Letters from the Heart

A collection of John Main's letters, published by Crossroad in New York in 1982, the year of his death, as a book of 136 pages under the subtitle Christian Monasticism and the Renewal of Community. From 1977 Main led the Benedictine Priory of Montreal, a community dedicated to meditation, and wrote regular letters of spiritual direction to the growing circle of people who meditated with the priory; this volume gathered letters of that kind for a wider readership. Its subtitle names its themes: the monastic tradition and how it might renew community life, for monks and for lay people. The letters were later published complete, with others, in Monastery without Walls (2006), whose publisher says two earlier collections had gone out of print.