Monk?

Thought readers would be interested in this article from The Weekly Standard. A hopeful sign that may emerge here in the states as well. We hope and pray. Peace!

Abbey of the Genesee field of sunflowers

One of the underappreciated truths about the ecology of the plant kingdom is the fact that much of the activity that needs to take place to provide for the health of growing things takes place out of sight, in the soil. The plethora of specialized reactions which occur within the soil’s horizons which must take place for plants to survive and thrive is astounding. One handful of living soil will contain millions of individual microbes silently living in a world unavailable to our eyes, yet whose function is critical to such things as soil aeration, the breakdown of plant debris which is in turn made available to the roots of plants, and many more fascinating tasks. These things are worth knowing especially as our world experiences more and more serious ecological challenges.

This is analogous to the living reality taking place within a monastery. Within it’s cloister, also hidden from the eyes of the world, there is a rich plethora of relationships taking place as monks quietly live their lives. The ecology of the cloister is familiar in its human interactions: monks sleep, eat, take care of their physical, mental, and emotional needs, have friendships, suffer dissapointment, loss, and pain, experience joy, and happiness, look forward to special occasions, have hopes, suffer from anxieties, have jobs, and other resposibilities they are expected to meet, and on and on I could go. Quite simply monks are folks just like the rest of us.

But monks are immersed within a lifestyle quite different than what most of us will ever know. It is a life lived at a deep level, like that of the living earth, hidden, yet alive with rich ecological interactions; call it monastecology, if you will. I’ve written about what makes monastic life unique, but the ecology of the cloister is so subtly rich I could reflect on it until my fingers freeze at the keeyboard and I would barely scratch the surface. Besides, more qualified folks could say it better than me anyway. But the point I want to make is the monastery is really another world, and any attempt to water it down and make it familiar and comfortable would be a failure to understand it or appreciate it.

Entering a monastery means crossing a border into a very different world, one that operates by laws sometimes the opposite of what is familiar and valued. No longer will he pursue his own ways and hold jealously onto his own ideas, but he’ll freely submit his desires to the rule of life he takes on, to an abbot, and to the needs and requirements of the community.

It is interesting to note that the longest chapter in the Rule of St. Benedict is Chapter 7 on humility, which takes us back to the beginning, for humility and humus share the same latin root, meaning soil. May God continue to water the soil of the clopistral world and send young men and women to fertilize its secret and mystical garden.

There is a long tradition in Benedictine monasticism from Chapter 48 of the Rule of St. Benedict that requires the monk to receive a book from the library to read through during the days of Lent. The Abbey of the Genesee continues to follow this practice and some of their lenten reading suggestions can be found on their web site. A blessed Lent to one and all.

Perseverance and stability are intimately linked in the life of the monk. They are fundamental elements in his life, habits of mind if you will, a part of the very fabric of his identity. Stability is so important that that it is one of the three promises a monk takes on the day of his profession; the promise to remain a member of a particular community of individuals as they each and together seek to follow their God. They become not so much like trees rooted in one place, but more like fellow sailors on a ship at sea, pledging to remain faithful to their captain, Christ, who is first faithful to them.

Unfortunately, today, words like perseverance and stability are at odds with the prevalent cultural ethos, and so they’re often misunderstood, if thought of at all. Perseverance is simply the carrying out, day-to-day, of the promise one has made. It’s the opposite of straining against the tide of events, refusing to adapt and learn, like some monastic Oedipus. But faithfulness, while not being blind, is a challenge to men and women of any age, and most certainly for us today. We want to keep our cards close to the vest, and our options open, ready, when things get difficult, to fold our hand and move on. We’re all familiar with the litany of divorce statistics, etc. Are we any happier for our fickleness?

It is by way of the monk’s promise to be true to God’s vision for him that the haze begins to lift and he begins to see. It takes time, and so the wisdom of perseverance and stability. In the end, it is his need for God and his unspeakable knowledge of His faithfulness that preserves him and sustains him through his own tendency toward unfaithfulness. Because God loves him he can be true. (Hebrews 12:1)

Peace!

God is at the center of the monk’s life, yet often a man or woman enters the monastery with an unclear notion of the why of his or her motivation. There is a sense felt within that this is what God wants and the way God intends to reveal himself to him. Almost always, there is at a deeper level a belief that this is where he will grow and experience self-realization, in effect, where he will become his true self. All this is very good, but not the real story when it comes to a vocation to monastic life. The real story has a twist.

