Robert Cardinal Sarah

Nicolas Diat

In a time when technology penetrates our lives in so many ways and materialism exerts such a powerful influence over us, Cardinal Robert Sarah presents a bold book about the strength of silence. The modern world generates so much noise, he says, that seeking moments of silence has become both harder and more necessary than ever before. Silence is the indispensable doorway to the divine, explains the cardinal in this profound conversation with Nicolas Diat. Within the hushed and hallowed walls of the La Grande Chartreux, the famous Carthusian monastery in the French Alps, Cardinal Sarah addresses the following questions: Can those who do not know silence ever attain truth, beauty, or love? Do not wisdom, artistic vision, and devotion spring from silence, where the voice of God is heard in the depths of the human heart? After the international success of God or Nothing, Cardinal Sarah seeks to restore to silence its place of honor and importance. "Silence is more important than any other human work," he says, "for it expresses God. The true revolution comes from silence; it leads us toward God and others so as to place ourselves humbly and generously at their service."

Against the Dictatorship of Noise

The Power of Silence

Robert Kardinal Sarah

Dysmas de Lassus

In einer Zeit, die immer lauter wird, während die Technik und das Materielle den Menschen beherrschen, ist es ein großes Unterfangen, der Stille ein Buch zu widmen. Die Welt bringt soviel Lärm hervor, dass die Suche nach der Stille umso notwendiger wird. Kardinal Robert Sarah konstatiert, dass sich der moderne Mensch, der das Göttliche ablehnt, in einem großen Schweigen befindet, was für ihn eine beängstigende Situation darstellt. Der Kardinal möchte hingegen daran erinnern, dass das Leben eine Beziehung zwischen dem Innersten des Menschen und Gott ist – und zwar in der Stille. Die Stille ist unentbehrlich, um die "Musik Gottes" zu hören: Das Gebet wächst aus der Stille und kehrt dorthin zurück, wobei es immer mehr an Tiefe gewinnt. In diesem Dialog mit Nicolas Diat fragt sich der Kardinal: Können die Menschen, welche die Stille nicht kennen, jemals die Wahrheit erreichen, die Schönheit und die Liebe? Die Antwort lautet: Alles, was groß ist und schöpferisch, wird durch die Stille geformt. Gott ist Stille. Nach dem großen Erfolg seines Buches "Gott oder Nichts", das in kurzer Zeit in 14 Sprachen übersetzt wurde, unternimmt es Kardinal Sarah im vorliegenden Werk, die Würde der Stille wieder zum Leuchten zu bringen. Den Text von Kardinal Sarah ergänzt ein außergewöhnliches Gespräch mit Dom Dysmas de Lassus, Prior der Großen Kartause und Generalminister des Kartäuserordens.

Gegen eine Diktatur des Lärms

Kraft der Stille

Robert Sarah

Dysmas De Lassus

Behind monastery walls, men of God spend their lives preparing for the passage of death. Best-selling French author Nicolas Diat set out to find what their deaths can reveal about the greatest mystery faced by everyone—the end of life. How to die? How to respond to our fear of death? To answer these and other questions, Diat travelled to eight European monasteries including Solesmes Abbey and the Grande Chartreuse. Through extraordinary interviews with monks, he learned that their death experiences are varied and unique, with elements of peace, pain, humility, sorrow, and joy. These monks have the same fears, torments, and sorrows as everyone else, Diat discovered. What is exemplary about them is their humility and simplicity. When death approaches, and its hand reveals its strength, they are like happy and naïve children who wait with impatience to open a gift. They have complete confidence in the mercy of God.

