Dialogue with the Devil; 6:15 AM / The Dialogue Series, Number 1
Summit, New Jersey: Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary, 1967. Limited edition. Octavo, stitched in original red card wrappers printed in black, original folding card case, 12 pages. Small bump at base of spine, else Fine. Item #1702
"NOT BY SACRED ELOQUENCE DOES A NUN MOVE MOUNTAINS. FOR A DOMINICAN CONTEMPLATIVE, PRAYER IS HER PREACHING"
Limited first edition of Dialogue with the Devil—a humorous perspective on spiritual warfare—illustrated and printed by the Dominican Nuns of the Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary in an edition of only 250 copies. Dialogue with the Devil was to be "the first in a series of light-hearted dialogues to show that contemplatives are human and still able to laugh at themselves as they go about the serious business of up-dating." Though the colophon mentions a planned series, I have found no mention of other titles following this one.
An early morning meditation (on "a Sower goes out to sow his seed") by a middle-aged Dominican nun is interrupted by a visit from the Devil: "it's the soporific hour, you see—and I'm entangled adroitly as any fly in a spider web." The Devil, accompanied by his legion, tempts the sister to admit that she is having "an identity crisis" vulnerable to the avant-garde freedoms and the pleasures of Modernism. The "dialogue" here uncovers the special concerns and struggles of being a Dominican sister: "my personal imp is a subtle devil."
Delving into the etymology and ancient history of female contemplatives ("the word 'nun' it seems, is as old at the human race itself"), the spiritual writers (mostly early Fathers and theologians) quoted seem to overlook nuns completely. The Sister concludes: "For the contemplative, the whole woman is consecrated to the pleasure and service of the God she loves. She is virgin and spouse, mother of souls and sister in Christ."
Founded in October 1919, the Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary in Summit was "established with the mission of praying without ceasing, especially through the Rosary, in 1926 the monastery also established the practice of perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament...In the 1960s, the nuns began to develop modes of financially supporting the monastery through work suitable to cloistered life. Initially they undertook projects in calligraphy and illumination, and in 1963 they established a printing press that produced wedding invitations, memorial cards, and ordination cards, as well as pamphlets related to the monastery and to the Order of Preachers" (dominicanajournal dot org). Approbations.
Price: $150.00