.

Sister Jeremy Hall, O.S.B., a member of Saint Benedict's Monastery, lived as a hermit for 20 years. During that time she gained renown as a wellspring of wisdom and gifted retreat leader.

Prayer is effective when we observe biblical proceedings and respect the laws of God; it is warfare against the enemy of our life and destiny. Curses can be defeated and destroyed when we submit ourselves to scriptural truth. Seeking solutions to matters that are curse-oriented demands that one engage the enemy involved in warfare. Wars cannot be fought to finish instantly without major preparations, and the enemy cannot be defeated or destroyed without effective strategies. For those facing this type of conflict Strategic Deliverance Solutions: Discover and Destroy Ancestral Curses contains the essentials for a rewarding prayer life. Dr. Pauline Walley-Daniels informs, trains, and equips Gods army before marching us off to spiritual wars. She writes to the heart of the matter in this guide, based upon the study of the book of Esther from the Bible. She explores the meaning and the impact of curses and considers how to break and uproot curses in the realm of warfare and confrontation. Strategic Deliverance Solutions: Discover and Destroy Ancestral Curses explains how to trace the root, and source of affliction. It also teaches on how to undertake a solution-oriented mission in order to conquer the problem.

At Home with Saint Benedict is a selection of the author's conferences on Saint Benedict's Rule for Monasteries delivered to the monks of Assumption Abbey of Ava, Missouri, when he was abbot there. The author's intention was simply to share with his brother monks what Saint Benedict through his sixth-century Rule might have to offer monks of the early twenty-first century. It is hoped that these conferences, published here, will now speak to men and women outside the monastic cloister. This book is a door to the chapter room of Assumption Abbey. Readers are invited to open the door, sit down with the monks and their abbot, and feel at home with Saint Benedict. Mark A. Scott, OCSO, is a monk of the Trappist-Cistercian Abbey of New Clairvaux, Vina, California, which he entered in 1978. From 2000 to 2008 he served as appointed superior and then abbot of Assumption Abbey, Ava, Missouri.

Thomas Merton proclaimed, over sixty years ago, that we were living in a post-Christian world. Since then, in an increasingly secular society where the influence of the institutional church is under doubt, Thomas Merton's reflections are more salient than ever. David Oberon's discussion and analysis brings this mystic, monk and spiritual leader's view of the opportunities presented to Christians by cultural changes to the forefront, focussing on how the individual's witness can take precedence. Oberon situates the reader in the current cultural context, and handles Merton's work with care and clarity. He illuminates Thomas Merton's unique view of his own society, which credibly speaks to our present, aiding Christians in navigating a post-Christian, post-truth world.