The Way of the Heart: The Spiritual Experience of André Louf

Award-winning French author shares the biography and spiritual journey of Cistercian abbot Dom André Louf.

Based on a wide variety of interviews, printed sources, and Dom André Louf’s spiritual journal, The Way of the Heart narrates Louf’s spiritual journey from his childhood in Flanders through his becoming a monk in a Cistercian monastery, his ten years of retirement as a hermit in a Benedictine monastery in the south of France, and his death. Throughout his life he periodically struggled with conflicting vocational desires--sometimes wishing to serve as a pastor, academic, abbot, or to immerse himself in eremitic contemplation. That struggle is the leading thread through this biography, which portrays a man whose immense gifts pulled him in many directions, while always endeavoring to submit himself to God’s will.

Charles Wright is a French writer, journalist, and a former Jesuit novice. His earlier book, Le Chemin des Estives, narrates his journey through the Massif Central, in south-central France. That book won the fourth annual Prix de la liberté intérieure in 2021.

Brian Kerns, OCSO, is a monk at the Abbey of the Genesee in upper New York state. He spent five years at Genesee’s foundation of Novo Mundo in Parana, Brazil. For many years he worked in the libraries of Genesee and Novo Mundo. He has translated two previous works with Cistercian Publications: Dom Gabriel Sortais, an Amazing Abbot in Turbulent Times (2006), and the six volumes of Gregory the Great’s Moral Reflections on the Book of Job (2014-2017).