St. Basil: No wall of separation between Church and monastery.

And, there is a welcoming door between the community and the monastery.

St. Basil’s monasticism “was not closed to the community of the local Church but instead was open to it. His monks belonged to the particular Church; they were her life-giving nucleus and, going before the other faithful in the following of Christ and not only in faith, showed a strong attachment to him - love for him - especially through charitable acts. These monks, who ran schools and hospitals(1), were at the service of the poor and thus demonstrated the integrity of Christian life.”(2)

“In speaking of monasticism, the Servant of God John Paul II wrote: ‘For this reason many people think that the essential structure of the life of the Church, monasticism, was established, for all time, mainly by St Basil; or that, at least, it was not defined in its more specific nature without his decisive contribution.’"(3) (4) (5)

From the earliest days, monasticism was integrated into both the life of the Church and life of the community. When God gives a person to the monastic life, that person becomes a gift to both the Church and community, from a life centered in God.

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Footnotes:

(1) St. Basil built hospital facilities that were a key step in the development of the modern hospital concept where people are admitted for medical treatment. A classic example of monastic activity — charitable, practical, innovative.

(2) Benedict XVI, General Audience, 4 July 2007, on Saint Basil.

(3) Apostolic Letter Patres Ecclesiae, n. 2, January 1980; L'Osservatore Romano English edition, 25 February, p. 6).
Quoted in Footnote (2).

(4) St Basil died in 379 AD, 101 years before St. Benedict was born. St Basil lived in what is now modern-day Turkey — the East, and St. Benedict lived in Italy — the West. St. Benedict used many of St. Basil’s monastic principles when St. Benedict compiled the Rule of St. Benedict — the Rule that serves as the foundation for all Western monasticism.

(5) St. Basil was born into a family of saints, a Domestic Church, where he received the upbringing in the spirit of God, his older sister is St. Macrina. He studied in Athens and Constantinople. He became a priest and later a bishop of Caesarea—Cappadocia (Turkey). St. Basil is a Doctor of the Church. Long New Advent article on St. Basil the Great.



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MONASTERIES: OASES OF ASCETIC LIFE. A Benedictine oblate blog

Here is a long quote from Vatican Information Service (VIS)

MONASTERIES: OASES OF ASCETIC LIFE(1)

VATICAN CITY, 20 NOV 2008 (VIS) - The Pope today received participants in the plenary assembly of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, which is celebrating its hundredth anniversary this year. The assembly was held from 18 to 20 November.

Having recalled the theme of the meeting - "Monastic life and its significance in the Church and the world today" - the Holy Father indicated that "consecrated persons are a special part of the People of God. Supporting and protecting their faithfulness to the divine call is the fundamental role you play", he told the members of the dicastery.

Benedict XVI expressed the view that the work of these days, "which focused particularly on female monastic life, may provide useful guidance to monks and nuns who 'seek God", practising their vocation for the good of the whole Church". In this context he recalled how during his address last September to the world of culture in Paris, France, he had "highlighted the exemplary nature of monastic life in history, and underlined how its aim is both simple and essential: 'quaerere Deum', seeking God and seeking Him through Jesus Christ Who revealed Him, seeking Him by fixing one's gaze on the invisible truths that are eternal, in the expectation of the glorious manifestation of the Saviour".

"When consecrated people live the Gospel radically, when people dedicated to an entirely contemplative life profoundly cultivate the nuptial bond with Christ, ... then monasticism can, for all forms of religious and consecrated life, become a reminder of what is of essential and primary importance for all the baptised: seeking Christ and placing nothing before His love.

"The way indicated by God for this search and this love is His own Word", the Pope added, "abundantly present in the books of Sacred Scripture for mankind to reflect upon".

The recent Synod on the Word of God "renewed its appeal to all Christians to root their lives in listening to the Word of God as contained in Sacred Scripture, and invited religious communities in particular, and all consecrated men and women, to make the Word of God their daily sustenance, especially through the practice of 'lectio divina'".

The Holy Father concluded by expressing the hope that "monasteries may increasingly become oases of ascetic life, where the allure of the nuptial union with Christ is felt, and where the choice of the Absolute ... is immersed in a climate of constant silence and contemplation".

AC/MONASTIC LIFE/... VIS 081120 (420)

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Footnote

(1) All links in the above article are to Vatican documents, but the links were add by me in this blog post.

Rest in the Light. A Benedictine oblate blog

Rest on the Flight into Egypt

[Click pictures to enlarge]

The "Rest on the Flight into Egypt," is the 1879 painting by Luc Olivier Merson. I mentioned the painting at the very end of my last blog which was about focusing on beauty as preparation for an upcoming oblate retreat.

As I studied "Rest on the Flight into Egypt" I remembered Pope Benedict XVI’s own masterpiece work of art: his recent address to representatives from the world of culture, Collège des Bernardins, Paris, Friday, 12 September 2008. The Pope said:

“From the perspective of monasticism’s historical influence [on European culture], we could say that, amid the great cultural upheaval resulting from migrations of peoples and the emerging new political configurations, the monasteries were the places where the treasures of ancient culture survived, and where at the same time a new culture slowly took shape out of the old. But how did it happen? ... First and foremost, it must be frankly admitted straight away that it was not their intention to create a culture nor even to preserve a culture from the past. Their motivation was much more basic. Their goal was: quaerere Deum [seeking God]. Amid the confusion of the times, in which nothing seemed permanent, they wanted to do the essential ...

“They were searching for God. They wanted to go from the inessential to the essential, to the only truly important and reliable thing there is. .... “They were seeking the definitive behind the provisional. Quaerere Deum: because they were Christians, this was not an expedition into a trackless wilderness, a search leading them into total darkness. God himself had provided signposts, indeed he had marked out a path which was theirs to find and to follow.”

To me, Pope Benedict XVI described the "Rest on the Flight into Egypt." The painting reveals the same story — Mary and Joseph were treasuring the definitive beyond the provisional of this world. They preserved the eternal Truth from Herod’s tyrannical savagery.

We should not see Mary and Joseph in a barren desert. They are in total rest — in total peace. They were following signposts by the light that is God. Monasteries did the same thing and it created beauty in the parched soul of Europe.

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.