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AUSTRALIAN BIBLICAL REVIEW
ISSN 0045-0308 |
BOOK REVIEW Published in Volume 61, 2013
MICHAEL CASEY, The Road to Eternal Life: Reflections on the Prologue of Benedict’s Rule. (Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2012). Pp. xi+ 182. Hardback. US$19.95.
Originating with a series of ten-minute talks posted on his community’s web-site, Michael Casey, O.C.S.O. (Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, also respectfully known as the Trappists), began shaping a book based on the Prologue of The Rule of Saint Benedict. This process helped him to, in his own words, “formulate different ways of ordering” his material. Using the Prologue as “a point of departure” (p. x), these talks were built on the foundation of Casey’s monastic life-observance of the Rule of St Benedict. The Order of Cistercians seeks to follow the Rule of St Benedict through their daily lives in a way that displays consistent faithfulness to the gospel. This vast life-reflection is clearly portrayed in The Road to Eternal Life as Casey weaves the text with contemplation resulting from decades of intentional obedience within a monastic framework. It is a profound book which invites the reader to replicate such reflection and action, bringing guidance and challenge.
Casey draws from the deep well of his fifty-plus years as a Cistercian monk and notable scholar (his doctorate was awarded from the Melbourne College of Divinity), and weaves the dimension of this experience into his insights. Based at the Tarrawarra Abbey in Victoria, Australia, since 1960, his words carry weight indicative of this context. Taking the teachings found within The Rule of St. Benedict, Casey breaks the prologue down line by line, producing fifty short devotional chapters, usually two-three pages in length. Each chapter invites the reader into a more sincere walk with Christ as he/she confronts the reality of living in a broken world, the multi-faceted nature of humankind, and the hope that the transforming work of Christ brings. By burrowing thoroughly into the sixth-century Benedictine text, Casey brings the themes of obedience, humility, prayer, silence, rest, use of time, posture before God, and others, to life within the contemporary world.
In The Road to Eternal Life, Casey reminds us of the need for a spiritual guide. At times we find that in person. At other times we find wisdom and guidance from the Body of Christ through books and meditations such as this one. If the reader engages with this text in a reflective way that invites Christ into the deepest places, profound life-impact will result.
Through his call to live a life of greater authenticity, Casey helps the reader examine and “expose[s] the deep inconsistencies” (147) that are other than, yet often tightly bound to our longing for greater piety and the desire to look more like Jesus. He does not shy away from confronting the secret things that at times lie dormant or forgotten, that we have long-since buried or ceased to bring to the Lord for review. His deep-rooted exhortations do not turn from the sin found within each of us, and yet he gently prods us to scrutinise the hidden, lay it bear before the Lord and allow Him to continue His work of regeneration within us.
The chapters: Contrary Imaginations, Gratitude and “Because I Am Weak I Pray” are especially poignant. The former deals with struggles of the mind and where they might lead, Gratitude exams matters of the heart, and the latter on prayer is a clarion call reminding us of our desperate need for God.
Time and again, though, Casey encourages this work of continued conversion to not stay private. The context is community, and with his experience, rooted in the monastic family, he points the reader to horizontal relationships within the Body as an expression of the vertical relationship with God. Vertical without the horizontal is not relationship as God would have it.
This book, best read and digested slowly, cultivates the life of discipleship, where, through intentional reflection “we are to become ever more fully Christ’s disciples” (11–12). But it must not end with reflection. Casey calls his readers to action (7), whether they live within the milieu of monastic life or, as many of his readers do, within non-monastic environs. Casey’s book, The Road to Eternal Life, promotes a life bound to Christ, which does indeed lead to eternal life.
Achieving his aim of assisting readers to connect the text to their own lives by encouraging them to press further into Christ, Casey’s book is a profound, worthy and recommended read. For those who long to “realistically undertake the long journey of seeking and finding God” (5), The Road to Eternal Life is a helpful servant and friend.
Review by
KATHRYN R. POCKLINGTON
Pioneers of Australia
PO Box 200
Blackburn VIC 3130
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