Involuntary monasticism

Today, I started reading a fascinating new book just out from Cornell University Press: Anne Jacobson Schutte’s By Force and Fear: Taking and Breaking Monastic Vows in Early Modern Europe. It details how parents and other members of a family often forced young men and women into the monastery or convent. The author has analyzed the records of nearly 1,000 cases of petitioned annulment of religious vows from the Vatican Archives. She details many of these cases, showing how devastating involuntary commitments could be on young men and women, how they were often forced to live in a situation (on earth) that they wanted nothing to do with, but how taking false vows was believed to put their souls at risk of eternal damnation, as well. Attorneys would argue the cases — if the petitioner was fortunate enough to have the resources ($$) to bring a case to their attention, and ecclesiastical judges would decide their fate: whether or not to grant the petition for annulment.

Hospitality not always evident in the Rule

“Benedictine hospitality” is tough to pin down in the Rule of St. Benedict. When someone comes to the monastery seeking to become a monk, let him knock on the door over and over again, Benedict advised. Be uncooperative, he says. In fact, see even if he will put up with unkind replies from the other side of the door, Benedict said.

In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the insults shouted down by the French-accented knights upon the approaching King Arthur and his attendants remind me of this medieval practice. They shout down insults on the presumptuous Arthur: “Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person! I blow my nose at you!” “Your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries!”

Rebukings, unkindness, uncooperativeness, maybe even insults, Benedict advised in order to turn away those who might have believed the monastery to be the easy answer to their neediness. They certainly weren’t quick to allow anyone to depend on them. “Easy admission is not to be granted,” Benedict advises, which seems to be putting it mildly. And then he quotes from 1 Samuel 4:1, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.”

The value of a monk

St. Joseph’s Abbey in Massachusetts has a mission statement that reads, “Cistercian monks are known traditionally as lovers of the brethren and the place. The community of Spencer sees itself as an expression of the mystery of the Church, where nothing is preferred to the love of Christ in praise of the Father’s glory…. By fidelity to our monastic way of life, which has its own hidden mode of apostolic fruitfulness, we perform a service for God’s people and the whole human race.”

“I believe it,” Brother Luke said to me, after I read him that paragraph. “There is value to silence and this sort of life for the world at large that the world at large doesn’t usually comprehend. We help people who come here to be more real in their lives, to uncover some reality. And the hidden mode we speak of is what the spirit and prayer of the monks accomplish for the Church and the world that can never really be measured. That’s okay,” he concluded, with a grin.

Even an activist Christian like Desmond Tutu understands this “hidden mode of apostolic fruitfulness.” Tutu once explained the value of monasticism by retelling the gospel story of a paralytic whom Jesus healed. After being lowered down through a hole in the roof by his friends, “we are told that when our Lord saw their faith, i.e. the faith of the friends, then he said to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’” Tutu concluded: “This principle of vicariousness I have thought applies so aptly to [monks and nuns]…. I believe that all [of them] have this peculiar vicarious ministry, being there on behalf of, for the sake of, others.”

A Contemplative Stage of Life

I once knew a monk named Ambrose. He lived in Georgia. Ambrose would sit in his cell each morning before dawn writing a daily journal of thoughts to God. Sometimes he would mail me copies of stuff he thought I’d find meaningful. He was always right on the mark.

In one of these journal entries, Ambrose wrote: “After more than fifty years in the monastery, the questions seem even greater, and the answers, mostly more tentative. Life, I’ve discovered, is fascinating but coquettish. Still, my fascination tempts me and draws me on like the rueful, ever hopeful, lover, longing to know and despairing to understand my Beloved more deeply.”

I carried that note from Ambrose around with me for years, tucked in a pocket of the satchel that accompanies me whenever I leave home. I referred to it often.

Ambrose knew me well. He knew that what he wrote about himself also expressed my heart’s own longing.

When I mention this “longing to know and despairing to understand” to friends, they often seem to immediately, intuitively, understand, as well. Ambrose’s words have come to symbolize a trajectory of life on the spiritual path—a way of understanding how we sometimes move from one way of engaging with God to another and another. They are each important. They are all good.

In fact, I have come to conclude that for some people there are four stages on a spiritual pilgrimage. At least, I believe there have been four for me so far.

