Showing posts with label monasticism. Show all posts

A very useful reference is The Monastic Way, edited by Hannah Ward and Jennifer Wild (Eerdmans, 2006). This is a compendium of brief quotes from monastic writings ranging through the whole of Christian history, arranged as one excerpt for each day of the year. July happens to have some pertinent sayings on the subject of silence. They are found on pp 107-120 of the book.

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Aelred Niespolo, OSB

If the word obsculta [listen: first word of the Rule of Benedict] defines the overall action within monastic life, it is also a part of the message offered to a world that does everything it can in order not to listen. Listening takes place within silence, which is not simply a lack of words, but is a 'counter' to the noise of the world. True silence prevents empty words. One can only listen if one can hear. In the otium [leisure] grounded in silence, and in the 'sacred space' of the monastery itself, God not only speaks to the person, but as importantly, the person speaks with God.

Basil the Great

We must try to keep the mind in quietness. For if the eye is constantly shifting its gaze, one moment this way or that, then veering between upwards and down, it cannot see clearly what lies directly in front of it. It has to bring its gaze to bear on this object so as to see it clearly in focus. In the same way a mind distracted by thousands of worldly concerns cannot possibly bring a steady gaze to bear on the truth...Another image: you cannot write on wax tablets unless everything previously written on them has been erased--and the soul cannot receive godly teaching without first clearing out of the way its own preconceived ideas. With this in view a time of withdrawal is of the greatest benefit, as it calms our compulsive passions and gives reason a clear space to cut them down to size.

Joan Chittister, OSB

Those who cringe from silence see it like the plague, fearful of its weight, cautious of its emptiness and the shock that comes with its revelations. The heaviness and emptiness we feared give way very quickly to turmoil and internal pressure for change. Silence enables us to hear the cacaphony inside ourselves. Being alone with ourselves makes for a demanding presence. We find very quickly that either we must change or we shall surely crumble under the weight of our own dissatisfaction with ourselves, under the awareness of what we could be but are not, under the impulse of what we want to be but have failed to become. Under the din is the raw material of the soul.

Peter-Damian Belisle, OSB Cam

Silence is the language spoken by solitude. Perhaps at first reckoning, we might consider silence merely the absence of sound. But silence is not something that begins only when sound ends. There is something awesome and breathtaking about real silence; it is numinous, pulling us out of our self-containment and calling us towards the invisible. Religious seekers 'home in' on silence as homing pigeons return to their roost, because therein lies the language for personal communication with the sacred.

A Carthusian

There is exterior silence and interior silence. The monastery is, or should be, a place of at least relative silence in the sense of the absence of unnecessary noise and agitated movement. We are less assaulted by harsh sounds; rather we are are soothed by the mostly harmonious sounds of nature, and bells and our Gregorian chant. This pacifies our sensibility and refines it. A heightened awareness is a common experience in solitude and affects all the senses, for they are all linked together. In silence we are more vividly aware of colour, and perfume and touch, because we are more present to ourselves. And little by little, we become attuned to the breathing spaces of silence between the sounds, as it were, like an underlying melody, not exactly 'heard', and yet somehow perceived, something that can take the character of a presence.

Silence begets an attitude of listening; a recollected capacity to receive the manifold communications of being through the doors of the senses, which yet go beyond the sensual to become mediators of a communion of our mind and spirit with what is. The artist, the philosopher, the praying person may perceive or, at least, express in different words diverse aspects of this reality, but all have need of silence, receptivity and awareness.

Peter-Damian Belisle, OSB Cam

People are finding less silence in today's societies. They seek out places of refuge and retreat, hoping for the blessing of mere quiet and, perhaps, sheer silence. They go to monasteries and hermitages so they can learn to listen, or listen more attentively. Within monastic walls, silence is maintained so as not to disturb anyone who may be listening to the Word or simply resting the body. But listening is crucial there, and people recognize that fact instinctively. To what are monastics listening in their silence? To the word of God; to their inner-most hearts; to grace at work in the spirit; to what they discern to be truth--ultimate truth. Here is the place where one is ultimately completely naked--stripped of all pretension and illusion--and where one stands truly as one in the presence of God. Here one stands, simply and utterly, in truth.