Monks on the Threshold of Eternal Life

A Time To Die

Cardenal Robert Sarah

El ruido nos impone su dictadura un día y otro, hasta el punto de que rara vez añoramos el silencio. Sin embargo, el ruido genera el desconcierto del hombre, mientras que en el silencio se forja nuestro ser personal, nuestra propia identidad. Tras el éxito internacional de Dios o nada, el cardenal Sarah afronta en estas páginas la necesidad del silencio interior para escuchar la música de Dios, para que brote y se desarrolle la oración confiada con Él, para entablar relaciones cabales con nuestros allegados. "La verdadera revolución -afirma- viene del silencio, que nos conduce hacia Dios y los demás, para colocarnos humildemente a su servicio". De nuevo en esta larga y profunda conversación con Nicolás Diat, el Cardenal propone la siguiente pregunta: ¿pueden aquellos que no conocen el silencio alcanzar la verdad, la belleza y el amor? La respuesta es innegable: todo lo que es grande y creativo está relacionado con el silencio. Dios es silencio. El prefecto de la Congregación vaticana para el Culto divino y la disciplina de los Sacramentos, enlaza y enumera hasta 365 pensamientos, hondos y variados, a propósito del silencio y sus efectos, que concluyen con un excepcional y riquísimo diálogo con Dom Dysmas de Lassus, Prior General de la Grande Chartreuse. "Si bien el habla caracteriza al hombre, el silencio es lo que lo define, porque la palabra hablada solo adquiere sentido en virtud de ese silencio". Este es el hermoso y significativo mensaje de La fuerza del silencio. Robert Sarah nació en Guinea en 1945. Sacerdote desde 1969, en 1979 fue nombrado Arzobispo de Conakri, con 34 años de edad. En 2001 Juan Pablo II lo llamó a la Curia romana, donde desempeñó sucesivamente dos altos cargos. Benedicto XVI lo creó Cardenal en 2010, y en 2014 Francisco lo nombró Prefecto de la Congregación para el Culto divino y la disciplina de los Sacramentos. Nicolas Diat es periodista y autor francés.

Frente a la dictadura del ruido

La fuerza del silencio

Den se již nachýlil

Cardinal Robert Sarah

This is a fascinating and powerful autobiographical interview of one of the most prominent and outspoken Cardinals appointed by Pope Francis. The biography alone is inspirational. But Cardinal Sarah’s commentary on Christian living in the modern world and his response to the controversial issues of the day—including the upcoming ordinary Synod of Bishops—are profound and invigorating. Robert Sarah is the only son of a convert Catholic couple who lived in a remote village of Guinea, West Africa. Inspired by the zeal of the Spiritan missionary priests who made great sacrifices to bring the Faith to Africans in the most neglected regions, his parents became Catholics. Robert discerned a call to the priesthood and entered the local seminary, but due to the oppression of the Church by the Communist dictator of Guinea, he had to continue his studies in France and then in nearby Senegal. He was appointed Archbishop of Conakry, Guinea by John Paul II, becoming the youngest Bishop in the Catholic Church. His predecessor had been imprisoned by the Communist regime for several years, and Archbishop Sarah himself—because of his refusal to be coopted by the President—was at the top of the governments list for assassination when John Paul II called him to Rome to be Secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. In 2010, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him to be the Prefect of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum. Here is a sample of his commentary on current issues of the day: “The idea of putting Magisterial teaching in a beautiful display case while separating it from pastoral practice, which then could evolve along with circumstances, fashions and passions, is a sort of heresy, a dangerous schizophrenic pathology. I therefore solemnly state that the Church in Africa is staunchly opposed to any rebellion against the teaching of Jesus and of the Magisterium . . . The Church of Africa is committed in the name of the Lord Jesus to keeping unchanged the teaching of God and of the Church about the indissolubility of marriage: what God has joined, let no man put asunder. How could a Synod go back on the constant teaching that was unified and explained in greater depth by Blessed Paul VI, Saint John Paul II and Benedict XVI?" -Cardinal Robert Sarah

A Conversation in Faith with Nicholas Diat

God or Nothing

Robert Cardinal Sarah calls The Day Is Now Far Spent his most important book. He analyzes the spiritual, moral, and political collapse of the Western world and concludes that "the decadence of our time has all the faces of mortal peril." A cultural identity crisis, he writes, is at the root of the problems facing Western societies. "The West no longer knows who it is, because it no longer knows and does not want to know who made it, who established it, as it was and as it is. Many countries today ignore their own history. This self-suffocation naturally leads to a decadence that opens the path to new, barbaric civilizations." While making clear the gravity of the present situation, the cardinal demonstrates that it is possible to avoid the hell of a world without God, a world without hope. He calls for a renewal of devotion to Christ through prayer and the practice of virtue.

The Day Is Now Far Spent

Unsere Welt befindet sich am Rande des Abgrunds: Glaubenskrise, Untergang des Abendlandes, moralischer Relativismus und entfesselter Kapitalismus. Im Bewusstsein der Tragweite der aktuellen Krise zeigt Kardinal Robert Sarah auf, dass es möglich ist, einer höllischen Welt ohne Hoffnung zu entrinnen. Im Gespräch mit Nicolas Diat widmet er sich den Krisen unserer heutigen Zeit und lehrt uns, dass der Mensch auf seinem Lebensweg eine Erhebung der Seele erfahren muss, um besser aus dieser Welt zu scheiden, als er sie betreten hat.

Nicolas Diat

Books

Your next favorite book is out there