As Michael Casey points out in his latest book, Strangers to the City: Reflections on the Beliefs and Values of the Rule of Saint Benedict, the monastic life is not really about self-realization, but rather self-transcendence, a much more profound process, the process of conversion. This becomes clear to the neophyte monk at some point or other in his journey when he realizes that his original conscious motivations for discerning the monastic way, though good, were only the tip of an iceberg that has yet to reveal itself. The Holy Spirit’s work on him is here beginning to bear fruit, though it is often felt as an extreme inner challenge. Perseverance emerges in his lexicon as a fundamental practice, and he begins to understand its place in monastic history and his own monastic identity.

Every monk at some point goes through an identity crisis, where his cherished ideas of who he is and what he is all about come into question. His reliance on the grace of Christ is no longer just a nice theological theorem, but a matter of survival. He begins to let go of his facades, and surrender to the love of God. He’s beginning to become a real monk.

The monks of Genesee

Let’s assume that God still calls men and women to the monastic life. There is no way to prove it in either the negative of the positive, because God isn’t speaking, at least not in any way we can measure, quantify, weigh and put in the balance. There’s nothing to tally up for either argument. We’re left to our own beliefs, and our own uncertainties.

But let’s assume, despite all the anecdotal evidence to the contrary, that God still invites some to live their lives out as monks. What, then, is going on? Why are so few responding, and of them, so few staying?

I believe it takes an exceptional composite of elements from psychological to experiential to come together for someone to enter and persevere in a monastery, more so today than at any other time in Christian monastic history. Still, the fulcrum for all is faith, deep, not looking back faith. Without it no combination of elements, no mater how impressive they may be from a human perspective, will suffice for a monastic vocation to, dare I use the word, “succeed”. By succeed I mean only that the call is heard deep within, responded to in generosity, and lived out perseveringly in even greater generosity. Surrender, after all, is the monk’s way to heaven, the only “success” that matters to him.

I am convinced there are young people, even middle aged people, who have had intimations, inklings that something more is required of them personally, and have had thoughts, however fleeting, that perhaps monastic life… What holds you back? What do you fear? Perhaps your trepidation is justified, after all what do you really know about such a distinctive way of life? Hooded figures, chanting in the night, the overarching silence, obedience, hiddenness, yes, perhaps there is something to be anxious about. Oh, the ego, the jealous doorman!

If I were counseling you I would counsel respect for this guardian at the gate, but I would also counsel you to have him open the door for you so you can go have a look around. After all, how else will you ever know?

January 26th was the feast of the founders of Citeaux, the first Cistercian Abbey, and the beginning of one of the great historical religious moments in Western civilization - and from such humble beginnings!

A heartfelt happy birthday to all Cistercians throughout the world. There is a beautiful reflection on the feast in a homily by Fr. Gerard of Genesee found here.

May their prayers for more vocations be answered. But more importantly lets pray for their journey into the depths of reality, their true call, that they may remain faithful to it. Amen

A quote from Aelred of Rievaulx, 12th Century Cistercian monk and abbot, that illuminates what we all encounter sooner or later, and by which, through grace and our free response, we are led to freedom:

See, dear Lord, how I have wandered the world and (have seen) those things which are in the world….In these I sought rest for my unhappy soul, but everywhere (I found) labor and lament, sorrow and affliction of spirit. You cried out, Lord; you cried out and called. You terrified me and shattered my deafness. You struck, you flogged, you conquered my hardheartedness. You sweetened, you flavored, you banished my bitterness. I heard you calling, but, alas, how late….Cistercian Fathers Series #17, pp. 133-34.

Those who seek will find, even if late, and some find their way to a monastery, the place where God best speaks to them, and where they best respond to his invitation.

I highly recommend John R. Sommerfeldt’s book, Aelred of Riveaux: pursuing perfect happiness (Newman Press, 2005), a wonderful reflection and application of Aelred’s vision of love.

Trappist monks in Choir

At the heart of the Christian life is a profound paradox, that true freedom is attained through the act, carried out over the span of a whole lifetime, of surrender. This idea is alien today in a culture that prizes the false concept of freedom as individual choice, over and above all other considerations. But the Christian seeks true freedom, found in love, acquired only through surrender to the Lordship of Christ.

