Book Review

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

Finding Happiness
Monastic Steps for a Fulfilling Life
Abbot Christopher Jamison
Liturgical Press 01/09 Hardcover $19.95
ISBN: 9780814618783

Christopher Jamison is abbot of Worth, a Benedictine monastery in Sussex, England, which was featured in the BBC2 series, The Monastery. He is the author of Finding Sanctuary. In this book, Jamison ponders the modern yearning for happiness and that certain something that goes beyond pleasure. The Greeks were interested in the same yearning, and Plato and Aristotle came up with different solutions. The father of Western monasticism, St. Benedict wrote a book charting what Jamison calls his insights into Christian living. And even though he never used the words "happy" or "happiness," Benedict is describing this quality when he speaks of joy and delight.

The early Christian desert fathers and mothers were seeking purity of heart, which is another way of saying freedom of spirit. To achieve this state of being they had to overcome the "Eight Thoughts": acedia, gluttony, lust, greed, anger, sadness, vanity, and pride. To help in this arduous journey, Cassian advises people to pray a verse from the Psalms repeatedly: "O God, come to my assistance, O Lord, make haste to help me."

Jamison calls the monastic steps of dealing with the Eight Thoughts "a personal recovery program for our interior life." He describes the two major features of acedia as a disdain for the familiar and a desire to give up. One of the remedies for this malaise is reading inspiring spiritual books. In dealing with gluttony, monastics used food in such as way so that happiness is found beyond pleasure. The same is true for lust.

Greed consists of giving way to our craving and attachment to money and things; an antidote to this deadly sin in our time is not to allow the mind to be taken over by consumerism. The desert fathers and mothers sought to quell anger and to treat sadness with hope.

Jamison closes the book with a discussion of the demons of the soul: vanity and pride. The first is self-satisfaction and the second self-importance. Magnanimity and humility are the antidotes.

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by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat