Download Free Abba Give Me A Word Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Abba Give Me A Word and write the review.

“I challenge you to get through a chapter of this book without a desire for God being struck in your soul. Roger Owens wears his brilliance lightly and loves words tenderly and lavishly in these pages. He is ferociously gifted, and fast becoming one of the abbas to whom the reading church often turns for a word from the Lord.” —Jason Byassee, senior pastor of Boone United Methodist Church and Fellow in Theology & Leadership at Duke Divinity School With a style and warmth of presentation that will remind readers of Henri Nouwen’s most popular work, Abba Give Me a Word interweaves the author’s personal stories of struggle – and transformation – with reflections on the history and purpose of spiritual direction. The result is a wise introduction to an ancient art and practice of “soul care” – directed at Christians of all backgrounds.
Mystics are path-breaking religious practitioners who claim to have experience the infinite, word-defying Mystery that is God. Many have been gifted writers with an uncanny ability to communicate the great realities of life with both a theologian's precision and a poet's lyricism. They use words to jolt us into recognizing ineffable mysteries surging beneath the surface of our lives and within the depths of our hearts and, by their artistry, can awaken us to see and savor fugitive glimpses of a God-drenched world.In Mystics, William Harmless, S.J., introduces readers to the scholarly study of mysticism. He explores both mystics' extraordinary lives and their no-less-extraordinary writings using a unique case-study method centered on detailed examinations of six major Christian mystics: Thomas Merton, Bernard of Clairvaux, Hildegard of Bingen, Bonaventure, Meister Eckhart, and Evagrius Ponticus. Rather than presenting mysticism as a subtle web of psychological or theological abstractions, Harmless's case-study approach brings things down to earth, restoring mystics to their historical context.Harmless highlights the pungent diversity of mystical experiences and mystical theologies. Stepping beyond Christianity, he also explores mystical elements within Islam and Buddhism, offering a chapter on the popular Sufi poet Rumi and one on the famous Japanese Zen master Dogen. Harmless concludes with an overview of the century-long scholarly conversation on mysticism and offers a unique, multifaceted optic for understanding mystics, their communities, and their writings. Geared toward a wide audience, Mystics balances state-of-the-art scholarship with accessible, lucid prose.
Father John's inspiring introduction to the spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers brings their words to life for the modern reader. These key figures of the early church chose lives of hardship and solitude, where they could point their hearts away from the outward world and toward an introspective path of God's calling in a deliberate and individual way. Contains a Foreword by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, the second highest ranking Orthodox Bishop in England.
When we pray to our Abba, we are presenting a petition on our behalf or the behalf of another. It is a plea; not a demand. In our sincerity, the Father looks at our hearts. But what is it that we are trying to do? Are we asking for something, or are we trying to see if the Father is listening to us? Take a look at the book of Proverbs 28:9, it says, "He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination." So, for all who say, the law is dead; do you think your prayer is being heard? Go to 1 Kings 8:27-29, David wanted to build the Father a temple; but the Father told him no, someone from your loins would build it. Solomon builds the temple, and he is dedicating it. It reads, "But will ELOHIM indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded?" Verse 28, "Yet have thou respect unto the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, O YAHUAH my EL, to hearken unto the cry and to the prayer, which thy servant prayeth before thee to day:" Verse 29, "That thine eyes may be open toward this house night and day, even toward the place of which thou hast said, My name shall be there: that thou mayest hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall make toward this place.' So, when we pray; we always pray towards Jerusalem. The reason why is because the Father placed his name there; this is where the temple was built, and the Father's eye would be on it night and day. Let us stay in the same book, and chapter; but go down to verse 38, it reads, "What prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands toward this house:" This is an instruction on how to pray correctly. There is a right and wrong way to do anything; although we know that in a time that we cannot pray properly; YAHUAH will hear us. However, if it is possible; there is a proper way of doing it. What is going on in verse 38 is; it is being explained how we should do it. Not only are we to face toward Jerusalem; we are to stretch out our arms. Let us look at what Solomon did in verse 22-23, it reads, "And Solomon stood before the altar of the YAHUAH in the presence of all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven:" Verse 23, " And he said, YAHUAH ELOHIM of Israel, there is no ELOHIM like thee, in heaven above, or on earth beneath, who keepest covenant and mercy with thy servants that walk before thee with all their heart:" Abba knows our hearts; He really does; it is evil from its youth, but those who walk before Him; properly, and do the things that He requires of us. He also knows that heart as well. After the temple was built, Solomon was praying to the Father in the presence of the Elders of Israel. He is explaining in this pray and instructions; that we are to pay towards the temple; forever. Go to 1 Kings 9:3, it reads, "And the Lord said unto him, I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, that thou hast made before me: I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put my name there for ever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually." There is so much more for you inside this book; click the buy now button and learn more.
`Give me a word, Father', visitors to early desert monks asked. The responses of these pioneer ascetics were remembered and in the fourth century written down in Coptic, Syriac, Greek, and later Latin. TheirSayings were collected, in this case in the alphabetical order of the monks and nuns who uttered them, and read by generations of Christians as life-giving words that would help readers along the path to salvation.
