Award-winning French author shares the biography and spiritual journey of Cistercian abbot Dom André Louf.
Based on a wide variety of interviews, printed sources, and Dom André Louf’s spiritual journal, The Way of the Heart narrates Louf’s spiritual journey from his childhood in Flanders through his becoming a monk in a Cistercian monastery, his ten years of retirement as a hermit in a Benedictine monastery in the south of France, and his death. Throughout his life he periodically struggled with conflicting vocational desires—sometimes wishing to serve as a pastor, academic, abbot, or to immerse himself in eremitic contemplation. That struggle is the leading thread through this biography, which portrays a man whose immense gifts pulled him in many directions, while always endeavoring to submit himself to God’s will.
Contents
Translator’s Preface xi
Introduction xiii
Chapter 1 Infancy of a Contemplative 1
Chapter 2 “All Is done, and All Begins” 21
Chapter 3 The Roman Escape 37
Chapter 4 Discovering the Internal Man 47
Chapter 5 The Grace of Collectanea 57
Chapter 6 A Solitary Soul 67
Chapter 7 Habemus Abbatem 85
Chapter 8 A Flemish Staretz 99
Chapter 9 The Exegete of Aggiornamento 107
Chapter 10 The Book of Experience 125
Chapter 11 Spiritual Accompaniment 143
Chapter 12 A Carthusian Heart 169
Chapter 13 A Hesychast Abbot 187
Chapter 14 Toward the One Undivided Church 205
Chapter 15 Oracle of the Trappist Order 225
Chapter 16 Renunciation 247
Chapter 17 The Hermit of Saint-Lioba 261
Epilogue 285
Sources 295
General Bibliography 309
Notes of Gratitude 315
Height:216
Width:140
Spine:22
Weight:709.00