The New Monasticism

Overview

"There is enough guidance, connection, and wisdom in this book to keep you acting, thinking and praying for a lifetime! You would be foolish not to take advantage of it. Rory and Adam are trying to do what St. Francis wanted to do 800 years ago. Maybe now we are more prepared and even ready!" --Richard Rohr, O.F.M., Center for Action and Contemplation Albuquerque, New Mexico

"Rory McEntee and Adam Bucko, pilgrims of a new monasticism, write with reverence about our collective spiritual inheritance, and in remembrance of the singular Presence that alone fills the soul s longing. Offering a comprehensive introduction to a new monastic movement, including its pathways and transformations, Bucko and McEntee share their map of the journey to Divine awakening, honoring the monk within. This is a book for anyone who seeks the mystical cloister beyond any one form, with a monastic heart open to all creation." --Beverly Lanzetta, PhD, author, Radical Wisdom: A Feminist Mystical Theology

This book is a divining rod for the crossroads where we find ourselves. For monastic legacies in danger of extinction, for a world that has never needed them more desperately, Bucko and McEntee offer a vision that is old as well as new, rooted as well as cosmopolitan." --Nathan Schneider, author, Thank You, Anarchy: Notes from the Occupy Apocalypse.

Young leaders of the new monastic movement introduce their vision for contemplative life—one that draws from the long traditions of East and West but also seeks an interreligious and "interspiritual" dimension to intentional living in our time. With a preface by Mirabai Starr, a foreword by Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, and an afterword by Fr. Thomas Keating.

The New Monasticism introduces the "new monastic movement," offering the authors' intellectual and spiritual reflections on what contemplative life could look like in the 21st century. With chapters focusing on spiritual practice, vocation, contemplation and activism, dialogical dialogue, the relationship with traditional religious paths, contemplative psychology and the building of intentional communities, the authors seek to "cut across the boundaries of religious traditions, of contemplation and action, and endeavor to create intergenerational alliances between those immersed in the depths of our traditional religious frameworks and those who are being called to contemplative and prophetic life outside of those frameworks."

While drawing on the work of Raimon Panikkar, St. Teresa of Avila, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Ewert Cousins, Fr. Bede Griffiths, Thomas Merton, Brother Wayne Teasdale, St. John of the Cross and the Russian sophianic tradition, among others, the book also incorporates some popular modern day academic, cultural, and contemplative theorists, such as Ken Wilber and Fr. Thomas Keating, who speak to young people about creating a more sacred and just world while providing them with sophisticated tools for psychological analysis and integrated action. It also offers specific practices for a disciplined contemplative life and inspired social justice activism.

Rory McEntee serves as Executive Director of the Foundation for New Monasticism. As a contemplative “in the world” working at an intersection of spirituality, education and social justice, he helped found the Interspiritual Movement, and counts the late Brother Wayne Teasdale, Fr. Thomas Keating and The Dalai Lama as his mentors

Adam Bucko is an activist, spiritual director to many of New York City’s homeless youth, and co-author of Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation. His work has been featured by ABC News, CBS, NBC, New York Daily News, National Catholic Reporter, Shambala Sun, and Sojourners.