Overview

Benedictine monastic spirituality has emerged as an antidote to the spiritual and cultural challenges facing people of faith today. In this book, the author focuses specifically on GRACE, and the benevolence of God as it expresses itself in many different ways along our spiritual journey. What is a person likely to experience when beginning to give up him or herself conscientiously to the spiritual journey? In this beautiful guide, gradually, we come to realize that everything that happens in our lives is somehow the gift of our loving Father. Every journey is ultimately individual. As Casey explains, what you hear within your own spirit is more significant than what he can say. But his aim is to help you listen to the voice of God in your heart.

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9781640600645

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Reviews

Listening to the Voice of God in Your Heart A Review of Grace: On the Journey to God Michael Casey Reviewed by Mark Jenkins in Englewood Review of Books With everything that Michael Casey does, I can't help but wonder when he finds time to sleep! He is one of the most widely sought after, erudite, and respected priests active in the world of Roman Catholic monasticism. A select bibliography of his books and articles spans ten full pages, covering more than 45 years of publication. Fr. Casey has lectured and led retreats in more than forty countries on 6 continents. He was a primary force and the principal author behind the 1990 revision of the The Constitutions and Statutes of the Order of Cistercians of Strict Observance. He served as prior of the Tarrawarra Monastery in Australia from 1988 to 2003 and vocation director from 1998 to 2012. He has written extensively on the care and formation of novices and has contributed significant, substantial scholarship to the field of Benedictine studies. Given all this, I approached his latest work, Grace: On the Journey to God(Paraclete Press, 2018) expecting to be guided by a wise and insightful mind. And, in almost every way, that expectation did not go unmet. These chapters are drawn from various retreats Casey has led in religious communities around the world. As such, they delve deeply into matters of the spiritual life, leading the reader to focus upon fifteen discrete, yet related aspects of the spiritual journey. The opening chapter, The Grace of Discontinuity, is one of the strongest, reminding the reader that conversion is always the starting point for the spiritual journey. Our spiritual lives are permeated with a discontinuity that is conversion. Casey adroitly notes, however, that because conversion has its origin outside ourselves, mostly it is unwelcome (7). With the exception of the appropriateness of beginning with a chapter on Conversion and concluding with chapters on Community and Communion, there seems little reason for the reader to feel compelled to take this book in the order in which it is presented. There is an almost unavoidable unevenness to the chapters, likely due to their having been composed at different times and for different audiences. I was especially appreciative of the chapter on the leisure, which Casey calls a time and space of freedom and recuperation, in which the deep self can find fuller expression and, eventually, reach its perfection (147). Drawing upon the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (of TED Talks fame) and his psychological concept of flow, Casey builds an effective case for the essential quality of leisure for the spiritual life. Leisure is purposeful and personal activity, he writes, that aspires to be marked by flow. It is not slackness or idleness or the pursuit of recreational activities. It is, above all, being attentive to the present moment, open to all its implications, living it to the full (151). Likewise, in his chapter, The Grace of Faith, Casey offers keen insight into the nature of prayer. Prayer, he suggests, could almost be defined as a period in which we deliberately give up control--and maybe that is why we are so reluctant to engage in it (131). In many such places throughout the book Casey exhibits an understanding, not only of prayer, but also of the very human condition of the one who prays. This book is not without its share of problems. As I have already noted, it is drawn from material developed for, and aimed at, what the author calls religious communities. It seems likely that most, if not all, of those communities are Roman Catholic, specifically Roman Catholic monastic houses. Because of the many similarities between the author's life and that of Thomas Merton, Casey is often compared favorably with him. There were numerous points when I found myself reminded by him of something in Merton. And, likely because of their similar ecclesial backgrounds, there was a certain je ne sais quoi about the book that felt oddly familiar. My youth was highly influenced by Merton and this was familiar terrain and comfortable territory. Still, fifty years have passed since Fr. Merton last put pen to paper and some parts of the book have an almost doctrinaire quality with a strong adherence to tradition that, as a 21st century reader, I found unsettling.

I find Michael Casey to be our present-day Merton. Grace reveals why Fr. Michael is such a beloved spiritual mentor for so many. He weaves diverse sources into his own pondering, with wisdom gained from decades of living monastic life. He has much to offer to anyone who yearns for a down-to-earth relationship with God. A gentle, spiritual master--journey with him! --Laura Swan, author of The Forgotten Desert Mothers and The Wisdom of the Beguines

Author Information

Michael Casey, OCSO, has been a monk of Tarrawarra Abbey, Australia, since 1960. After completing a degree in Scripture at Leuven, he received his doctorate from Melbourne College of Divinity for a study of desire for God in the writings of Bernard of Clairvaux. For the past decades he has been engaged in exploring different aspects of monastic spirituality, writing, and giving conferences throughout the English-speaking monastic world. His books include Strangers to the City (Paraclete, ISBN 978-1612613970) and The Road to Eternal Life.

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