Stage one I would call the received tradition. I received the Word and what it said. I studied it. I did not challenge it. Simultaneously, I was the son of good parents and was taught, as most kids are, to obey mom and dad, to do what they say. For the most part, I did that and that was good. Some people probably remain at this sort of stage for their entire lives and that’s okay.

But I would call stage two the rebel stage. Another contemplative monk (not Ambrose) told me once that spiritual maturity is impossible for a man without first rebelling against his father. Think of that rebellion literally or more figuratively. Either way it works. And I would imagine it is the same way for daughters and mothers as it is for sons and fathers. This was true for me. My rebellions were relatively mild compared to those of many of my friends, but still, I was determined to distinguish myself from my father in important ways. I challenged the Word, calling it nonsense at times, and I left the church, wandering around through other traditions and figuring that I knew what was right. Again, some people probably remain at this stage for their entire lives. But that would be unfortunate.

Stage three is the one that I’m mostly in right now, I think. I would call it the spirituality stage, when practice and ritual have become vital in my life, and I have rewoven connections to the religion of my youth as well as to some religious practices that were never a part of my youth but that I’ve decided are important. The patchwork I’ve been creating makes a different pattern from the received tradition of my first stage, and I think, it makes a better one.

But stage four is where I have been led by monks. It is where they are and where I try to be when I can. At the fourth stage, I am moving beyond spirituality and its program of self by becoming more contemplative. The questions and issues of my earlier rebellions are not answered any more than they were when I was in stage two, but I also don’t fight them as much anymore. The answer to many of the questions of life comes when the questions themselves fade away as less important. In this contemplative stage, I also find myself feeling more profoundly connected to those around me: I want to be near strangers and I want more connections with those who are already friends. I’m more interested in spiritual practice than I am in what I believe. I judge less than I ever have before. I try to listen carefully.

I can honestly say that I have loved this journey at every stage, and more and more every year that I grow older. If you find yourself on a similar pilgrimage along the way, I would love to hear from you.

Who I want to be

A Trappist is the sort of man I want to be, even though I live outside the cloister. I enjoy spending time with contemplative monks because their way of life makes it possible to take a longer view of things. They easily discuss the big questions without becoming occupied with them. They ponder without too much deducing. They work intently without getting caught up too much in their work. They pray without talking too much. They adore God without falling asleep. These are all skills I don’t naturally possess but would love to learn.

A camel ride away

There is something reassuring about the thick stone walls of a monastery. The physical sturdiness of the place reinforces the ancient practices and teachings that you encounter inside. To sit in an abbey church and pray along with the brothers, or to listen to a chapter talk, is to do something Christians have done since the first hermits began to gather in communities outside the major city centers of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. A man in Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch must have grown tired of his day job and domestic responsibilities; he must have wondered how to deepen his spiritual life beyond sitting in church once a week; and so he rode. He rode a camel out to where the monks had set up their communities.

That’s what I do now: I ride my metaphorical camel to see the men in the monastery from time to time. They live their lives in out-of-the-way places. You would never meet them unless you set out to find them—and I’ve been blessed by finding them. They live in stone houses at the end of long roads, and my journeys are always rewarding.

Try not to be clever

“When you are here, don’t walk around looking for moments of enlightened insight,” my monk-friend, Ambrose, once advised me.

“For one thing, we’re not that smart!” He laughed.

“Instead, you should walk around the monastery grounds just praying. Sit in the church before dawn, praying. Or just shut your mouth for a few days. Listen to the talks given by the retreat master, if you like. Just sit. Try your best to stop thinking.”

It sounded too easy to me. I told him that.

“What I’m suggesting is much harder than you might think. You’ll see.”

At that point, I felt the need to lighten things up. “What about a little old-fashioned scourging? Wouldn’t that be easier?”

“Yes, well,” he said, smiling, “we Trappists aren’t much into asceticism anymore. Beating yourself up doesn’t do for you what the monks of earlier centuries thought it would do. In fact, it only confuses things further,” he explained, as if he knew whereof he spoke. This is a monk who started out long before the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. He used to sleep on a wooden plank in winter in a mostly unheated dormitory.

“So, here’s your ascetical work for this week: Try your best not to be clever or insightful. Try your best not to look in the mirror. If you’re lucky, you’ll uncover some of your truer self before you leave.”

Setting goals, making plans

In Cloister Talks, you say that when you visit a monastery “[Your] goal is to live, at least for a time, as if [you] don’t have goals to achieve.” What do you mean by this and why is it important to sometimes live without goals to achieve?

