Is it OK to just read an Internet message board? -- Yes

How can an oblate use Internet message boards, mailing lists, and discussion forums? Do you have to post to participate? No!

Any form of involvement that fits your circumstances is OK and fulfills the purpose of virtually all Internet message boards you’ll find. When you read a book, you do not feel guilty if you do not jot off a note to the author.

I used the words "form of involvement" because when I use the words "level of involvement" it is too easy for me to slip into the rust, bronze, silver, gold, platinum, and plutonium rankings of almost everything in the world and that can cause me to think that the higher the level of involvement, the better the involvement. The benefits of Internet message boards and mailing lists don't work that way.

A huge majority of people seldom if every post, but the information they receive and think and pray about can be "priceless" to them. I have such a membership on several lists which I have treasured for years. In fact, in a couple, I think I was allowed in because I promised only to “lurk” (reading a message board without posting). And that is just what I wanted to do.

If you read message boards only when you are able or want to, and post a message only on Christmas and Easter, I doubt anyone will kick you out.

Not only are there individual life circumstances and workings of the Holy Spirit that shape a monastic interest in one person that is different from your Internet neighbor's, fortunately all those different interests can find a home in the long history of monasticism and in monastic web site across the Internet.

Benedictine Monks and Oblates on the Internet

The Pope is right on the mark historically and as a call to monks today when he explained a few days ago that, “A monastic life of isolation has it's place, but a monastery also has a public aim in the life of the Church and society as a whole. It must serve to make faith visible as a force of life.”

Forward-looking monasteries today are those who know that monks were leaders and innovators in mass communication in times of crumbling civilization and warrior raids and should be today too. What would the world look like today if monks during the Benedictine Centuries (550 to 1150 AD) had the Internet instead of a quill?

Oblates have a similar opportunity.

The Internet and 21st-century Benedictine oblate communities

Recently, three lay people who do not live near each other met at a monastery for what is called a mini conclave — a time to meet in person and pray. They had only met before on through the Internet. The mini conclave (one of the meanings of the word conclave “is a meeting especially of a group with shared or specialized interests.”) illustrates that the Internet is a new and important facilitator for oblate monasticism in the 21st century.

Monastics use the Internet because the Internet:

1. Finds Other Monastics. Interactions among monastics in Internet-based associations help identify common interests. This promotes cohesiveness in a diverse group of people.

2. Filters out Differences. The Internet tends to filter and lessen the differences that can divide people.

3. Avoids Intrusions. Use of the Internet for communication allows monastics to communicate only when he or she wants, interruptions are avoided. If monastics developed the standards for the perfect method of monastic communication, it would be the Internet.

4. Provides easy access to resources. The Liturgy of the Hours often prayed and sung by monastics traces its roots back 3,000 years to the Jewish Old Testament practices and much of the other foundational material is centuries old. Because so much of the material is not subject to copyright, Internet web sites can often provide the very best materials --from the ancient saints and doctors of the church.

The Internet has characteristics that aid all monastics. Internet communication fosters the monastic characteristics of silence, isolated contemplation, and reading. Communication with other people is faster, easier, less expensive, and comes into our life only at the times we choose. A home library suddenly has access to more books than contained in any physical library.

A growing number of monastics use the Internet in the 21-century for new forms of communication that were unknown in history, but whose result still produces the gathering of two or more in his name and the praying of the Liturgy of the Hours for his glory.