Franciscans at Prayer - Timothy Johnson

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Résumé :
Medieval Franciscans prayed in hermitages and churches, on the road and in the piazza, with song and silence. The unique stories of these men and women, as their engaging texts, stunning architecture and breath-taking artwork suggest, are narratives of souls, enfleshed in their respective worlds of the leprosarium, university, or itinerant preaching. The essays in this book foster a nuanced perspective on Franciscan beliefs and spiritual practices by resisting the temptation to reduce their myriad accounts of prayer to an exclusive, univocal spirituality. By displaying the breadth and depth of these medieval Franciscans at prayer, these essays challenge contemporary readers to look anew at this cloud of witnesses from the past, who, both lay and religious, promoted a diversity of spiritual expression that found a familial focus in their mutual passion for the divine and the world they shared....

Biographie:
Timothy J. Johnson received his doctorate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1990. He is Associate Professor of Religion at Flagler College in Saint Augustine, Florida, and has published extensively on Franciscan Spirituality and Theology including The Soul in Ascent: Bonaventure on Poverty, Prayer, and Union with God (Franciscan Press, 2000).

Sommaire:
Medieval Franciscans prayed in hermitages and churches, on the road and in the piazza, with song and silence. The unique stories of these men and women, as their engaging texts, stunning architecture and breath-taking artwork suggest, are narratives of souls, enfleshed in their respective worlds of the leprosarium, university, or itinerant preaching. The essays in this book foster a nuanced perspective on Franciscan beliefs and spiritual practices by resisting the temptation to reduce their myriad accounts of prayer to an exclusive, univocal spirituality. By displaying the breadth and depth of these medieval Franciscans at prayer, these essays challenge contemporary readers to look anew at this cloud of witnesses from the past, who, both lay and religious, promoted a diversity of spiritual expression that found a familial focus in their mutual passion for the divine and the world they shared....