Brothers and Sisters: Glimpses of the Cloistered Life [Hardcover]

Frank Monaco (Author), Ron Hansen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 9, 2001

Our experience of the rush of the contemporary world often awakens an inner longing for real rest and spiritual depth, but choosing to live cut off from the world is difficult for many to understand. During his fifty years as a professional photographer, Frank Monaco has often been welcomed as a guest within the walls of enclosed monasteries and convents. Brothers and Sisters brings together many of the images he has taken of monks and nuns at work, at prayer, and in the service of their communities. The 67 duotone photographs are accompanied by extracts from the simple rules—from the Benedictines, Carmelites, and others—that these men and women have elected to follow, and which guide every moment of their lives. No reader who sees these photos will be able to imagine life within the walls of a monastery in quite the same way. “A masterful collection of black-and-white photographs woven with prose.... The angles and composition of the photography are outstanding.”—The Dallas Morning News

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Among contemporary photographers, Frank Monaco has been granted an unusual degree of access to the lives of monks and nuns. His stewardship of this gift has produced images of uncommon beauty, collected in Brothers and Sisters: Glimpses of the Cloistered Life. Novelist Ron Hansen (Mariette in Ecstasy) notes in the foreword that "The happiness that men and women find in consecrated, cloistered life is what surprises outsiders most." Happiness does radiate from the black-and-white photographs depicting monks and nuns of various traditions (from Carthusians to Poor Clares) washing windows, reading, gardening, making music, and tending graves. Most of the images are accompanied by excerpts from the orders that structure cloistered lives, such as the following, from St. Teresa of Avila's Way of Perfection: "And if you are in the kitchen, our Lord moves among the pots and pans." Frank Monaco's photographs are composed with a joyful simplicity that is probably hard earned and certainly well suited to his subjects' lives. --Michael Joseph Gross

About the Author

FRANK MONACO, born in New York, has lived in Europe since 1950 and now resides in London. A foreign correspondent for many years for Jubilee magazine, he has been associated with Rex Features, the London photo agency, which has placed his photographs in more than 400 periodicals throughout the world. His work has been the subject of one-man exhibitions in the United States, the UK and India. He is currently working on his fourth book, on the temples of India.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 88 pages
• Publisher: Marlowe & Company (September 9, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569245789
• ISBN-13: 978-1569245781
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 8.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,018,189 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars NOT OUTDATED AT ALL ! (Spoken from experience!), February 28, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Brothers and Sisters: Glimpses of the Cloistered Life (Hardcover)

Those reviewers who have somewhat damned this exquisite book with faint praise, by commenting simultaneously that "the photography is superb BUT waaay out of date", are missing Monaco's main point. They have obviously not lived in a single one of the thousands of traditional Catholic monasteries which thrive today all over the world.

WHEREAS I HAVE LIVED INSIDE SEVERAL, & in recent years.

To wit: The Poor Clare, Carmelite, and Benedictine Nuns glimpsed by Monaco's deeply perceptive camera are NOT "outdated" because they are wearing the full, floorlength habits, bare feet, wimples and veils of their Rules & Constitutions. Popular media have unfortunately misled readers/viewers to believe that those monasteries which continue to flourish contain women in short skirts and mini-veils - or indeed, even no religious habits at all.

This is entirely wrong.

Monaco has given a completely realistic view indeed of today's thriving monasteries which are filled with steady streams of new vocations. Original austere Rules & lives of strict asceticism are the very incense - & sharp reality - of those cloisters which are NOT closing down. Consider, for contrast, the current documentation of monasteries such as the Carmel of Reno NV, where no habit is worn at all, & not one single new, fresh vocation has entered in over 25 years. A similar Carmel in Barre VT had to close recently for the very same reason.

Thus DO NOT BE MISLED by reviewers complaining that Monaco's photos are "beautiful but obviously dated because the nuns are wearing old fashioned glasses & habits, & using out-dated computers". No, Monaco is beautifully underscoring the fact that these Nuns wear such glasses because they value their vow of poverty far more. Their computers are outdated for the very same reason.

'Brothers and Sisters' witnesses to a living reality, exactly as it is lived today all throughout the world.

Monaco captures even the subtlest signs of these traditional monasteries' dedication to an asceticism & joyous austerity which NEVER goes out of date. The freedom, simplicity & bliss he captures in the Nuns' faces tells all. How ravishing!

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Evokes the feel of the cloister, but could have been better, August 9, 2004

By 

Jack Darcy - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Brothers and Sisters: Glimpses of the Cloistered Life (Hardcover)

The photos in this book, which is largely pictures showing the similarities between the lives of monks and nuns with small quotations from the various Rules of the orders, are beautifully shot and the book certainly brings 'into' the cloister in a very intimate way, but I was wishing it was a little more comprehensive. I wish that the photos had identified which house we were looking at, and that the corresponding text was from the Rule followed in that house. It became confusing to see Poor Clares with a quote from St. Benedict or Benedictines with a quote from Theresa of Avila. While such juxtapositions illustrate all that is typical of monastics, it also felt unsatisfying, like a diet dessert that doesn't quite get that sweet tooth, and some scriptural quotes would have been useful, also.

But then the author was going for one idea, and perhaps I had another in my head, so maybe I am being picky. If one is interested in monasticism, this is certainly worth having.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To look and ponder, January 13, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Brothers and Sisters: Glimpses of the Cloistered Life (Hardcover)

Frank Monaco's book gives a unique glimpse into monasteries and the lives of the monks and nuns who live in them. The photos are filled with the nuances and moods of the subjects photographed providing a window into this life consecrated to God in a radical way of following him.
Whether all the monks and nuns are wearing "full" habit is neither here nor there. It must be admitted that the habit which is a profound witness, reflects the beauty of God.
Yes, some photos are "dated" by the glasses, computers,etc. So, who cares. It's true some monks and nuns continue wearing "older' frames and some have old computers that are discarded by benefacters but it's part of the everyday of poverty.
One criticism is that there are photos of Franciscan friars who are NOT monks but none of Dominican nuns who are cloistered nuns.