Hammer and Fire: Way to Contemplative Happiness and Mental Health in Accordance with the Judeo-Christian Tradition

By Raphael Simon and Raphael Simon

Book Overview

There is a way to happiness that is meant for all, but the path is known by few. It is a tradition that has existed in Judeo-Christianity from the beginning, founded on the Scriptures, and nurtured by the Church. It is the way of prayer and contemplation, and its goal is to become fully human and alive, integrated and mature, through a transforming union with Jesus Christ through which we become truly ourselves. This book is about that transforming union--God's plan for our happiness.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 097259812X
• ISBN13: 9780972598125
• Release Date: June 2006
• Publisher: Zaccheus Press
• Length: 323 Pages
• Weight: 1.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Spiritual wholness brings emotional wellbeing!

This ia an amazing book that unites spiritual and emotional health to live fully human and fully alive. It is so easy to seperate our spirital well being from emotional and physical health...a BIG mistake. This book connects all the dots and provides the necessary material to live in harmony and in peace within no matter what situation we may encounter. Jesus desires us to be fully human. Contemplation makes us one in Christ and with one another. This is not a pious work to make us feel good but an invitation to growth in holiness that will reap joy unto life everlasting.

A Wonderful Spiritual Guide

I came across this book about 15 years ago while browsing in a Catholic bookstore. It was sitting on a high shelf -- the top was so dusty, it looked like it had been there for years. Waiting for me, I think. Providentially. For the book proved a true blessing in my life, at a time of great spiritual confusion and psychological depression -- a time when I was trying to rise up, with great difficulty, from years of sowing to the flesh, in order to reclaim, if possible, my Catholic heritage. This was just the book I needed. Its pages are filled with great wisdom and kindness. Strict orthodoxy presented without undue harshness, but rather with true warmth -- as indeed orthodox Catholicism *is* a warm and good thing, and most consoling to the soul. As I say, it was just the book I needed, in the frazzled, broken frame of mind I was in. Fr. Simon takes the reader back to first principles, guides him or her into the temple of Catholic thought, and shows them the way. He wrote the book for those who do not have access to a spiritual director, and that is how - remarkably enough - the book functions. Reading through it, one is led to diagnose one's spiritual ills, weak points, and shortcomings -- and one is further led to the cure for these things, in thoughtful, illuminating expositions on prayer and the sacraments. Valuable pages, too, are given to the problem of choosing a state in life -- priest, religious, married, single. And the particular problems, advantages and general character of each state, as well as the process of discernment. Finally, there is a summary chapter near the end that provides a succinct, helpful guide to ordering one's spiritual life, starting with the basics. Fr. Simon was a Jewish convert to the Catholic faith. He was a psychiatrist before his conversion, and became a Trappist monk, eventually the abbot of his monastery. He is a kind writer -- not lacking in firmness where it is necessary to be firm, but never harsh or unkind. I think God blessed him in the writing of this work. And for some souls, it will be a real blessing to discover this book. For myself, I can divide my life into the time before and after I read this book. It put me back on the right path - no small thing. The title is odd, and not particularly appealing: "Hammer & Fire". The subtitle is more telling, and perhaps should have been the title: "Way to Contemplative Happiness". For that is what you will find in this book -- if that is what you are looking for, you *will* find it here.

A contemporary classic

An excellent book which puts meditation and contemplation into the framework of an authentic Christian tradition and makes "clear the goal to which this practice leads, a transformation of the human personality." " .... to be integrated and mature, to be efeective in our service and undertakings, we need to be transformed into Jesus Christ through a transforming union.... This book is about that transforming union ..." The author received his M.D. at the University of Michigan ( Ann Arbor). He did psychiatric internships at Bellevue Hospital and Brooklyn State Hospital in New York City. He joined the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance (Trappists)in approx. 1940. - The above taken from the back cover of the St. Bede's Publications edition, 1987. Well-written, engaging and thorough.