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The Our Father
Fairacres Publications 169 The Our Father, or Lord’s Prayer, is Jesus’ own teaching on prayer. Many commentaries have been written on this central prayer of Christianity, from the early Church to the present day. Sister Benedicta Ward chooses five writers from the third to the sixteenth centuries: Origen, John Cassian, the Venerable Bede, Alcuin of York and Teresa of Avila. She allows them to shed light on the Our Father in their own words, in a scholarly, yet accessible, book which affirms the Christian journey as one of pilgrimage, of being and becoming. Although our humanity is redeemed through the death and resurrection of Christ, each of us has to appropriate this fact entirely personally, in our prayer and in our lives.
Give Love and Receive the Kingdom
From the greatest living expert on the history of English spirituality comes the most expansive collection ever published of her work “Sister Benedicta is uniquely qualified to write on the beauties and subtleties of Anglo-Saxon writing about the Christian life. These wonderfully crafted pieces give an invaluable introduction to this world of thought and prayer and image.” —Rowan Williams From the spirituality of Cuthbert, to Bede and the Psalter, Anselm the monastic scholar, and the depths of Julian of Norwich, from twelfth century hermits, through medieval pilgrimage, and by illuminating seventeenth century preachers, this volume is Benedicta Ward’s magnum opus. With a title drawn from the writings of St. Anselm—a beautiful summary of the Christian life—this book is designed to both inspire and educate.
Anselm of Canterbury
For those who study St Anselm, his prayers provide an intimate personal introduction to his thinking and his spirituality. For Anselm, who never considered himself a teacher of prayer, his prayers were simply personal devotions that he occasionally shared with others to encourage them to develop their own devotional style. Anselm would probably have been surprised to discover not only how widely his words were disseminated, but also the ways in which their translation and interpretation changed over the centuries. This brief study, by one of the leading scholars of early monastic life and thought, examines Anselm’s prayers as models and inspiration for mystics, saints and writers up to the present day.
A True Easter: The Synod of Whitby 664 AD
Fairacres Publications 151 Sister Benedicta gives an illuminating account of the Synod of Whitby 664 AD, held to discuss the date on which Easter should be celebrated. The Synod has been presented as a clash between Irish and Roman missionaries representing two different kinds of Christianity, yet the two traditions mingled with no clear-cut nationalistic divisions. All participants were agreed upon the centrality of Easter as the feast of the Resurrection, and through looking together towards Jesus as the risen Lord, they resolved their difficulties.
JULIAN OF NORWICH
None
The Spirituality of Saint Cuthbert
Fairacres Publications 117 Sister Benedicta bases this essay upon the life of one of the Celtic saints who first lived the Christian faith in the British isles, namely Cuthbert of Lindisfarne (634-87 AD). Using two early biographical writings, she explores the meaning of ‘spirituality’ in the life of Cuthbert with reference to the gospel. We are given a picture of the compelling and enduring power of love and holiness.
Prayer and Thought in Monastic Tradition
Examines social contexts of the Gospel and Epistles of John from the perspective of sociolinguistic theory of register, with reference to the Johannine Community model.
THE WISDOM OF THE DESERT FATHERS SYSTEMATIC SAYINGS from the ANONYMOUS SERIES OF THE APOPHTHEGMATA PATRUM
Sister Benedicta notes in her Introduction that ‘the virtues and obligations inherent in the gospel for all are presented in the literature of the desert in stark and vivid colours, like a poster in their clarity’. In this collection of Sayings from the desert tradition arranged under subject headings, the monks and nuns of fourth-century Egypt show us that the spirituality of the desert is for everyone. Their teaching speaks to any who follow the way of Christ; it is concerned more with action and behaviour than with mystical experience, with compassion, forbearance, self-knowledge and facing inner conflict.
The Monastic Hours of Prayer
Fairacres Publications 178 The heart of monastic prayer is based in the psalms. In these essays, Sister Benedicta Ward examines the origin and development of the use of the Psalter in the daily worship of monks. She demonstrates that the traditional description of this activity as Opus Dei should be understood as God’s work in us, not our ‘work’ of prayer. The Psalter offers both monk and non-monk prayers of great intimacy and, in the context of the Offices, a way to reorder our understanding of time. She presents ‘an example of the possibility of a unity of life and prayer here and now in time’. This study makes a noteworthy contribution to the literature on monastic history and spirituality and the Christian life of prayer.
Pilgrimage of the Heart
Fairacres Publications 137 From the earliest times pilgrimage has provided an image of the inner life of Christians. In its external aspect it became an ever more popular form of devotion throughout the Middle Ages. The two concepts were not simple alternatives, for the several strands within each were constantly interwoven. With a wealth of illustration, Sister Benedicta Ward demonstrates that while countless Christians sought to improve their material lot by undertaking pilgrimages to the shrines of the saints, they could also find in the monastic ideal the pattern for their own inner journey to the heavenly Jerusalem. She shows, finally, how the two major conceptions of pilgrimage were given a new direction in the sixteenth century when, in the wake of the Reformation which abolished the custom, Lancelot Andrewes and John Bunyan would portray the Christian pilgrimage as ‘life itself, the end indeed death and the way the way of the cross’. This remains true for all of us who today go on pilgrimage in whatever guise … but ‘however severe and demanding the life of pilgrimage might be’, arrival at the goal is ‘delight, pleasure, wonder and love’.
