The latest offering in the Classics with Commentary series invites readers to enter into one of the great works of the Christian tradition that sees friendship as a key to spiritual growth and true happiness. This surprisingly modern, twelfth-century classic has long been popular with monks. Now this new edition opens up the riches of this spiritual masterpiece to a wide audience of contemporary readers who see the spiritual life not as a solitary enterprise, but one intimately connected to relationships. Written in dialogue form, Aelred of Rievaulx offers wise counsel on many aspects of friendship. Dennis Billy, C.Ss.R., editor of the innovative Classics with Commentary series, has once again provided readers with an invaluable introduction and background. The popular translation by M. Eugenia Laker is complemented by Billy's helpful commentary and thoughtful reflection questions for each chapter.

Spiritual Friendship: The Classic Text with a Spiritual Commentary by Dennis Billy, C.Ss.R. (Classics with Commentary)

Religion & Spirituality

Billy CSsR, Dennis

Aelred of Rievaulx

Christian Books & Bibles

Christian Classics

Aelred, abbot of the Yorkshire Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx from 1147 to 1167, wrote six spiritual treatises, seven historical treatises, and 182 liturgical sermons, most of which he delivered as chapter talks to his monks. Translations of the first twenty-eight of these sermons appeared in The First Clairvaux Collection, Advent-All Saints, published in 2001. The current volume contains eighteen sermons given on feasts beginning with the Nativity and concluding with a sermon for All Saints.

The Liturgical Sermons: The Second Clairvaux Collection; Christmas through All Saints (Volume 77) (Cistercian Fathers Series)

Liturgical Press

Aelred, abbot of the Yorkshire Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx from 1147 to 1167, wrote six spiritual treatises, seven historical treatises, and 182 liturgical sermons, many of which he delivered as chapter talks to his monks. Translations of the first twenty-eight of these sermons appeared in CF 58 in 2001, translated by Theodore Berkeley and M. Basil Pennington, and sermons twenty-nine through forty-six appeared in CF 77 in 2015, translated by Marie Anne Mayeski. The current volume contains thirty-eight sermons for feasts from Advent through the Nativity of Mary, taken from the Durham and Lincoln collections, edited by Gaetano Raciti in CCCM 2B and 2C.

The Liturgical Sermons: The Durham and Lincoln Collections, Sermons 47-84 (Volume 80) (Cistercian Fathers Series)

Aelred (1110-1167) served Rievaulx Abbey, the second Cistercian monastery in England, for twenty years as abbot. During his abbacy he wrote thirteen treatises, some offering spiritual guidance and others seeking to advise King Henry II. He also wrote thirty-one sermons as a commentary on Isaiah 13-16 and 182 surviving liturgical sermons, mostly addressed to his monks.&nbsp; This volume contains the first half of Aelred's ninety-eight liturgical sermons from the Reading-Cluny collection, Sermons 85 through 133. For the most part, the collection follows the liturgical year, beginning in this volume with three sermons for Advent and ending with five for Pentecost and three for the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity. Sermons 134 through 182, from the Nativity of John the Baptist (June 24) through the Feast of All Saints, will appear in CF 87. These sermons appear to contain evidence of Aelred's editorial additions to the autograph of the sermons, as he added selections from patristic and medieval authors within the sermons and between them.&nbsp;

The Liturgical Sermons: The Reading-Cluny Collection, 1 of 2; Sermons 85-133 (Volume 81) (Cistercian Fathers Series)

During his twenty years as abbot of the Yorkshire monastery of Rievaulx, Aelred preached many sermons: to his own monks, in other monasteries, and at significant gatherings outside the cloister. In these thirty-one homilies on Isaiah chapters 13–16, together with an introductory Advent sermon, Aelred interprets the burdens that Isaiah prophesied against the nations according to their literal, allegorical, and moral senses. He sees these burdens as playing a role both in the history of the church and in the progress of the individual soul. This collection of homilies is an ambitious, unified work of a mature monk, synthesizing biblical exegesis, ascetical teaching, spiritual exhortation, and a theory of history.