A Cistercian abbot once said that nothing worried him more about a young monk than if he talked a lot of ambition. I took this to heart, as if he was speaking directly to me and my life. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with setting goals; I certainly still do it, and I follow those goals to get things done. But too much ambition, planning, goal-setting, turns our attention away from God. That’s simple, ancient, spiritual wisdom. Too much planning and pretty soon we’re no longer able to be surprised without dread. And I have no doubts that God wants our delighted surprise.

Q & A about Cloister Talks

1. At what age did you begin to be interested in the monastic life? How was Thomas Merton influential?

It was late in high school for me. I had gone through a few years of trying to be as popular as I could be, dating and having fun—fairly normal stuff—but then I sort of got sick of myself, of my desires. I was raised a Christian since childhood, but until I was about 17 I hadn’t understood that seeking God and preening yourself are impossible to do at the same time. Merton’s writings played a big part in my discovering these things, as he was so honest about his own path through those delusions.

2. What first led you into a monastery? How were your perceptions changed during your first visit?

I started making retreats to Merton’s monastery in Kentucky during spring break weeks and other times, in college. I think many of my friends, even at a place like Wheaton College, thought I was sort of nuts. Walking through those doors, sitting in choir and singing psalms, talking with the monks, walking around and imagining myself in that sort of vocation—were exhilarating for me.

3. How has the wisdom of contemporary monasticism been your greatest source of guidance for your non-monastic life?

There was a time—a period of about a year and a half—when I was pretty sure that I was supposed to become a Trappist. I felt that that was what God wanted for me, and it seemed to be confirmed by others. This also meant that I would have to convert to Catholicism, and in the end, that leap was too much for me—a kid who had grown up in evangelicalism—to take at the age of 20. Nevertheless, from those earliest days of sitting with the monks in choir, or talking with one of them in a private meeting, I came to see that there were important ways to live monastic spirituality no matter where I am. And that’s what Cloister Talks is all about.

The feast day of Thomas Merton

It was on this day in 1968 that Thomas Merton died in Bangkok.

In the summer of 1941, a few months before he became a monk, he was living in upstate New York teaching English at St. Bonaventure College. He was in his twenties and trying to figure out what to do with his life, attracted as he was to both the life of the mind (as a writer) and the life of the spirit (a possible, religious vocation). He was debating many things within himself: should he become a writer? Is it possible to be a writer without becoming full of oneself? What about the call to contemplation that he felt deep inside of himself?

These tensions made Merton’s life and work relevant to millions of readers, long after his death in 1968. Many of us bump up against these same questions—not necessarily because we are writers, as he was, but because we seek to exercise our talents without self-aggrandizement. To use the language of monastic spirituality, how do we dismantle our “false self,” and gradually discover our “true self,” as we succeed in our work in the world? This question filled Merton with anxiety throughout his life.

His autobiography was published when Merton was only thirty-three years old. He found it nearly impossible not to write about what was happening inside of him throughout his life as a cloistered monk. And that was odd. Why would a monk—a man who has taken many vows including a vow of silence—publish? During his first visit as a retreatant to The Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, during Holy Week of 1941, he wrote in his journal, “I should tear out all the other pages of this book and all the other pages of everything else I ever wrote, and begin here.” In the years to follow, after hundreds of thousands of copies of The Seven Storey Mountain were purchased and read around the world, Merton would go through times when he wanted to stop writing altogether. He once wrote, “An author in a Trappist monastery is like a duck in a chicken coop. And he would give anything in the world to be a chicken instead of a duck.” But, still, he wrote, and expressed himself to millions of people beside his monastic brothers. These were times when he felt his ego growing faster than his spirit. But, thank God, they were short-lived, and he went back to his typewriter.

He was a Catholic in the broadest of all possible meanings of the word. The essence of Merton’s genius is also the reason why Merton’s writings will outlive those of most any other spiritual writer of the twentieth century. He taught those of us outside the monastery how to live more as if we were inside the monastery. He distilled the monastic life down to the point where it seemed possible to replicate it in the secular world. Before Merton, monasticism seemed to be a life of retreat, irrelevant scholarship, and prejudice against the world. After Merton, to live like a monk became synonymous with mindfulness, attentiveness, contemplation, and embracing of others.

Thomas Merton, pray for me.