Lectio Matters

Lectio Matters PDF Author: Mary Margaret Funk
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 0814635059
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Lectio divina is a way of praying by sustained immersion into a revelatory text. While Scripture is the classic place of encounter with God, the text could also be the book of life or the book of nature. InLectio Matters, respected spiritual guide Meg Funk accompanies the reader in exploring the various levels of lectio divina as taught by the ancient church writers and by sharing her own long experience. By means of this wisdom both ancient and new, lectio divina can become our burning bush, a real encounter with the living God, in which we take off our sandals and bow our brow to the ground.

Lectio Matters

Lectio Matters PDF Author: Mary Margaret Funk
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 0814635059
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Get Book Here

Book Description
Lectio divina is a way of praying by sustained immersion into a revelatory text. While Scripture is the classic place of encounter with God, the text could also be the book of life or the book of nature. InLectio Matters, respected spiritual guide Meg Funk accompanies the reader in exploring the various levels of lectio divina as taught by the ancient church writers and by sharing her own long experience. By means of this wisdom both ancient and new, lectio divina can become our burning bush, a real encounter with the living God, in which we take off our sandals and bow our brow to the ground.

Discernment Matters

Discernment Matters PDF Author: Mary Margaret Funk
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 0814634699
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
After fifty years of monastic life, prayer, and spiritual direction, Meg Funk knows what it means to listen with the ear of one's heart to the Holy Spirit. InDiscernment Matters, she shares what she has learned. This book is a resource for those who want to learn and practice discernment as taught by the early monastic tradition. It includes an accessible summary of teachings about discernment from monastic traditions of late antiquity, consideration of important tools for making decisions today, and practical examples from the lives of St. Benedict and St. Patrick, as well as from the experience of monastics today. With this fifth volume of the Matters Series, Funk completes one of the most comprehensive presentations of the spiritual life available today, demonstrating why this inner work is both necessary and such a joy. Mary Margaret Funk is a Benedictine nun of Our Lady of Grace Monastery, Beech Grove, Indiana. From 1994 through 2004, she served as executive director of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue, which fosters dialogue among monastics of the world's religions. In addition to the volumes of the Matters Series, she is the author of Islam Is... An Experience of Dialogue and Devotion and Into the Depths: A Journey of Loss and Vocation.

Thoughts Matter

Thoughts Matter PDF Author: Mary Margaret Funk
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 0814634923
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Cassian taught that real intimacy with God in prayer demands renouncing one's former way of life, the thoughts belonging to that former way of life, and one's very idea of God. In Thoughts Matter, Mary Margaret Funk focuses on the second of these: renouncing the thoughts belonging to one's former way of life. Her eight chapters focus on different thoughts"-food, sex, anger, dejection, acedia (profound weariness of the soul), vainglory (taking credit for good actions), and pride. Funk explains well how failure to control these thoughts can undermine our spiritual life, and she instructs readers on how effectively to overcome these thoughts and to focus instead on thoughts in harmony with God's will. The result is an experience of joy, hope, and freedom from enslavement to our appetites. Readers will come away enlightened, strengthened, and inspired to delve more deeply into a life of intimacy with God.

Tools Matter

Tools Matter PDF Author: Mary Margaret Funk
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 0814634931
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
How can we tend the garden of our souls? Meg Funk turns to the wisdom of the desert fathers for the means of removing obstacles to spiritual growth, which include thoughts of food, sex, possessions, anger, dejection, and pride, among other preoccupations. Redirecting thought away from such weeds in the garden of the spirit can lead to a greater awareness of God and purity of prayer. This method to mental discipline may seem impossible at first, Funk admits, but those who succeed at it are rewarded with a liberating experience as they come to observe and control individual thought processes. Drawing on the writings of the fifth-century monk John Cassian, Funk goes on to explore deeply using such tools as memory, imagination, and rational thinking-tools right out of early Christianity-to work on inner healing. She also explains how other positive tools, such as ceaseless prayer, manual labor, and isolation, may lead to uncluttering the mind and purifying the heart. Mary Margaret Funk is a Benedictine nun of Our Lady of Grace Monastery, Beech Grove, Indiana. From 1994 through 2004, she served as executive director of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue, which fosters dialogue among monastics of the world's religions. In addition to the volumes of the Matters Series, she is the author of Islam Is…: An Experience of Dialogue and Devotion and Into the Depths: A Journey of Loss and Vocation.

