See Previous Issue: Dominican Spirituality Sometimes during icebreakers, I’m asked what book, other than Scripture, I would choose to be stuck on a desert island with? For me, it’s a toss-up between the Anglican Book of Common Prayer and Thomas à Kempis’s (1380–1471) The Imitation of Christ. I remember first seeing the book on a shelf in a local bookstore in Edinburgh, where I lived for a while. The title caught my attention, so I picked it up but didn’t buy it. Years later, I ordered a...

See Previous Issue: Bernard of Clairvaux and Cistercian Spirituality The Dominican Order (also called the Order of Preachers), founded by Saint Dominic, remains one of the most influential religious orders in the Roman Catholic Church. Dominican spirituality is rooted in education, evangelization, intellectual formation, and preaching. If you have ever wondered where the Rosary came from, pious belief holds that the Virgin Mary gave it to Dominic as a spiritual weapon against heresy and sin....

See previous issue: Bernard of Clairvaux and Cistercian Spirituality Saint Francis of Assisi (1181–1226) remains one of the most influential figures in Christian spirituality. I write this from St. Francis Bay, where I live—yet I rarely hear anyone speak about the saint himself. While there is certainly poverty in this little town on the coast, it’s traditionally been a holiday destination for the affluent, which, as we will discover, is in direct contradiction to the life and teachings of...