The monastic and religious life fascinates and baffles the human imagination. People admirc its sense of sacrifice and unstinting service,and those more familiar with it cher.ish the human warmth and ardent holiness of its members. For most people, howevery it is a world apart, which people neither understand nor feel any connection with.It is perceived to be for those specially chosen and we assume that they themselves know what it is all about.

The author sets out to explode all the traditional myths and perceptions of the vorved life. It seeks to revamp those elements which over the centuries have become archaic and congealed. ln the process of doing so, it unearths an image of the Religious Life that seerys prmeatively, new, althought,in fact, it is rooted in very ancinet traditions.

This re-imaging of the monastic and religious lifes is original, provocative and full of hope for the future. lt stretches the imagination towards expanded,horizons where in the vowed life can reclaim its initial space and prophetic role in the evolving world of the twenty-first century.