Description:
During his twenty years as abbot of the Yorkshire monastery of Rievaulx, Aelred preached many sermons: to his own monks, in other monasteries, and at significant gatherings outside the cloister. In these thirty-one homilies on Isaiah chapters 13-16, together with an introductory Advent sermon, Aelred interprets the burdens that Isaiah prophesied against the nations according to their literal, allegorical, and moral senses. He sees these burdens as playing a role both in the history of the church and in the progress of the individual soul. This collection of homilies is an ambitious, unified work of a mature monk, synthesizing biblical exegesis, ascetical teaching, spiritual exhortation, and a theory of history.
Brief description:
Lewis White has been a professor and translator at the Language Center of the Universidad Tecnológica de la Mixteca, Huajuapan de León, Oaxaca, Mexico, since 2009. His translations of Aelred of Rievaulx's Homilies on the Prophetic Burdens of Isaiah (CF 83) and of some of the liturgical sermons from Aelred's Durham Collection (CF 80) were published by Cistercian Publications in 2018.
Review Quotes: "This first English translation of The Burdens of Isaiah is a valuable addition to the available corpus of Aelred's works, a challenging and rewarding tour de force, sometimes puzzling and sometimes dazzling, that represents Aelred's thought and spirit in its maturity."Catholic Books Review