Monastic Studies Survey Bibliography

Monastic Studies Survey Bibliography1 Brother Columba Andrew Maynus I. Athanasius, ​The Life of Antony​. Trans. R.C. Gregg. ​Classics of Western Spirituality​. New York: Paulist Press, 1980. Athanasius presents St. Antony the Great as the most august practitioner of Christianity to date. In doing so, he fulfils three ends: the first is to set Antony’s life up an emulation of Christ’s life, thereby offering the perfect model for Christian living. The second end is to cast as much distance as possible between true Christian belief and practice—embodied in the person of Antony— and the burgeoning Arian heresy, a cause which Athanasius championed as bishop and promoter of orthodoxy. The third closely connected end is to use Antony’s fame to support Athanasius in the midst of his political persecution as a champion of neo-orthodoxy. More important than the theo-political context is Athanasius’ cementing of Matthew 19:21 as the basic call story for the whole monastic tradition. II. Augustine of Hippo, ​The Monastic Rules. ​Edited by Boniface Ramsey. With commentaries by Gerald Bonner and Sr. Agatha Mary. Hyde Park NY: New City Press, 2004. The inclusion of this text—the documents which comprise the Augustinian monastic corpus—is of vital import for the study of monasticism, both by way of content and development. Augustine offers an older and equally valid interpretation of the monastic life. While the majority of monastic and religious This annotated bibliography was submitted to the faculty of Saint John’s School of Theology and Seminary in Collegeville, MN in partial fulfilment of the Master of Arts in Theology degree. 1 expressions were propagated in rural contexts, Augustine’s monastic project found its origin and development in the city. Augustine further places special emphasis on the recognition of God’s presence horizontally as well as vertically, calling his monastics to develop relationships among each other, as well as with God. It is important to remember the presence of monasticism outside of the patristic and Benedictine traditions, a fact which Augustine’s rules makes patently clear. III. Bernard of Clairvaux. ​The Book on Loving God.​ R. Walton, trans. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Studies, 1994. Bernard’s devotional classic is a systematic meditation on the person of God and humanity’s worshipful response to God. Bernard offers three principle causes for loving God: Godself, nature, and the individual human self. These causes are expressed in a scheme of degrees, each pointing from love for oneself to love for Godself. This shift from loving oneself for one’s own sake to loving oneself for God’s sake is the most basic movement of the spiritual life, as it keeps at its core one’s own identity within the love of God. IV. Cassian, John. ​Conferences​, ​1-2, 5, 9-10, 12, 14, 18-19.​ Trans. Boniface Ramsey. Ancient Christian Writers​ (vol. 57). New York: Paulist Press, 1997. Building on the work of the Evagrius and the compilers of ​Apophthegmata Patrum, ​Cassian brings a vigorous systematizing to the wisdom tradition of the desert monastics. ​The eighteenth conference makes the claim that, in apostolic times, the whole church was a coenobium, a practice carried forward only by the monastic tradition. Given the importance of Cassian to Benedict and his ​Rule​, this perceived apostolic identity of monasticism writ large is an important factor in future development of the tradition. Also of particular note is Cassian’s departure from Augustine and Evagrius regarding celibacy, the former viewing celibacy as a perfect state unto itself and Cassian regarding it instead as a tool for the attainment of perfection. This minor variance offers a healthy distinction, one which would become muddled between its patristic origin and its post-modern reclamation following the Second Vatican Council. V. Forman, Mary, OSB, ed. ​One Heart, One Soul, Many Communities​: ​Proceedings of the 21st​ ​ Annual Monastic Institute​. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2009. This volume of contemporary lectures given by a diversity of monastic practitioners is a distillation of the entire monastic tradition, both ancient and modern, formal and informal, East and West. Its true strength is in juxtaposition, for example a married protestant minister belonging to a “new monastic” community in the South in dialogue with a celibate monk belonging to a traditional monastic community in the North. The juxtaposition of the subject and the voices provides a fecund conversation about the past, the present, and the future of monasticism. VI. Fry, Timothy, OSB. ​RB 1980​. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1981. Written in celebration of the fifteen hundredth anniversary of the birth of St. Benedict, Fry’s careful translation and commentary holds pride of place as the most accessible and definitive resource for scholarship on Benedictine scholarship. The text of the ​Rule is both intelligent and insightful, taking a balanced approach to the work of translation. The several chapters of commentary run the span of Benedictine scholarship, from the development of the ​Rule to the ​Rule​’s own role in developing the later tradition. VII. Harmless, William, SJ. ​Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism​. Oxford University Press, 2004. Desert Christians is a hagiography of the Christian desert. By offering introductory material and critical commentary on the tradition, Harmless presents a cohesive and progressive depiction of the earliest Christian monastics. In addition to critical commentary, Harmless provides primary source material by way of appendices interspersed throughout the text. These primary sources provide attentively enflesh the tradition, providing narrative accounts of ​abbas​, ​ammas​, and the desert into which they committed their whole Christian lives. VIII. Hollerman, Ephrem, OSB. ​The Reshaping of a Tradition: American Benedictine Women, 1852-1881​. Winona: Saint Mary’s Press, 1994. That American Benedictine woman are a tradition unique unto themselves is an objective fact. The facile critique of modernity and Americanization falls short, however, a fact attested to clearly by the historical evidence offered by Hollerman. The Reshaping of a Tradition details the saga of a band of women seeking to faithfully respond to their ancient tradition while adapting necessarily to their new American context. The strength of ​The Reshaping of a Tradition is the expert attention paid to the shifting political, theological, and gendered context of European monastic women living in an increasingly American Roman Catholic Church. IX. Lawrence, C. H. ​Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages​. 