My Monk Myths. A Benedictine oblate blog

As a former long-time atheist, when I became a Christian, I changed my mind on several fundamental subjects. Or perhaps more accurately, I should say I came to see that my old ways of thinking were wrong because they were built upon dim assumptions. After an encounter with God, my entire life changed. I was led to the foot of the cross and a new life in Christ. That was about 25 years ago.

With such a large lesson in “I was wrong about that” out of the way, now I actually look forward to the frequent opportunities to learn something that will adjust my thinking toward a closer understanding of God’s truth.

One correction to my assumptions in the past few years has been about monks. I had gathered a mental montage of religious life from the wider culture, TV, books, and all the other sources that shrink-wrap our thinking. I had never met a monk.

Now that I know a few monks at the St. Leo Abbey in Florida, I can say that virtually every one of my previous images of monks was wrong.

The most striking change in my view is that monks are normal and regular people. They are approachable and welcoming. Gone is the stereotyped image of a person living in a false, make-believe land removed from world.

However, the most subtle change in my view is that monks are living witnesses to their vows of stability, conversatio morum, and obedience. Those are the vows from Chapter 58 of the Rule of St. Benedict.

My corrected understanding of monks is that they are people like the rest of us AND (not “but”) they live following ancient monastic principles with roots in the earliest days of Christianity — from “follow me,”(1) and “sell your possessions and give to the poor,”(2) to “pray without ceasing.”(3)

Monks are both more typical of human kind than my previous views AND are also more admirable Christian witnesses. Like nearly every more-accurate understanding I achieve, truth’s light is far brighter just below the world’s dull laminations.
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Footnotes:

Picture is "Abbot Philip of Christ in the Desert Monastery" in New Mexico, USA, by Bellagooch.

Christ in the Desert's web site is packed with monastic information. I enjoy, for example, the Abbot's Notebook. This monastery was where the 2006 TV show "The Monastery" (the USA version) was filmed.

(1) Luke 9:23-26

“Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?” NIV

(2) Luke 12:33-34

“Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. NIV

Above quotes from HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

(3) 1 Thess 5:17-18

“pray without ceasing.” NASB

Above "Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, © Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 Used by permission."

A Jewel Paid Into the Church Treasury. A Benedictine oblate blog.

I recently had one of those moments when what I “knew” about monasticism was changed into what I “understood” about monasticism.

I have always known that secluded monks pray often throughout the day. But after reading "Saint John Cassian on Prayer" and "The Benedictines," by Dom David Knowles, it became clearer to me, a flash of understanding — monks do not go into the desert primarily so they can be alone, they go to be alone so they can “pray without ceasing.”

Praying without ceasing is the charge by Paul in I Thessalonians 5:17. The heart of monasticism is living to fulfill that command.

Saint John Cassian wrote, “The whole purpose of the monk and perfection of his heart tends toward continual and uninterrupted perseverance in prayer.” 1

Origen wrote, “He prayers ‘without ceasing’ who unites prayer to the necessary deeds and fitting actions to prayer, since virtuous deeds or fulfilling the commandments are included as a part of prayer; for we can only accept the command to ‘pray without ceasing’ as meaning something possible if we mean that the saint’s whole life taken together is one great prayer.” 2

Dom David Knowles wrote about the monk, “He must realize that as a monk he owes this praise to God as his day's piece-work, and that apart from exceptional circumstances it is not a question whether missionary or teacher or student serves God better than he does. This prayer, liturgical and contemplative, is what God wants of him as a Benedictine monk, the peculiar talent that is his, the special jewel which Benedictines pay into the treasury of the Church.”3

This truth about monasticism — a life of prayer — rather than a life as a hermit — helps explain why oblates have always been a part of the larger monastic community and why in the 21st century the number of Benedictine oblates is increasing rapidly.

Many people are seeking a life of deeper spirituality and they are finding it in an expanded and structured life of praying the Psalms as part of the daily Divine Office.


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FOOTNOTES

1. Page 11, "Saint John Cassian on Prayer," translated by A.M. Casiday

2."Saint John Cassian on Prayer," footnote 25

3. Page 46, "The Benedictines," A Digest for Moderns
By Dom David Knowles
Monk of Downside Abbey
Introduction by Marion R. Bowman, O.S.B.
Abbot of Saint Leo Abbey
The Abbey Press, Saint Leo, Florida 1962
Here is an incomplete, online version of this classic work.



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