The Contemplative House. A Benedictine oblate blog

by cohdra

[Click picture to enlarge]

Lectio divina, praying the divine office, the treasured spiritual retreats at a monastery, and time spent at rest in the harbor of silence, are all helped by several home improvements.

Big Ben Chimes. Every fifteen minutes we hear beautiful chimes just like those at the St. Leo Abbey where we visit. Our chimes are played on an inexpensive second-hand computer we bought from a man who repairs and then resells old computers. The computer is connected to a pair of deep bass speakers and another set of wireless speakers located in another part of the house. Every fifteen minutes we are reminded to pray. We use this chimes program. The sound from this program is of very high quality.

Wind Chimes. We like to be reminded of the Holy Spirit and the wind chimes give that reminder in beautiful sounds. Both the Big Ben Chimes and the wind chimes outside our home illustrate that although we often speak of making our home quieter, that is somewhat misleading. What we actually want to do is replace noise from the world with sounds that call us to God's peace and turn our hearts to his path. We have the grandfather chimes from Jacob chimes.

Phone flasher. Silencing the phone is a way to avoid noisy disruptions. We bought the KMFT-793 Krown Strobe Visual Flasher that allows us to see a very subtle flashing light anytime we have a phone call. Although the small flasher is called a strobe, if you are imagining the strobe lights you have seen on emergency vehicles or remember from your college days (oh, boy) — you have the wrong image of the Krown Flasher — the light is subdued and lacks anything that could be called intense.

Prayer chair. Some fortunate oblates have rooms in their homes set aside for prayer. We have not been able to do that, but I have a chair that is used for praying the divine office and lectio divina.

Candles for prayer. I like to light a candle when praying the divine office. We will light a sanctuary-style candle in the weeks before we go on retreats at the abbey.

Incense. I have not used incense yet, but after writing this blog, thought it would be another practice I should try. You can get incense online from the incense shop of Hermits of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel who are in Texas, USA.

Shades open. We like to have as much natural light in our home as possible and are surprised by the number of people whose homes have the shades or blinds shut so the home is always dark. I think people were meant to live in the light.

Home Shrine. We do not have one, but here are some links to pictures of home "altars" or places of prayer. I liked each of these examples of drawing close to God. The links are to a thread about home shrines on the Catholic Answers forum. It is a long thread and I selected some of the most recent pictures. The short descriptions are my own -- my impression of the pictures.

Simple, Benedictine

Icon beauty in gold

Celtic ocean calm

Window cross

Mother and child

Angels protecting

Prayer reading corner

Book stand. My wife reads without one, but I like to use a small wooden book stand when I am sitting in the prayer chair. I use the books The Monastic Diurnal and Benedictine Daily Prayer, both require a lot of flipping back and forth. The book stand helps.

Gardens. This takes the most time and is constantly on our list of projects, but no matter how large or small, some form of garden is part of the monastic pattern.

How does your home help you on the journey to dwell with God?

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Footnotes:

The garden picture at the top of this blog is 000_0008_0001ENHsml.jpg by cohdra and is used subject to license.

I have linked to several of the products we use -- there are places where similar or superior products might be bought and I receive no compensation for the links placed in this blog or any purchases you make. I am not associated with any of the companies listed. You must decide if any of the products would help your home, but I do think it is a sign that the first review on Amazon for the Krown Strobe Visual Flasher said the unit was purchased for a church! :)

Fuga mundi, Free at Last. A Benedictine oblate blog

This blog is about how I was freed from an incorrect application of fuga mundi.

Fuga mundi (flight from the world) is sometimes used to describe the distinguishing characteristic of the monastic life as it developed long ago. For example, the excellent “RB 1980" states:

“The ascetic tradition in Christianity, on which the monastic movement is built, can of course, be traced back to the New Testament.... What distinguishes the monastic movement from the earlier tradition of asceticism within Christianity is the practice of withdrawal from society... This distinction ...provides virtually the only way of distinguishing the monastic movement from the earlier period.”1

As a former atheist until I was 37 years old and then Protestant for 20 years, many of my views about the monastic life were incorrect or placed too much emphasis on a few characteristics. For example, I had known for over 30 years that there was some kind of Catholic monastery near my home, but I thought incorrectly that no one could visit it (even if someone was foolish enough to want to), that the monks never left the monastery, and that none of the monks spoke because they had all taken a vow of silence because that’s what being a monk meant. Of course, all of that is wrong, but it illustrates the great divide existing between the real world of monastic living and the sheltered world of the uninformed — like I was.

Although I have now been a Benedictine oblate at that very same Catholic monastery for a couple of years and have a better understanding of monastic life, fuga mundi has had an unwelcome grip on my understanding of what it means to be monastic. And for the past year or so I have tried to flee its hold on my mind.

I have “felt” that fuga mundi is a term that camouflages a fuller view of monasticism, but a clear insight that set fuga mundi in its proper place in my understanding has been just beyond my reach — I have wrestled with this for a long time.

Recently I read the following article on Monachos.net which is an Orthodox web site. This fine article finally cleared away the last hold fuga mundi had on my thinking.

The article is “A Gospel motivation for the monastic life,” by M.C. Steenberg and it sought to answer the question of why people seek the monastic life. Here is the key part of the article:

"In the final analysis, D. Chitty's words in the Epilogue to his great work come again to mind. There are many factors for, many reasons behind the eager flight of thousands into the Egyptian deserts; yet if we are to discover the truest and most fundamental answer to the question of ‘why?', we must seek for it in ‘the search for personal holiness, the following of the Lord Jesus' in the life of the individual Christian. Perhaps the most succinct statement to this effect comes from Paul the Great:

"Abba Paul said, ‘Keep close to Jesus.'

“This is the goal of the monastic, both of ancient Egypt and of the modern day.

“In closing, a short story from my own experience. I met with an old monk and spiritual mentor some years ago, and our conversation quickly turned to the monastic life. I said to him, ‘Father I don't know if I am ready to become a monk; I don't know if I can so easily run away from the world.' He replied, ‘No, indeed you are not ready. No one is ready for the tonsure until they stop seeing it as running away from the world, and start seeing it as running toward Jesus Christ.'”

Amen, Jesus, a good place to start and finish.
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Footnote:

Picture is "Start | Finish at Madison St. at the Giro di Burnaby," by sillygwailo

1. “RB 1980,” page 4 and footnote 3. I have understood the limited purpose of the RB 1980 quote for some time as a result of my reading of the “Life of Anthony,” 11 (“Vita Anton.” 11) by Athanasius:

“He goes to the desert and overcomes temptations on the way.

“11. And on the day following he went forth still more eagerly bent on the service of God and having fallen in with the old man he had met previously, he asked him to dwell with him in the desert. But when the other declined on account of his great age, and because as yet there was no such custom, Antony himself set off forthwith to the mountain. And yet again the enemy seeing his zeal and wishing to hinder it, cast in his way what seemed to be a great silver dish. But Antony, seeing the guile of the Evil One, stood, and having looked on the dish, he put the devil in it to shame, saying, 'Whence comes a dish in the desert? This road is not well-worn, nor is there here a trace of any wayfarer; it could not have fallen without being missed on account of its size; and he who had lost it having turned back, to seek it, would have found it, for it is a desert place. This is some wile of the devil. O thou Evil One, not with this shall you hinder my purpose; let it go with you to destruction. Acts 8:20 ' And when Antony had said this it vanished like smoke from the face of fire.”