Carl McColman of Anamchara has a great post on the relationship of contemplative spirituality to the everyday lives of ordinary people. Carl is a lay associate of a Cistercian monastery near Atlanta and his observations grew out of a conversation with another associate.

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To non-monks, a cloister may seem to be nothing more than a barrier: a wall or fence that divides the abode of monks from the rest of the world...But..the real beauty of the cloister is not its periphery, but its center. The cloister is the place where community happens. It is the anchor of stability, the crucible where penance and humility are forged, the home where lovers of Christ--and of the brothers and the place--reside, hopefully joyfully, usually imperfectly, always with the help of God's grace...

"We are not called to live in the cloister",my friend mused, "but we are called to embrace the charisms of the cloistered life. To me, this means we must find a 'cloister of the heart', a place within ourselves where we can cultivate stability and silence and simplicity and all the other Cistercian charisms".

...This does not mean that we simply withdraw into some sort of navel-gazing introversion. Far from it. Like the cloister itself, the heart is a center, not a boundary. The heart's lifelong job is to receive blood, and then send the blood out again. If the blood stops moving through the heart, the heart--and the body it serves--quickly dies...For a person who has embraced the cloister of the heart as a lay contemplative, this means we continually draw within ourselves the refreshing silence and solitude of contemplative prayer, only then to give it away, bringing the gifts of a life immersed in the love of God to all those whom we love and whom we meet in the course of our busy lives. God comes into us through prayer and meditation and silence and solitude, and we give God away through love and service and acts of mercy and charity and justice. We pray and we work: ora et labora, which happens to be the motto of Benedictine monasticism.

Today (in some calendars at least) is the commemoration of St Pachomius, the founder of cenobitic monasticism. He was born in Thebes, upper Egypt, to pagan parents in about 292. At the age of 20 he was forcibly drafted--rounded up like a prisoner is more like it--into the Roman army during one of the civil wars endemic to that period. Fortunately the war ended before he had to do any fighting. Before this happened, he and his fellow recruits/prisoners were ministered to by local Christians. This so impressed him that he converted and undertook the ascetic life.

After some years as a hermit (the predominant form of monasticism at the time) Pachomius had a vision of an angel, who told him, "The will of God is to put oneself at the service of humanity in order to call them to himself". This inspired him to establish a series of monasteries in which monks and nuns would live in structured communities under the guidance of an abbot and a written rule. At the time of his death he had founded nine monasteries with a total of 5,000 monks. His rule influenced later monastics, including Benedict. He refused to let priests join (they came from local villages to celebrate the Eucharist on-site) and he refused ordination even when it was offered by the great Athanasius himself. Oh, yes, and he also invented that indispensable accessory of Eastern monasticism, the prayer rope.

Leo Campos is a co-founder of the Community of Solitude, a non-residential network of contemplatives rooted in Benedictine-Camaldolese spirituality. In an essay appearing in Episcopal Cafe, he has some interesting insights into what monasticism is all about.

...all I "do" as a contemplative monk is to live out my baptismal covenant. In other words, I do exactly, no more or less, than what every other Christian does. Or, better, I try to do exactly what everyone else tries to do. And I fail just as badly at it. But perhaps here's the point where being a monk can be a service--my struggles can become an object lesson for others. Hopefully not a risible case study in failure, but rather a visible reminder of what we are all going through together. It is a communal experience, where my robes and my public profession become a mirror for others.

When someone realizes that I am trying to be a mirror to them it usually leads tgo their adoption of various defensive postures and gestures. "Oh I don't think so, I am not a monk! I am not this or that". It is unfortunate that we in the Episcopal Church do not live more openly the theology of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, where the life of the laity and that of the monk are much more closely aligned.