Only through the body does the way, the ascent to the life of blessedness, lie open to us. – St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on the Song of Songs The Song of Songs has long held a privileged place ...

Part two of a three-part series. The dwindling number of vocations to priesthood, religious orders and monastic life make it clear that traditional religious life no longer speaks to newer generations ...

JUDY VALENTE, correspondent: Seventy-eight-year-old Sister Phyllis is near death. Over a period of three days around the clock, the sisters have been taking turns keeping vigil at her bedside. SISTER ...

Christian monks once saved the cultural treasures of the western world from barbarian invasions, and now a major four-day conference in Rome is examining how modern culture affects monasticism. “We’ve ...

Our world seems to be increasingly fractured. Sadly, our Church is becoming increasingly fractured as well. We’re still reeling from the festering wound of the sexual abuse crisis. We’ve seen recent ...

Many Catholics and Protestants are looking back to Benedict for the community and spiritual intensity they can’t find in modern culture. Christians struggling for sanctity in a too-comfortable world ...

The monastic alternative, at least in the West, has become so deeply unfashionable that most people no longer consider the possibility, but there is, at least to me, something deeply appealing about ...