Cistercian Publications imprint: 72 books

This is an annotated translation of the classic Description de l’abbaye de La Trappe, the most important eye-witness account of life at the abbey of La Trappe under Armand-Jean de Rancé. The work includes a map showing the physical layout of the abbey and detailed discussions of the monks’...

This book introduces a beautiful fourth-century Coptic discourse on love and self-control in its first English translation. The text’s heading attributes it to Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, but this attribution is questionable. Exploring issues of authorship and context, this book locates the...

Saint Columban: His Life, Rule, and Legacy contains a new English translation of a commentary on the entire Rule of Columban. Columban was a sixth-century Irish monk who compiled a written rule of life for the three monasteries he founded in France: Anegray, Luxeuil, and Fontaines. This volume also...

Gregory the Great (+604) was a master of the art of exegesis. His interpretations are theologically profound, methodologically fascinating, and historically influential. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in his exegesis of the Song of Songs. Gregory’s interpretation of this popular Old Testament...

For three decades, Monastic Practices has been a valued resource for English-speaking aspirants to monastic life. In this revised edition, updated and expanded, Charles Cummings, OCSO, explores the common practices of the monastic life in order to rediscover them as viable means of leading persons...

This volume contains Saint Bernard's sermons for the liturgical seasons of Lent and Easter. Included are sermons for the Purification, Septuagesima, the feast of Saint Benedict, and the feast of the Annunciation, all of which are interpreted by Bernard in light of the paschal mystery. In the sermons...

The Vita Christi of the fourteenth century Carthusian, Ludolph of Saxony, is the most comprehensive series of meditations on the life of Christ of the late Middle Ages. Ludolph assembles a wealth of commentary from the fathers of the church and the great medieval spiritual writers and weaves them...

During the Middle Ages the act of reading was experienced intensively in the monastic exercise of lectio divina 'the prayerful scrutiny of passages of Scripture, savored in meditation, memorized, recited, and rediscovered in the reader's own religious life. The rich literary tradition that arose from...

Hildegard of Bingen (1098 '1179) describes the virtue of Fortitude teaching the other virtues in the fire of the Holy Spirit. Like Fortitude, Hildegard was enkindled by the Holy Spirit and edified many with her teaching. Hildegard of Bingen's Homilies on the Gospels are here translated for...

As founding abbot of Clairvaux, Bernard's giftedness and good judgment made him an often-sought resource by both church and secular powers, and in that capacity, he was sometimes delightful and sometimes dismaying to those who encountered him. But when it comes to prayer, says Maureen F. McCabe,...

A monastery is not just for monks. Laypeople enjoy visiting monasteries and learning from the women and men who live there. The silence of the monastery is a retreat from the clatter and bluster of city and suburb. In No End to the Search Mark Plaiss, married with a wife, children, and grandchildren,...

In his introduction to this commentary on the Rule of Benedict, Abbot Georg Holzherr offers this analogy: “The Rule is comparable to an old heavy red wine that is enjoyed in small sips. . . . Head and heart, soul and mind should taste the words of the Rule, just as the eye enjoys the color of the...

In his chapter on the procedure for the reception of new brothers, Saint Benedict makes provision for entrusting them to the care of "a senior who is skilled in winning souls who will diligently pay attention to them in everything" (58.6). In The Art of Winning Souls: Pastoral Care of Novices,...

Saint Bernard was born in 1090 near Dijon, France. He joined the fifteen-year-old monastery of Cîteaux in 1113. In 1115 he became the founding abbot of Clairvaux Abbey, whence his name, Bernard of Clairvaux. Saint Bernard was a gifted and prolific writer of theological treatises, Scriptural commentaries,...