|
Page 1 of 6
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
About the time that I converted to Christ, I decided to enter a monastery. Someone who knew me quite well dissuaded me from doing so. I was quite comfortable with the vows of poverty and obedience, but lifelong celibacy did not match either my calling or my personality.
Fortunately, this was not my final experience with monasticism. My initial inclination, significantly influenced by Thomas Merton, couldn’t be shaken. Monasticism’s prophetic stance, ordered life, emphasis upon silence and prayer, sense of community balanced by solitude, and its ancient history all appealed to me.
About fifteen years ago I committed myself to the Society of St. John the Evangelist (Cowley Fathers) through their lay associates, the Fellowship of St. John. This commitment, governed by “The Rule of the Fellowship of St. John,” has played a critical role in my life as a Christian. Although I lived a consistently disciplined life during the preceding ten years, my association with the Fellowship helped to “strengthen [my] abiding in Christ by bringing rhythm, order and balance to [my] discipleship.”1 This article, very broadly based upon this Rule, will outline a number of reasons why, I believe, any believer (even those, like myself, who are highly disciplined) could benefit from such an association.
PRAYER
Above all else, monasticism is concerned with prayer. Although every religious Order will have a slightly different emphasis, prayer is the common denominator among them all. Monks and monasteries exist for the purpose of prayer and worship. “ A monk’s outward and inward life [is] dominated by the opus Dei (‘the work of God’), an unceasing round of prayer…”2 The cycle of daily prayers – Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, Compline – orders a monk’s life.
This is critical to spiritual direction and personal transformation. Guidance and growth, albeit mystery is inherent to both, are dependent upon prayer. The person who learns to pray well, will learn to live well. Divine conversation must always precede dynamic human interaction and authentic transformation from the inside out.
|
