The Way of the Heart
The Spiritual Experience of Andre Louf
Published on 22. September 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
348 pages
978-0-87907-335-0 (ISBN)
Description
Award-winning French author shares the biography and spiritual journey of Cistercian abbot Dom Andre Louf.
Based on a wide variety of interviews, printed sources, and Dom Andre Louf's spiritual journal, The Way of the Heart narrates Louf's spiritual journey from his childhood in Flanders through his becoming a monk in a Cistercian monastery, his ten years of retirement as a hermit in a Benedictine monastery in the south of France, and his death. Throughout his life he periodically struggled with conflicting vocational desires-sometimes wishing to serve as a pastor, academic, abbot, or to immerse himself in eremitic contemplation. That struggle is the leading thread through this biography, which portrays a man whose immense gifts pulled him in many directions, while always endeavoring to submit himself to God's will.
Based on a wide variety of interviews, printed sources, and Dom Andre Louf's spiritual journal, The Way of the Heart narrates Louf's spiritual journey from his childhood in Flanders through his becoming a monk in a Cistercian monastery, his ten years of retirement as a hermit in a Benedictine monastery in the south of France, and his death. Throughout his life he periodically struggled with conflicting vocational desires-sometimes wishing to serve as a pastor, academic, abbot, or to immerse himself in eremitic contemplation. That struggle is the leading thread through this biography, which portrays a man whose immense gifts pulled him in many directions, while always endeavoring to submit himself to God's will.
Reviews / Votes
"This eminently readable portrait presents Dom Andre Louf (1929-2010), a loving spiritual director, distinguished scholar, author, and translator, head of Collectanea Cisterciensia, and for thirty-five years the abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Mont des Cats. The winds of change were blowing through the Church during this period and Louf was a leader in the approach to the Eastern Orthodox and in the modernization of the Trappist order following Vatican II. Yet all his life Dom Andre longed for a life of solitude and prayer, and he spent the last twelve years his life in a tiny hermitage attached to the monastery of Sainte-Lioba in Simiane. Thanks to the author's abundant use of extracts from Louf's personal journal, the reader walks this path with Dom Andre in a small way, to his own eternal benefit."Jean Truax, Independent scholar "This fascinating biography of Andre Louf gives evidence of a modern experience and language about an old Christian tradition of the individual's searching and finding the divine presence in the human person-a modern mysticism. The book vividly describes Louf's life-journey all the way from the superficial and social exterior through his interior desert and misery of self-knowledge in loneliness to the depth of his heart where he is embraced by the divine sweetness and mercy. This most relevant book shows Louf's understanding that the human person fundamentally is a spiritual being in whom the divine light and life from Christ is found in the depth of the human heart."
Dr. Aage Rydstrom-Poulsen, University of Greenland "Charles Wright had substantially researched the life and works of Dom Andre Louf when one day he noticed three school notebooks negligently placed near a yellow folder in the archives of the Abbey of Mont-des-Cats: Dom Andre's spiritual journal, spanning the entire course of his monastic life, his most intimate dialogues with God. Excerpts from this journal have been inserted into the story of Dom Andre's life, a man so gifted in so many areas, any of which could have easily led to superficial 'success;' but it was only by repeatedly saying 'not my will' that he could access that hidden ground of the heart where the Spirit breathes so purely. Perhaps the essence of his vocation lay in his lifelong emotional peregrinations; perhaps the real gift he has left us today is revealing the way he dealt with them so honestly, consenting to be only the work of the Lord, built with the debris of the masterpieces of his own dreams."
Joanna Dunham, OCSO "In The Way of the Heart, Wright uncovers the motive and desire within the heart of one who gave himself so enthusiastically to the unhindered search for God."
Cistercian Studies Quarterly "Charles Wright's study is a fine introduction to an outstanding son of St. Benedict in our own time."
American Benedictine Review
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Collegeville, MN
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
434 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-87907-335-0 (9780879073350)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
09/2024
1st Edition
LITURGICAL PRESS
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€84.99
Available for download
Persons
Charles Wright is a French writer, journalist, and a former Jesuit novice. His earlier book, Le Chemin des Estives, narrates his journey through the Massif Central, in south-central France. That book won the fourth annual Prix de la liberte interieure in 2021.
Brian Kerns, OCSO, is a monk at the Abbey of the Genesee in upper New York state. He spent five years at Genesee's foundation of Novo Mundo in Parana, Brazil. For many years he worked in the libraries of Genesee and Novo Mundo. He has translated two previous works with Cistercian Publications: Dom Gabriel Sortais, an Amazing Abbot in Turbulent Times (2006), and the six volumes of Gregory the Great's Moral Reflections on the Book of Job (2014-2017).
Brian Kerns, OCSO, is a monk at the Abbey of the Genesee in upper New York state. He spent five years at Genesee's foundation of Novo Mundo in Parana, Brazil. For many years he worked in the libraries of Genesee and Novo Mundo. He has translated two previous works with Cistercian Publications: Dom Gabriel Sortais, an Amazing Abbot in Turbulent Times (2006), and the six volumes of Gregory the Great's Moral Reflections on the Book of Job (2014-2017).
Content
Contents
Translator's Preface xi
Introduction xiii
Chapter 1 Infancy of a Contemplative 1
Chapter 2 "All Is done, and All Begins" 21
Chapter 3 The Roman Escape 37
Chapter 4 Discovering the Internal Man 47
Chapter 5 The Grace of Collectanea 57
Chapter 6 A Solitary Soul 67
Chapter 7 Habemus Abbatem 85
Chapter 8 A Flemish Staretz 99
Chapter 9 The Exegete of Aggiornamento 107
Chapter 10 The Book of Experience 125
Chapter 11 Spiritual Accompaniment 143
Chapter 12 A Carthusian Heart 169
Chapter 13 A Hesychast Abbot 187
Chapter 14 Toward the One Undivided Church 205
Chapter 15 Oracle of the Trappist Order 225
Chapter 16 Renunciation 247
Chapter 17 The Hermit of Saint-Lioba 261
Epilogue 285
Sources 295
General Bibliography 309
Notes of Gratitude 315
Translator's Preface xi
Introduction xiii
Chapter 1 Infancy of a Contemplative 1
Chapter 2 "All Is done, and All Begins" 21
Chapter 3 The Roman Escape 37
Chapter 4 Discovering the Internal Man 47
Chapter 5 The Grace of Collectanea 57
Chapter 6 A Solitary Soul 67
Chapter 7 Habemus Abbatem 85
Chapter 8 A Flemish Staretz 99
Chapter 9 The Exegete of Aggiornamento 107
Chapter 10 The Book of Experience 125
Chapter 11 Spiritual Accompaniment 143
Chapter 12 A Carthusian Heart 169
Chapter 13 A Hesychast Abbot 187
Chapter 14 Toward the One Undivided Church 205
Chapter 15 Oracle of the Trappist Order 225
Chapter 16 Renunciation 247
Chapter 17 The Hermit of Saint-Lioba 261
Epilogue 285
Sources 295
General Bibliography 309
Notes of Gratitude 315