LETTERS FROM THE DESERT
Product Description
Subtitle: Two Centuries on Prayer in the Byzantine Tradition
Author: Cliff Ermatinger. 160 pg. PB.
The Desert Fathers of the East, the Church's first monks and hermits, left the tumult of cities for the silence of uninhabited spaces. But it wasn't solitude per se that they sought. It was a place ”in the world and in their interior life” where they could practice contemplative prayer with focus and discipline. Their ultimate goal: intimacy with God.
Many of the monks who followed after them wrote down their thoughts and observations. With Letters from the Desert, Father Cliff Ermatinger guides us into their minds. A collection of 200 brief yet profound quotes from the monks' writings, this book opens the Byzantine monastic experience to everyone inclined to try it.
Those who do so via these selections will be richly rewarded. "My intent is not to come up with the right answer to the question "what is prayer?", writes Father Ermatinger in his introduction, "but to assist the reader in [the] inward and upward journey toward the Face of Christ.
About the Author Chicago native, Father Cliff Ermatinger, LC is a simple priest of many hats. A Thomist, Father Cliff is a gritty rugby player, a regarded bagpiper, an enthusiast of P.G. Wodehouse and the Three Stooges, as well as an accomplished linguist: he fluently speaks English, Spanish, Italian, Latin and German. Above all, Fr. Cliff is a faithful priest who is passionate and ardent about his work; I m a priest of Jesus Christ and that s all I really want to be.