An Ancient Spirit Lives — Knock. A Benedictine oblate blog

Ancient Door

Queen of Angels Monastery, Mt. Angel, Oregon, USA, posted a great blog. A short excerpt sets the scene June 24, 2010.

"Postulant Patricia officially began her formation in monastic life in a ceremony that comes from the 6th century Rule of Benedict. That Rule, in Chapter 58, speaks about a newcomer knocking on the door of the monastery and being granted admission if she "shows eagerness for the Work of God, for obedience and for trials...that will lead to God."

The blog goes on to explain in classic Benedictine style and language how the welcome ceremony proceeded from a literal knock on the monastery door to the final blessing.

As the Prologue is to Rule's 73 chapters, the ceremony beautifully describes the beginning of Postulant Patricia's first steps in monastic life. This is the path — an ancient spirit lives.

Thank you Queen of Angels Monastery for posting a remarkable blog on monasticism. It should be read by everyone interested in the Benedictine monastic life and especially by anyone considering the calling as a sister, nun, or monk.

Congratulations to Postulant Patricia.

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Footnotes:

Picture is Ancient door 1 in the convent "Marienberg" South Tirol - Italy by alexwall and is used subject to license.

Contact information for the Queen of Angels Monastery, Mt. Angel, Oregon, USA:

Queen of Angels Monastery web site

QAM1882@gmail.com

Note: Under the label “An Ancient Spirit Lives” are blogs, web sites, and videos that best reveal the most ancient monastic principles — first light in the monastic day. These are essential truths I hope I never forget and ones that carry the ancient ways into my understanding today. In the past two years of the Oblate Blog, there have been a total of three such blogs of "An Ancient Spirit Lives." An alert reader may quip, "you must not understand very much" — I would readily agree.

An Ancient Spirit Lives. A Benedictine oblate blog

“People sense almost instinctively that the monastery is a home for the world.”

The quote is from a monastery of cloistered nuns — in fact, from their video of the life in the monastery that was broadcast around the world by EWTN.(1)

If your heart wants to visit a monastery, you are sensing an ancient truth. Monasteries are places of spiritual power for the world.(2)
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Footnotes:

[Note: Under the label “An Ancient Spirit Lives” are blogs, web sites, and now videos speaking directly about the most ancient monastic principles. These are truths I hope I never forget and ones that directly shape my understanding of monastic life.]

(1) From the 2003 video, "POOR CLARE NUNS: A LIFE FOR GOD," produced by the Poor Clare Monastery of Our Lady of Mercy, Belleville, Illinois, U.S.A. The quote in this blog is in the third video segment, “Prayer and Meditation” on the nuns' web site.

The video is 20-minutes on what the Poor Clares do all day and their spiritual life. The video was shown on EWTN (TV Schedule of Eternal Word Television Network).

As of today, I could not find that the video will be rebroadcast in August, 2009, but the Poor Clare’s web site has the video in 4 segments of about 5 minutes long. I had to download the newest RealPlayer to see the video.

(2) VISIT TO HEILIGENKREUZ ABBEY, ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI, Sunday, 9 September 2007.

An Ancient Spirit Lives — Incline the ear of your heart.

[Note: Under the label “An Ancient Spirit Lives” are blogs and web sites speaking directly about the most ancient monastic principles. These are blogs I hope I never forget and ones that directly shape my understanding of monastic life.]

One of Sr. Janet’s blog posts is “A Different Path” of August 20, 2008, telling much about the Poor Clares Colettine Community at Ty Mam Duw — located in Wales, Great Britain.

The Poor Clares Colettine Community is a praying community. They pray much of the day and late into the night. And they also know when to pray more. You might think that it is odd to make such a distinction — knowing when to pray more. But the Poor Clares are given a lamp unto their feet and a light unto their path that shines farther into the unknown — but this is typical of great praying communities and individuals.

Sr. Janet wrote in “A Different Path”:

“Yet speak to any of the Sisters and their sense of joy is real, their inner freedom tangible. There is no sense that the long hours spent in prayer are burdensome. The Sister I interviewed After all, these are the very moments when they can be close to the sick, the dying, those in any kind of need, as one story goes to show…

“Not long ago, late at night, the dog started to bark, without any obvious cause. There was a feeling that someone was dying and so the Sisters immediately sprang into action, praying throughout the night hours on that person’s behalf. The dog continued to bark into the early hours of the morning and then, suddenly, stopped, allowing the Sisters a few hours of sleep. Next morning, they learned that the moment of the dog’s silence was the very time at which the mother of a nearby camper, died. Thanks to the dog, the Sisters and a good dollop of Divine Inspiration, the old lady did not die alone… and they have many stories just like that, when they have somehow known that there was somebody in urgent need of their prayerful companionship at a crisis point in their life.”

Incline the ear — there is something worth listening to.