This is Fr. Merton's contribution to the Desert tradition. The desert fathers were the first Christian monks, and the stories about them are both entertaining and enlightening. Within these stories you see the seeds of grace and love, discipline and challenge, humility and pride, success and failure.

In other words, this is authentic spirituality, and this book brings it to us in a neat and understandable package.

Thomas Merton was a Trappist Monk and wrote this book that contains his favorite quotes from 'Verba Seniorum'. He chooses these for himself and his fellow monks in order to make some of the sayings of the Desert Fathers more accessible. He begins this book with a very well written introduction.

Merton wrote this book not as a history of the early Desert Fathers. What he provides are a selection of extracts from their writings that had proved useful for him in his contemplative life. The book is definitely worth reading. A book you will keep by your night stand.

If you are looking for a book that gives you a history of the Desert Fathers and a wide range of their writings, then this is the wrong book for you. ( )