beyond the immeasurably marvelous ME

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Oct 24, 2005

Haven't read the book, but I'm well-disposed toward the author. The title is Four Benefits of the Liturgy, and the author's name is given as "a Benedictine Monk." This usage is not an innovation but a restoration, a return to the traditional monastic practice of crediting publications simply to "a Carmelite," or "a religious of La Trappe," etc.

One of the ideals of classical monastic life was the "death to self," according to which monks and nuns tried to tuck in the ego by mortifying its hunger for attention. Occasions of personal conspicuousness were subsumed, when possible, into the collective. Like many traditional practices, anonymous authorship largely disappeared in the tsunami of self-actualization psychology that sloshed through the Church in the 1970s. Glad to see it's making a comeback. (Tip to The New Liturgical Movement.)