Homilies on the Prophetic Burdens of Isaiah (Volume 83) (Cistercian Fathers Series)

"These volumes contain Aelreds ninety-eight liturgical sermons from the Reading-Cluny collection. For the most part, the collection follows the liturgical year. Volume 1 begins with three sermons for Advent and ends with five for Pentecost and three for the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity. Volume 2 begins with the Nativity of John the Baptist (June 24) and concludes with the Feast of All Saints"--

The Liturgical Sermons: The Reading-Cluny Collection, 2 of 2; Sermons 134–182; and A Sermon Upon the Translation of Saint Edward, Confessor (Volume 87) (Cistercian Fathers Series)

Throughout his life, Aelred took great joy in his friends and he believed that by loving and being loved by them, we learn to accept and return God's infinitely greater and enduring love. Real friendship always includes a third person, the Lord Jesus.

Spiritual friendship (Cistercian Fathers series)

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

Cistercian Publications

Aelred of Rievaulx was an heir of Saxons living under Norman rule, a native speaker of English daily speaking French and Latin, a descendant of generations of married priests in an age when priests were forbidden to wed, an English monk in a French order, an abbot bred to service in the church but trained for service in the court. His sermons and treatises reflect Aelred the monk, the novice-master, and abbot. His historical works 'concerned with the political world of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman England 'seek to explore the past as a guide for the present and assurance of the future. Drawing on the Bible, the Fathers of the Church, classical writers like Cicero, and medieval historians such as the Venerable Bede and Symeon of Durham, Aelred insisted on the importance of history for guiding human action, declaring that the meaning of the past can only be known in the present and that only at the end can one understand the beginning. In this volume are four of Aelred's seven historical works: Lament for David, King of the Scots (1153), The Genealogy of the Kings of the English (1153-1154), The Life of Saint Edward, King and Confessor (1162-63), and The Battle of the Standard (1153-54).

The Historical Works (Volume 56) (Cistercian Fathers Series)

Historical

During his twenty years as abbot of the Yorkshire monastery of Rievaulx, Aelred preached many sermons: to his own monks, in other monasteries, and at significant gatherings outside the cloister. His disciple and biographer, Walter Daniel, mentions hundreds of sermons. In this volume, the first of several, we have twenty-eight of his sermons. They have been translated from the critical edition of a manuscript copied for the Abbey of Clairvaux in the latter part of the twelfth century 'that is, not long after Aelred's death on 12 January 1167.Cistercian abbots were expected to speak to their monks in chapter every morning, commenting on the passage of Saint Benedict's Rule for Monasteries that had just been read to the monks. In addition, they were required to preach to the whole community 'both monks and lay brothers 'on fifteen principal days of the liturgical year as well as on the anniversary of the dedication of the monastery's church.This 'First Collection of Clairvaux' includes sermons for fourteen of these days: the First Sunday of Advent 'the inauguration of the liturgical year 'and Palm Sunday 'the inauguration of Holy Week; five Christological feasts of Christmas, Epiphany, the Annunciation, Easter, and Ascension; three Marian feasts: her Purification, Assumption, and Nativity; the Feasts of All Saints, Saint Benedict of Nursia, the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, and Saints Peter and Paul.

The Liturgical Sermons: The First Clairvaux Collection, Advent--All Saints (Volume 58) (Cistercian Fathers Series)

Aelred of Rievaulx, the saintly abbot, tells here of saintly forebears and wondrous events in the North of England. An exile and son of exiles, Aelred was well aware of the conflicts and contradictions of human life in exile from the true homeland. He became the great cistercian teacher of the incarnation, the spiritual guide of fallen humans to the God who had become a man. He wrote of and for flawed and foolish men and women on their journey to the heavenly Jerusalem; his pilgrims are cloistered and uncloistered, men and women: kings and queens, monks and nuns, saints on horseback and workers in purple and lepers and robbers and priests. Through his eyes, we see the saint who evangelized Scotland (The Life of Ninian, written probably 1155-1160), and the saints of the church of Aelred's family home (The Book of the Saints of the Church of Hexham and Their Miracles, ?1154-1155), and we learn of A Certain Wonderful Miracle (1158-1165).

Aelred of Rievaulx: Lives of the Northern Saints (Cistercian Fathers) (Cistercian Fathers Series) (Volume 71)

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