Paperback: Learn to pray as monks pray.
For nearly a thousand years, monks of the Carthusian Order have withdrawn from the world so they can place themselves in the presence of God.
Alone in their cells, they pray, work, and take their meals, freed from worldly distractions and the cacophony of thoughts that course through your mind and mine, when, at the end of busy days, we finally kneel down to pray.
A thousand years' silence has enabled the Carthusians to perfect a way of praying suited for the cloister, but it is also right for those of us whose obligations force us to work and pray in the rush and hurry of the world.
In these pages, the monk Augustin Guillerand reveals the secret of the Carthusian's remarkable prayer of the presence of God. Obviously, this way of praying excludes quick Our Fathers and hasty Hail Marys, but it also requires that we do more than pause and say our prayers slowly.
In fact, the Carthusians know that the prayer of the presence of God is not primarily a question of speed or even of speech. Like love, it is not so much a deed as an attitude - a habit of tranquil listening that allows God to enter our souls by all paths and to establish His presence there.
Failure to listen poisons love in marriages; and failure to listen poisons love of God. That is why the prayer of the presence of God is essential not just for monks, but for all of us, no matter what our circumstances may be.
Yet how can we listen in a way that allows God to enter our souls?
How can we even hear Him in the noise of our days and ways?
A thousand years of Carthusian experience in The Prayer of the Presence of God (2005) provide sure answers to these questions. Though this is not a step-by-step manual (listening cannot be reduced to steps), you will learn where you must begin and how to proceed if you are finally to bring to maturity in your own soul the habit of tranquil listening that is essential for all those who would know God and love Him as they ought.
The Prayer of the Presence of God, a 1965 translation of Face à Dieu (1956), was formerly published in 1965 by Dimension Books, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. This 2005 edition by Sophia Institute Press contains minor editorial revisions.
About the author: Dom Augustin Guillerand (1877–1945) was a French Carthusian monk. He entered the Carthusian Order at La Valsainte in Switzerland in September 1916, after his ordination. In 1935, he was appointed Prior of Vedana in Italy and convisitor of the Italian Province. In June 1940, he was forced to leave Italy due to World War II; he found refuge at Carthusian Motherhouse, the Grande Chartreuse, where he was immediately appointed coadjutor to the Father General. He held that post until his death in April 1945.
Dom Guillerand was noted for his calm, peaceful demeanour, attained by his long, continuous struggle to master his fiery nature. This serenity shows through in his writings. Despite their richness, beauty and wealth of spiritual insights, Dom Guillerand thought little of his writings, and even destroyed most of them. Fortunately a few of them, left to his nephew, have been preserved and published for the benefit of today's readers.
No comments:
Post a Comment