We Work While the Light Lasts (Van Zeller)

The Cenacle Press at Silverstream Priory

  • €14,95
    Unit price per 
Shipping calculated at checkout.

Only -46 left!

This book has been featured on CatholicExchange in The Tragedy of the Almost-Saint.

Also available on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Tumblar House Catholic BookstoreThe Book Depository, and many other sites. For our friends in and around Australia, you may also purchase our books from Fidelity BooksPlease note: purchasing directly from Cenacle Press ensures that a higher percentage of the profit goes to the support of the monks of Silverstream Priory. Although shipping may be faster from Amazon, this title is distributed internationally; thus you will not have to pay international shipping even if you purchase from our site.

We gladly offer bulk discounts to bookstores and giftshops, book clubs, prayer groups, and parishes. Please contact us for details (select 'Shop merchandise question').

***

“If my correspondence is anything to go by,” writes Benedictine artist and author Dom Hubert Van Zeller, “the problem which men and women living in the world most want to discuss is that of how to handle the affections.” The fruit of Dom Hubert’s experience as a spiritual director, these 42 short reflections are culled from his correspondence, and engage with questions surrounding the cultural upheaval which followed World War II, the first stages of the sexual revolution, and the modern world’s apathy towards God. Dom Hubert’s witty and incisive reflections draw on a varied and colourful array of sources, including Tacitus, Milton, Evelyn Waugh, and Saint Benedict, and address such topics as:

  • The almost-but-not-quite saint
  • Purity, chastity, and understanding the opposite sex 
  • Perseverance in prayer, faith, and work
  • The point of Sacramental Marriage
  • Simplicity in art, prayer, and “everything”
  • Two mistakes people make about sin (other than committing it)
  • Why contemplative vocations are more frequent among women.

With insights that remain relevant today, Dom Hubert provides advice helpful for young and old, for the spiritually motivated and listless alike, in a short book which clearly presents the universal call to holiness.

Born in British-controlled Egypt, Dom Hubert van Zeller (1905–1984) was a Benedictine monk of Downside Abbey in Bath, England, where he was educated. Of his scholastic career he said that he “passed no examinations—merely by-passed them.” The author of numerous books ranging from scriptural commentary to fiction and biography, he was also renowned as a minimalist sculptor and cartoonist. He was a friend of Ronald Knox and of Evelyn Waugh, who described Dom Hubert’s writings as “characterized by vitality and elegance.”

This book, first published in 1950, here presented in an entirely re-typeset edition, is republished with the kind permission of Downside Abbey.

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7396241-6-3 €16.95


Customer Reviews

Based on 1 review Write a review

We Also Recommend