So what of the monk? The monk is simply a Christian called to Christ’s freedom within the monastic way. For him this is where he will be most truly free. He sublimates his egoistic pursuits under the mantle of the Rule, the vows, and the particular practices of his monastery, and with them chips away at his resistances to complete surrender. But here there is a paradox, for as time passes he realizes his chipping away is futile, and he discovers, finally, his full dependence upon his loving Saviour. Freedom is not easily won. In fact it is a gift. Still, the struggle is necessary because only through it does the monk realize his utter dependence, the territory where freedom resides.

The very first word of the Rule attests to the centrality of surrender in the monk’s life: “Listen”. Let’s pray for all the monks and nuns living in monasteries throughout the world that they remain faithful to the call to surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, true model of surrender to the call to love. And let’s pray also that more young people hear the call to follow Him in the monastic way of liberation.

Listen carefully, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. This is the advice from a father who loves you; welcome it, and faithfully put it into practice. The labor of obedience will bring you back to him from whom you had drifted through the sloth of disobedience. This message of mine is for you, then, if you are ready to give up your own will, once and for all, and armed with the strong and noble weapons of obedience to do battle for the true King, Christ the Lord. Prologue, Rule of Saint Benedict

Trappist monk

The great monastic orders of the Christian West, the Benedictines and their relatives, the Cistercians, the Carthusians, the Camaldoese, exist down to our own day, even though the West cannot confidently anymore be considered Christian. But their numbers have decreased and for the most part are decreasing in a slow but steady manner. There is a great unknown involved in this development, one which sociologists, historians, and writers of every stripe have weighed in on, some saying it is the result of the upheavals of Vatican Council II, others the revolutionary changes within all of society from technological development to profound changes in social mores. I have no magic insight into the causes of this unsettling development, but I suspect it is reflective of all of the above. It seems, for whatever collective of causes, the traditional monastic orders are numerically in decline. The mean age of the orders members increases and the number of new members decreases.

If I do a Google search for monasticism I retrieve as many hits on the “new monasticism” as I do on the historical orders, such as the Cistercians and Benedictines. I take it the new monasticism is a movement of lay people, many married, who are attempting to live, with special focus on love of neighbor, especially the poor, the Gospel in community, often living together in the same house. It seems there is still an impulse to live a genuinely Christian life of sacrificial love, but within a different context than the cloister. I think this is wonderful; a sign the gospel is still lighting the flame of love and service within the hearts of men and women in our own time as it has throughout its history. And yet, I’m not so sure what the connection to monasticism is. Monastic life is something very particular, at least if I am to understand it historically, and is not really comprehensible if its definition is so broadened that any well meaning Christian community that lives communally can cal itself monastic, new or otherwise.

What are the elements that particularize monastic life, and those who live within its framework? One key attribute of the monk and nun has always been celibacy, the consecration of one’s entire being to God, including within this term, virginity (the avoidance of sexual relations), continence (the habit of mind of living chastely), and chastity (the moral virtue of purity). A life without celibacy just hasn’t ever been considered to be monastic, as the Latin root of the word monk , monachus, meaning one who lives alone, indicates. Interestingly, St. Benedict never mentions the promise of chastity in the monks vows, because it was considered so self-evidently a requirement to live a life of total dedication to God alone.

I’ll have future posts about some of the other essential elements of monastic life as it has been practiced throughout Christian history. But I return to my original question as to why so few people are entering the monastic orders today. Thomas Merton thought it had a lot to do with the interior life of modern man, which he felt suffers from a profound identity crisis, and one which the orders were ill equipped to handle. The result was many good vocations floundered and eventually left the monasteries. Maybe so, but the orders have made deep and principled changes, the result very much of a response to Vatican II and the needs of modern man. But the problem is not so much that large numbers of good vocations are leaving the monasteries, it’s that they aren’t ever coming at all.

So my question remains the same, and is one I only have sketchy ideas about why it has become so serious. The irony is that todays monasteries (and here again I am speaking about that which I know, namely the Cistercian monasteries) are living a monastic life that has gone through a prolonged self-examination with the result being that those men and women living in Cistercian monasteries today have been given the opportunity to live a true, honest, genuine form of monastic life, truly challenging and fully capable of providing the place to discover one’s true identity before God.

If others have ideas, please share them here. Does God still call men and women to monastic life today? If yes, why are so few responding? If no, why would this be? Are we just going through an historical anomaly, which will change with more people in the future once again responding to the call? Lots of questions, few answers.

Peace, and Happy New Year to all!