Holy Wisdom: Instructions on the Spiritual Life, Mortification, and Prayer

by Augustine Baker, Stabat Mater Press

Drawn from the English Benedictine tradition in exile and shaped by the wisdom of the Desert Fathers, the mysticism of Dionysius, and the spiritual clarity of St. Teresa and the Cloud of Unknowing, this volume presents one of the most profound guides to the interior life ever composed in the English tongue.

Venerable Father Augustine Baker (1575–1641), a Welsh monk of the English Benedictine Congregation, composed these treatises for the instruction of cloistered nuns in Flanders who sought to live hidden lives of prayer and penance under persecution and exile. These writings distill his spiritual guidance into three foundational pillars of the spiritual life, mortification, and contemplative prayer.

Baker’s method is one of interior recollection, deep humility, and pure, loving attention to God. He leads the soul beyond the realm of images and reasoning, into the dark and silent presence of the Divine. He warns against illusions, emotional excess, and activism in the spiritual life, favoring stillness, perseverance, and abandonment to grace.

This carefully restored edition presents the original threefold structure of Baker’s teaching with renewed clarity, accessible formatting, and editorial refinement, allowing contemporary readers to encounter his spiritual theology without distraction or distortion. It is ideal for those drawn to the path of prayer, for monastics and lay contemplatives alike, and for all who seek the renewal of spiritual depth in a world grown loud and restless.

784 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 29, 2025

About the author

Fr. Augustine Baker OSB (9 December 1575 – 9 August 1641), (also sometimes known as "Fr. Austin Baker"), was a well-known Benedictine mystic and an ascetic writer. He was one of the earliest members of the English Benedictine Congregation which was newly restored to England after the Reformation.