Our home, our duties and routines, our relationships, and the way we use our time, are the monasteries of our lives. It is through these practices that we build our relationship with God, that we find opportunities for contemplation, and deserts for reflection. In this beautiful little book Ronald Rolheiser turns on its head the idea that religious life is the preserve of monks and nuns. Our cloisters are the walls of our home and our work, the streets we walk, and the people with whom we share our lives. The domestic is the monastic.

Chapters include: Monasticism and Family Life; The Domestic Monastery; Real Friendship; Lessons from the Monastic Cell; Ritual for Sustaining Prayer; Tensions within Spirituality; A Spirituality of Parenting; Spirituality and the Seasons of Our Lives; The Sacredness of Time; Life’s Key Question.

Ronald Rolheiser OMI is a specialist in the fields of spirituality and systematic theology. His regular column in the Catholic Herald is featured in newspapers in five different countries, and he is the author of many popular books including The Restless Heart.