2001 Choice Outstanding Academic Title A compelling study of O'Connor's fiction as illuminated by the teaching of the desert monastics. "Lord, I'm glad I'm a hermit novelist," Flannery O'Connor wrote to a friend in 1957. Sequestered by ill health, O'Connor spent the final thirteen years of her life on her isolated family farm in rural Georgia. During this productive time she developed a fascination with fourth-century Christians who retreated to the desert for spiritual replenishment and whose isolation, suffering, and faith mirrored her own. In Flannery O'Connor, Hermit Novelist, Richard Giannone explores O'Connor's identification with these early Christian monastics and the ways in which she infused her fiction with their teachings. Surveying the influences of the desert fathers on O'Connor's protagonists, Giannone shows how her characters are moved toward a radical simplicity of ascetic discipline as a means of confronting both internal and worldly evils while being drawn closer to God. Artfully bridging literary analysis, O'Connor's biography, and monastic writings, Giannone's study explores O'Connor's advocacy of self-denial and self-scrutiny as vital spiritual weapons that might be brought to bear against the antagonistic forces she found rampant in modern American life.
What is a mystic? Bruce Epperly defines mystics as people who see holiness in everyday life. You can be a mystic without denying the joys of your physical body, fleeing society, abandoning your family, or disengaging from politics. Practical and accessible, The Mystic in You helps you become aware of the many ways you can experience God's presence in your daily life. Yes, you can be a mystic. The many faces of mysticism described in this book invite you to become the mystic that suits your personality, faith tradition, and life experience. Epperly introduces 12 individuals or groups of mystics through the ages, including some from Jewish and Muslim traditions: Saint Francis of Assisi Brother Lawrence The desert mothers and fathers The Baal Shem Tov Benedict of Nursia Howard Thurman The Celtic mystics Etty Hillesum Hildegard of Bingen Rumi Mechthild of Magdeburg Julian of Norwich Each mystic had particular spiritual experiences that shaped his or her view of God and the world. In each chapter, Epperly guides you through four spiritual practices that can help deepen your relationship with God and open you to God's movement in your life.
Were holy men historical figures or figments of the theological imagination? Did the biographies devoted to them reflect facts or only the ideological commitments of their authors? For decades, scholars of late antiquity have wrestled with these questions when analysing such issues as the Christianization of Europe, the decline of paganism, and the 'rise of the holy man' and of the hagiographical genre. In this book Peter Turner suggests a new approach to these problems through an examination of a wide range of spiritual narrative texts from the third to the sixth centuries A.D.: pagan philosophical biographies, Greek and Latin Christian saints' lives, and autobiographical works by authors such as Julian and Augustine. Rather than scrutinizing these works for either historical facts or religious and intellectual attitudes, he argues that a deeper historicity can be found only in the interplay between these types of information. On the textual level, this analysis recognises the genuine commitment of spiritual authors to write truthfully and to record realistically a world felt to be replete with spiritual and symbolic meaning. On the historical level, it argues that holy men, expecting the same symbolism within their own lives, adopted lifestyles which ultimately provoked and confirmed this world view. Such praxis is detectable not only in the holy men who inspired biography but also in the period's scattered autobiographical writings. As much a historical as a textual phenomenon, this spiritually-minded scrutiny of the world created interpretations which were always open and contested. Therefore, this book also associates spiritual narrative texts with only one possible voice of religious experience in a constant dialogue between believers, opponents, and the sceptical undecided.
In the fourth century, the deserts of Egypt became the nerve center of a radical new movement, what we now call monasticism. Groups of Christians-from illiterate peasants to learned intellectuals-moved out to the wastelands beyond the Nile Valley and, in the famous words of Saint Athanasius, made the desert a city. In so doing, they captured the imagination of the ancient world. They forged techniques of prayer and asceticism, of discipleship and spiritual direction, that have remained central to Christianity ever since. Seeking to map the soul's long journey to God and plot out the subtle vagaries of the human heart, they created and inspired texts that became classics of Western spirituality. These Desert Christians were also brilliant storytellers, some of Christianity's finest. This book introduces the literature of early monasticism. It examines all the best-known works, including Athanasius' Life of Antony, the Lives of Pachomius, and the so-called Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Later chapters focus on two pioneers of monastic theology: Evagrius Ponticus, the first great theoretician of Christian mysticism; and John Cassian, who brought Egyptian monasticism to the Latin West. Along the way, readers are introduced to path-breaking discoveries-to new texts and recent archeological finds-that have revolutionized contemporary scholarship on monastic origins. Included are fascinating snippets from papyri and from little-known Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopic texts. Interspersed in each chapter are illustrations, maps, and diagrams that help readers sort through the key texts and the richly-textured world of early monasticism. Geared to a wide audience and written in clear, jargon-free prose, Desert Christians offers the most comprehensive and accessible introduction to early monasticism.
Weaver has retrieved from obscurity the rich treasures of Christian tradition from the 1st through 20th centuries and made them meaningfully accessible for preachers, teachers, worship and study leaders, students, devotional readers, and persons interested in the history of the church.