Humility Matters

Humility Matters PDF Author: Mary Margaret Funk
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 081463513X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Humility Matters makes the claims that humility is for a disciple of Jesus Christ what enlightenment is for a Buddhist, realization for a Hindu, surrender for a Muslim, and righteousness for a Jew. It is the unmistakable character of one who has accepted the vocation to undertake the spiritual journey. It is at the core of our experience of life in Christ. Meg Funk guides readers deeper into a life of humility by following the movement of what the early Christians called the four renunciations: to renounce our former way of life, our thoughts of our former way of life, our self-made thoughts of God, and our self-made thoughts of ourselves. With the help of the compelling examples of St. Benedict, St. Teresa of Jesus, and St. Therese of Lisieux, Funk shows the way to ongoing conversion of mind, heart, and way of life. Mary Margaret Funk is a Benedictine nun of Our Lady of Grace Monastery, Beech Grove, Indiana. From 1994 through 2004, she served as executive director of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue, which fosters dialogue among monastics of the world's religions. In addition to the volumes of the Matters Series, she is the author of Islam Is... An Experience of Dialogue and Devotion and Into the Depths: A Journey of Loss and Vocation.

The Stories We Live

The Stories We Live PDF Author: Cahalan, Kathleen A.
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802874193
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
"Christian vocation," says Kathleen Cahalan, "is about connecting our stories with God's story." In The Stories We Live Cahalan rejuvenates and transforms vocation from a static concept to a living, dynamic reality. Incorporating biblical texts, her own experience, and the personal stories of others, Cahalan discusses how each of us is called by God, to follow, as we are, from grief, for service, in suffering, through others, within God. Readers of this book will discover an exciting new vocabulary of vocation and find a fresh vision for God's calling in their lives.

Sacred Reading

Sacred Reading PDF Author: Michael Casey
Publisher: Liguori Publications
ISBN: 9780892438914
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Casey offers fascinating insights into how the prayerful experience of lectio divina can be sustained and invigorated by the techniques of sacred reading--techniques distilled from the author's deep acquaintance with the Bible and the ancient books of Western spirituality.

Gates Unlatched: An Ecumenical Spirituality Within the Academy

Gates Unlatched: An Ecumenical Spirituality Within the Academy PDF Author: Otis Edgar Hamm, Jr.
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1621897338
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 145

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Book Description


Pathway to Our Hearts

Pathway to Our Hearts PDF Author: Thomas Collins
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781594712654
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 139

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Book Description
Drawn from Archbishop Thomas Collins popular monthly lectio divina series at St. Michaels Cathedral in Toronto, Pathway to Our Hearts invites readers to listen to the word of God and examine what it tells them about loving God with their mind, heart, and hands. With the Sermon on the Mount as his focus, Collins welcomes readers into a nourishing encounter with the word of God, adapting the ancient practice of lectio divina for todays Catholics. At this time of revival of the tradition of lectio divina, including a strong endorsement by the 2008 Synod on the Word, Collins models a simple approach that anyone can take to reading scripture. Collinss friendly, conversational manner encourages the reader to learn to listen to the text, allowing Gods voice to speak to the heart. From his long experience of teaching the Bible, Collins offers readers expert advice on praying with the scriptures, but most importantly he models it, and those who thirst to draw close to Gods word will find refreshment in these pages.

Into the Depths

Into the Depths PDF Author: Mary Margaret Funk
Publisher: Lantern Books
ISBN: 1590562763
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
In January 1984, Sr. Mary Margaret Funk, a Benedictine nun from Indiana, paid a visit to Maryknoll missionary nuns working in Bolivia. On what should have been a routine trip to the local town for a convocation ceremony, a flash flood swept away the jeep in which she, three nuns, a priest, and a disabled boy they had adopted were traveling. Only she and the priest survived. What happened that night catapulted Sr. Meg into twenty-five years of prayer and self-examination. She relentlessly explored her relationship with the transcendent and immanent God, the profundities of her religious tradition, her commitment to spiritual practice, and her very human failings. It was a journey that left her spiritually naked before the terrible love of God; a journey to keep one's heart open to the transforming wounds of suffering. In the great tradition of spiritual confessions from Augustine to Thomas Merton's The Seven-Storey Mountain, Into the Depths is a fearlessly honest and simply told account of one woman's struggle to engage at the deepest levels with the most profound questions of faith.