The Eremitic Life

Book excerpt: Father Cornelius Wencel, Er.Cam. was born in Gosty , Poland, in 1964. He made his final vows as a Camaldolese hermit in 1993 and was ordained priest in 1999. He now serves as prior and novice master at the Hermitage of the Five Martyrs in Bieniszew, Poland. Father Cornelius has published four books in Polish, and this is the first one to be translated into English. He received a doctorate in theology in 2004, successfully defending his dissertation on "The Trinitarian-Christological Perspective of Theological Anthropology in the Theodramatic of Hans Urs von Balthasar". The author profits from the insights of Balthasar, Kierkegaard, Merton, and various contemporary Polish thinkers. Topics treated in this book include seeking God, existential openness, discipline, simplicity, contemplation, interreligious dialogue, and ecology.