A Book on Cistercian Spirituality and Trappists in the Philippines

Contemplative Experience

This book by a Cistercian abbot and monk helps us to understand what the contemplative experience is through three sources: Scripture, the teaching of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and the teaching of non-Christian monks and spiritual masters.

The author of the book

The author of the book is a Vietnamese Trappist monk who has been assigned to be the abbot of a monastery in Guimaras, Iloilo, Philippines. He intended the book for his brother monks, but states in the book that it can be of interest as well to others. He humbly writes that it is a small work that expresses biblical insight and the subtlety of Oriental wisdom.

(Blogger's note: Trappists are Cistercians who follow a stricter Rule)

The contemplative experience

Not many are called to be true contemplatives, since the majority of vocations in the Church are meant to work and live with a busy schedule in the world. But as people made in the image and likeness of God, there is a basic contemplative core in each one that one can always enter into and benefit from an experience of the divine. This inner core or 'Ground of our being', as Vietnamese Trappist author Joseph Chu Cong calls it, is where one encounter God.

A spiritually valuable, unique and special book

The book is unique and special because it helps the reader understand the contemplative experience from the Bible's point of view - both Old and New Testament, and from the teaching and experience of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and teaching and experience of non-Christian monks and spiritual masters. The blending of these three sources has created a very unique context in understanding the contemplative experience.

Topics

Below are the topics:

• Contemplative experience - What is it?
• Sources of contemplative experience
• Sacred scripture: Old and New Testament
• St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Teaching and Experience
• The Non-Christian Monk's Teaching and Experiences
• Steps leading to contemplative experience
• Guest in host
• Host in guest
• Resurgence of host
• Mutual interpenetration
• Attained unity
• Contemplative experience and activities
• Mary - source and model of contemplative experience