Reframing Religious Life

The monastic and religious life fascinates and baffles the human imagination. People admire its sense of sacrifice and unstinting service, and those more familiar with it cherish the human warmth and ardent holiness of its members. For most people, however, it is a world apart, which people neither understand nor feel any connection with. It is perceived to be for those specially chosen and we assume that they themselves know what it is all about.

The author sets out to explode all the traditional myths and perceptions of the vowed life. It seeks to revamp those elements which over the centuries have become archaic and congealed. In the process of doing so, it unearths an image of the Religious Life that seems provocatively new, although, in fact, it is rooted in very ancient traditions.

This re-imaging of the monastic and religious life is original, provocative and full of hope for the future. It stretches the imagination towards expanded horizons wherein the vowed life can reclaim its initial space and prophetic role in the evolving world of the twenty-first century