Strangers To The City: Reflections On The Beliefs And Values Of The Rule Of Saint Benedict

Paraclete Press (MA), September 2005. Paper Back. Very Good. Michael Casey is a Benedictine monk writing for monks. So what business do the masses have reading him? Well, to quote a Benedictine scholar, ''Casey knows what Benedict is trying to say. And he knows how to apply it to the modern world.'' Crunched for time and often lacking spiritual, intellectual, and emotional resources, we (being the Church as a whole) are nonetheless called--as St. Benedict advised his monks, to be ''strangers to the actions of the age.'' Brother Casey invites us to enter into the monastic experience where the universal struggle of divine grace and human sinfulness is played out day after day, an experience in which the reality of weakness and precariousness can help us cling to Christ in faith and hope of a victory we've yet to see with our own eyes. Casey's is an invitation to Gospel living, and he incisively re-presents what St. Benedict envisaged as the monk's toolbox, reflecting on the implements of a good tradesman: asceticism, leisure, reading, chastity, poverty, community, contemplation, liturgy, and perseverance. These tools, Casey believes, help us in the ''relentlessly grinding process'' of self-transcendence so that we might reach (or at least aim for) the kingdom of God. Light rubbing to the covers, binding firm, text pristine. Previous owner's name on flyleaf.