A Place Apart: Monastic Prayer and Practice for Everyone

M. Basil Pennington wrote wonderfully to share all that God meant to him in his life on this earth. While this book was written from the context of monastic life, I found it very helpful in my own spiritual journey. As a Spiritual Director, I appreciated Pennington's strong encouragement and clear statement in this book about the value of spiritual directors to the journey of others.

I found this an excellent book for spiritual reading. It enhances one's prayer life and is and easy and pleasant read.

If you missed "A Place Apart" in 1983, you can come to this second edition assured that little has been changed. The publisher encouraged Fr. Pennington to issue this edition with a new introduction and photographs because of the many reader requests for a new copy of the book - their copies had begun falling apart with constant use. In "A Place Apart," Fr. Pennington makes it clear that "the call...to enter into the solitude of God, is not the exclusive prerogative of the monk." He believes that everyone who deeply feels the desire and need will find or create a place apart - a place to go with regular frequency for prayer and solitude. Each chapter describes a monastic practice that can be adapted or adopted by the layperson seeking to develop a more prayerful routine on the spiritual journey. The original "A Place Apart" grew out of several years of what Fr. Pennington calls "colloquia or monastic bull sessions" with men who came to the monastery as part of their process of vocation discernment. And the decision to publish the interesting and thought-provoking substance of those sessions was the result of his desire to respond to the many men and women who were looking for monastic values and practices to incorporate into their often very active lives. Fr. Pennington goes on to emphasize the importance of silence in the monastic life, but reminds us that although Trappists do not take a vow of silence, they do follow rules that require silence at certain times and in special places. And to us he says, "If you want the value of silence in your life you will have to find or create places of silence, you will have to agree on times of silence." When Fr. Pennington treats the subject of work and the monk, and how the layperson might adopt the monastic attitude toward work, he makes the point that although the monk "is to be conscious of his duty to cooperate with the divine creative energies in moving the creation along toward its goal," that duty is not solely "...the prerogative of monks, but the call of all Christians." In his Postword to the book, Fr. Pennington urges us to go beyond wishing to live like Christ. "We have to be eminently practical about such wishes and make them efficacious desires by practical planning and action."

The vocation of being a monk is one that grows increasingly more difficult to understand for the many of us who live in the hustle and bustle of the modern world, but thanks to Father Pennington's beautiful work, monastic life becomes an inspiration to us all. Not at all intended to recruit prospective brothers, instead this book transcribes the habits of being a monk into our daily lives, so that we all may know the peace that these devoted brothers have as they pray for all of us in the rest of the world. "A Place Apart" is an inspiration for any who read it, and demonstrates effectively the necessity for silence and prayer in whatever it is we may do.