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?

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!

A swimmer plunges into the water stripped of his garments to find a pearl; a monk stripped of everything goes through his life to discover in himself the pearl - Jesus Christ; and when he finds Him, he seeks no longer for aught existing beside Him.
Isaac of Turin

“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found in a field and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Matthew 13: 44-46)

What is this treasure that causes such radicalism? Ask a monk … better still, go to a monastery and spend a few days there in silence in the presence of the monks: watch, listen, and wait. You’ll get your answer … if you really desire it.

But see, there’s the rub. It always comes back to me, to you, to each of us personally. We have to desire to know before we can know. Like I said before, if you don’t feel the desire, pray for it, and you’re on your way. So, get to a monastery, like Gethsemani, in Kentucky, or Genesee, in New York, or New Clairvaux, in California, and unload it all in the presence of men who have found the treasure… and wait for the treasure to be revealed.

I wonder how many people are going through life unaware of their true vocation. The great Trappist monk and writer Thomas Merton reflected on this question as a failure to understand our true identity as children of God in the following quote:

The seeds of this sublime life are planted in every
Christian at Baptism. But seeds must grow and develop
before you reap the harvest. There are thousands of
Christians walking about the face of the earth bearing in
their bodies the infinite God of whom they know practically
nothing. They are themselves children of God, and are not
aware of their identity. Instead of seeking to know
themselves and their true dignity, they struggle miserably
to impersonate the alienated characters whose “greatness”
rests on violence, craftiness, lust and greed. … God does
not manifest Himself to these souls because they do not seek
Him with any real desire. … But desire is the most
important thing in the contemplative life. Without desire
we will never receive the great gifts of God.
Thomas Merton, Inner Experience, unpublished MS., Abbey of Gethsemani, p. 35. Also found in What is Contemplation?, p. 16 & 23.

If there are many who fail to see their true identity as resting in God’s love for them, then there surely are those who fail to understand how this love plays out in the particularity of their own life. The first step, as Merton points out, is desire; without it nothing happens, with it, anything is possible.

If you don’t have it then the first step is to pray for the desire to desire your true identity. If you can see the need for this then God’s already answered your prayer!

Catholic seminaries and the houses of religious orders are echoing with the sound of fewer and fewer footsteps, a process that has been going on for some time now; another one of the far reaching impacts of the culture of that short sighted decade we call the 60s. But not without the help of church men and women who took to the Vatican II call for aggiornamento with a progressive program to rid the Church of its old ways. This they have done, and the obedient sheep followed blahing all the way to and over the cliff. We only have ourselves to blame.

There is a good reflection on all this by Tom Howard in the October 2005 issue of Crisis magazine, titled Ashes to Ashes. I recommend it. He points out a salient fact, that being the seminaries of evangelical congregations are “packed with (young) zealots” who can’t wait to begin their ministry preaching their faith in Jesus Christ as savior of the world. Catholics too actually witnessed to this once. OK, perhaps I’m being pessimistic and overstating things a bit because, yes, there are many good Catholic witnesses to the faith that has been handed on down through the ages. Absolutely, no doubt. Still, facts are facts, and they are represented clearly in the empty pews, rectories, convents, seminaries, and religious orders throughout the United States and Europe. Why the contrast between evangelical youth and Catholic youth? The contrast, I posit, lies not with the youth but with their respective churches.

So, this in large part is why I’ve begun this blog. I want to speak to whomever will listen that the Catholic Church is in need of you, the young, the idealistic, the fiery believer in Jesus. Don’t be afraid to commit yourselves to the Church as she suffers through this time of scandal and confusion. I am writing to get the word out that the monastic life is an unbelievably heroic life of sacrifice in service to Jesus, the Lord of all. Don’t be afraid to give yourself completely, because such a gift will have unimaginable effects on others. You will be a witness with your life to the Truth that Jesus Christ is Lord. Be a monk. Be a mystic. Be a hidden jewel in the hands of God, a gift he will cherish for all eternity.

Don’t just think about it. Do something. Jesus needs you. The Church needs you. Imagine the unimaginable … Jesus waits with open arms …

Why do some people become monks? Well, simply put, they have a desire to live life out in a monastic way; they choose to live monastically over and above all the other options available to them. This, though, is a bit like saying the color black is dark; it doesn’t say a whole heck of a lot.

Something happens inside all of us when we come in contact in one form or another with the “it” we’re meant to do, though “do” really isn’t the right verb at all. It’s really who we’re meant to “be” that emerges into consciousness and sends a hum of energy throughout our being when we “see” it for the first time. It happens to all of us when we meet our true love - we know it beyond words; there is no adequate description of it that can be made to others, nor, in the end does there need to be, because if the encounter is real others will see it too and experience the resonance of a person in love.

And monks are lovers, and are called to love unconditionally - God. That something that vibrates within, as if a perfectly still surface of water were suddenly alive with ripples sent out from a center point touched with the tip of a finger, is experienced in different circumstances by men and women “called” to be monks. It might occur while reading a book, walking alone in the woods, sitting at the beach looking at the water rolling in; it could begin by the touch of a word someone might say…at church, at the dinner table, at work. It could happen suddenly or more like a slow, incessant “something” within that simply cannot be ignored. Wherever or however it happens it is a question that needs answering, a pull that won’t stop pulling, a yearning that demands a response.

The classic idea of vocation says we are called by God and we are free to respond or not to respond, and this is so. However, it is so much more beautiful and unfathomable than any formulation can put it, no matter what God speaks us to be, including that of monk. Everyone reading this has or will experience, God willing, their own singular call; it’s woven into the fabric of human destiny. Most won’t experience the pull to live monastically; however, some reading this just might… It’s my guess you know who you are, or at least suspect it.

My suggestion? Pray and be open to God’s invitation even if it scares you to even think about it. The way will be open if you really want to know the answer. Blessings!