Unfortunately, we live in a world where value no longer comes from listening, but only from having ‘the last word.’ There is an unbounded desire to be heard, a desire that will always accompany us, but remain unsated.
Category Archives: ISSUE 1
Prayer is really a historical commitment: only truly contemplative men and women are able to speak a new word with their lives every day. Only men and women of prayer discover God’s passage in history; only they know how to read the signs of the times in a perspective of salvation. This is the fruit of prayer that helps us embrace this time given to us, happy to be born today, grateful for this moment in history, happy with our personal history. Prayer generates gratitude for the story we are given.
DOM STEELE HARTMANN, OCSO God’s dream for humanity is basically given for us in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, ‘in the beginning’ of the Bible: “Let us make humankind in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves.” (Genesis 1:1, 26) We are to be God’s Image on earth. Thus do we […]
MO. GERTRUDE IKEBE, OCSO As her superior, I was helping a postulant discern her vocation, as she struggled with the decision of whether to continue her monastic life. I recognized her impatience and desire for instant decisions, both of which are common in secular life today, as well as her frustration at not being able […]
Baldwin of Ford presents a paradox central to the monastic journey: the interplay of human frailty and divine fidelity. He highlights the vulnerability of prayer—the “confusion of uncertainty and ignorance”²—wherein even the righteous feel adrift, unsure if heard or what to ask.
The process of writing the icon became a spiritual pilgrimage, a journey inward to confront my own limitations and surrender to the divine mystery. Through the slow, deliberate strokes of the brush, I discovered a path to contemplation, a way to embody the Cistercian ideals of humility, obedience, and mystical union.