Renouncing Violence: Practice from the Monastic Tradition

by Mary Margaret Funk OSB

Written from her deep experience in the monastic tradition, Sister Mary Margaret Funk shows us that, with faith and our given vocations, we are more than strong enough to resist and renounce the violence in the world around us. This book offers, both for personal use and for the broader community, a teaching for our troubled times, a teaching that empowers the reader to renounce violence in all its bold and subtle forms. As a concrete example, Funk retrieves the practice and symbolism of using holy water to bless, cleanse, and free us from violence wherever it is emerging—in our personal lives and in our world. This practice has thrived in the monastic tradition and has a language with a voice.

168 pages, Paperback

Published September 25, 2018

Reviews

[Keith Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

Living fully...

St Meg has given us a passionate call to completely 'put on Christ' by surrendering our inclination, if not expression, to violence.
I find her words supporting the difficult task in letting go of violence, whether towards others or within myself. It is a choice, fully sought in the Love of God to renounce the remaining hindrance to live the words St Paul has given us: "Not I, but Christ lives in me."
Sr Meg's prose is clean and concise, quietly and firmly presenting the Grace to Non-Violence from the vast experience of monastic life.
To choose the narrow gate of willingly, intentionally, forgoing the impulse to violence (to any degree) is a worthy endeavour to present in the face of the overwhelming violence assailing us. Love is His meaning....

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Sister Meg Funk's Renouncing Violence, she writes from her monastic Benedictine tradition. The book addresses how she her own anger and the violence we do to ourselves when we choose not to rest on the Sabbath, which she separates from the more recent historical meaning of Sabbath rest as going to Church/temple. She's a terse writer. Thecsli book is a mere 113 pages, followed by a few appendices and notes.

"The intent of the book is to gentle down. Calmness prevents and scatteres violence. When violence is tamed, we find peace of heart." She offers a way forward to "reduce, redirect, refrain, and reprogram our instinctual propensities toward retaliation, recompense, and rage." She begins the book recognizing her anger by election day in 2016 and the global bad mood we were in then, and in 2024 once again. She offers practical Christian tools and solutions that have helped calm and refocus me. Sister Meg is an internationally recognized spiritual leader, author, and amma. Her friend, the Dalai Lama, wrote a forward to her Humility Matters book. I recommend this book, especially for these times.