3rd edition. London/New York: Longman, 2000. Lawrence’s seminal text traces the development of the monastic tradition from its origin in the deserts of Syria and Egypt to its high medieval adaptation in the European mendicant orders. Lawrence pays special attention to the theological and historical act of progress, a cyclical motion from establishment to reformation and back again. This is seen, among other places, in his treatment of the inclusion of women in monasticism, the Cistercian restoration of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the mendicant project of the high middle ages. Of particular note is the epilogue, which posits the movement of monasticism to be the balance between community and self, which provides a hinge into reflection on communal and solitary experiences of contemporary monasticism. X. Leclercq, Jean, OSB. ​The Love of Learning and the Desire for God​. (3rd ed.) New York: Fordham, 1985. Leclercq challenges the cultural supposition that the Benedictine monastic life is one of societal withdrawal. The Benedictine monastic tradition, Leclercq contests titularly and textually, rests on the hinges of intellectual knowledge and spiritual devotion. The Benedictine monastic cannot fully withdraw into intimacy with God as that would unseat the attentiveness to the pursuit of knowledge, the reciprocal being equally true. Leclercq presents his case masterfully, balancing an appreciation of and dedication to scholarship and spirituality. XI. Merton, Thomas. ​The Seven Storey Mountain​. Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1970. Like all good theological literature, ​The Seven Storey Mountain is a product of particular social, historical, and religious context. Published following World War II, Merton’s naked autobiographical sketch appealed hugely to a generation yearning for the introspective peace of contemplation, posited by Merton as the heritage of the monastic tradition. Although it is recognized even today as forward-thinking in many respects, it reflects a uniquely pre-Vatican II understanding of the Catholic faith, particularly with regard to ecumenical and interreligious matters. Taken in conjunction with Merton’s later life of dedicated interfaith scholarship and practice, The Seven Storey Mountain provides contemporary readers with a case study in monastic ​conversatio. Summary of Learning The iconic depiction of the monastic—a solitary gaunt figure, swathed in a flowing black robe, brimming with wisdom, and intentionally distanced from the world—is among the most classic images in western culture, Christian or otherwise. This caricature—for it is surely just that—derives principally from a sense of vocation, spirituality, and practice innately countercultural to western consumers. To most the monastic is an outdated and out-of-touch relic of a bygone era, a savant of practical obsolescence, or a kind-though-bumbling fairytale friar. At very best the monastic is seen as an untouchable practitioner of esoteric-though-advantageous wisdom. The modern, consumeristic culture of the west simply does not know what to make of a person—let alone a community of persons—who pledges herself to the spiritual and practical tenants of stability, conversion, obedience, chastity, and poverty. The monastic life depicted in the literary corpus, however, bears no resemblance to the caricatured monk of western assumption. The monastic life—as presented in the body of literature, my graduate study, and my own personal practice as a Benedictine Oblate and friend of monastics—is a system for the development of relationships mediated by a common devotion: to God, above all, but also to the confreres with whom the monastic lives, the geographical place the monastic occupies, the spiritual teachings which guide the monastic’s life, and ultimately, to the very way of monasticism itself. In a sense, the monastic life is an exercise in realized eschatology—realized in so far as the life of God is lived in the here and now, eschatological in so far as it points to something of God which cannot yet be. The monastic life is also an incarnation of symbolism, where no gesture or word is accidental, but is rather dripping with multivalent meaning and intention. The monastic life is further exceptionally practical. Before it was a footpath to salvation, it was a scheme of ordering a disciplined and purposeful life of devotion. The themes which emerged most clearly—aside from the aforementioned spiritual realities—is the progressive nature of the monastic life and the absolute importance of relationship. By progressive, I don’t necessarily allude to politics, but rather to the process of development the monastic undertakes, from entrance as a novice to eschatological union in death. Not even the holiest, most disciplined person moves unimpededly straightforward in leaps and bounds—a fact to which the tradition powerfully attests—but rather moves forward slowly and tentatively, one step at a time. Although the word “monastic” alludes to the solitary nature of the life, the tradition points solidly toward a dependence upon relationships. While the monastic must cultivate a personal practice of prayer, study, and formation, she must also never conceive of herself as truly alone. Indeed, the power of horizontal love and affection is perpetually guarded in the life. That God cannot only—or even principally—be found in the heights of heaven or in the silence of the heart, but rather in the faces of the sick, the poor, the guest, the abbess, and the other monastics speaks powerfully to the significance of relationships in the monastic life.