Category: Monks and Monasticism
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Too Old to Lead
Bede, History of the Abbots, 16 (on Abbot Ceolfrith; tr. Christopher Grocock): Now he saw that, being old and full of days, he could no longer prove to be an appropriate model of spiritual exercise for those under him either by teaching or by example because he was so aged and infirm. He thought over the…
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Me, Merton, Vows, and Ecclesiology
I study everything, join nothing. He studied everything, but joined the Trappists. Therein one root of one of his inner conflicts. His natural bent was to range freely over the cartography of the mind, but he voluntarily accepted intramural enclosure physically, intellectually, and spiritually. He took vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and stability. My impression from…
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Alain on Monasticism
Stack leader. The other morning I recalled the passage in Alain where he recorded his boyhood visit to the abbey at La Trappe and his visceral revulsion at the life of the monks. So I pulled his On Happiness from the shelf and to my surprise opened right to the passage in question. Coincidence, or synchronicity?…
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Pasta Puttanesca
Pasta Puttanesca is a good Lenten meal for a Friday night despite its being 'in the style of the whore.' Italian la puttana means whore, harlot, slut. Didn't Jesus suffer all to come unto him, even the ladies of the evening? Make it with sardines: 'meatier' than anchovies. Pour some extra virgin olive oil into…
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The Eremitic Option
Top o' the Stack.
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Detachment and Renunciation
The Notebooks of Paul Brunton, Volume Two, The Quest, p. 130, #242: Detachment from the world is an absolute necessity for the man who seeks authentic inner peace, and not its imagined counterfeit. But renouncement of the world is not necessary to any except those who have an inborn natural vocation for the monkish life.…
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At the Entrance to the Monastery
The sign reads, 'Peace.' It neglects to say that the desert is a place of unseen warfare. The desert fathers of old believed in demons because of their experiences in quest of the "narrow gate" that only few find. They sought to perfect themselves and so became involved as combatants in what Lorenzo Scupoli called…
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A Contemplative Nun on Thomas Merton
This just over the transom from Karl White: Hope you're well. May be of interest. ‘I have never met a real contemplative who found Merton useful’: Letters reveal Sister Wendy’s ambivalence about Gethsemani’s famous monk | America Magazine July 30, 2018 Dearest Robert, I feel about [Henri Nouwen] as I do about Thomas Merton. There…
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Felicitas Theoretica et Visio Beata: Monasticism and Christianity
The bliss of the bios theoretikos as described by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics is the model for the Beatific Vision as described by Thomas Aquinas. The ultimate salvific state is a contemplative state. Monasticism is an institutional expression of this root commitment. The monk's life is decidedly biased toward the intellectual and the theoretical.…
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Of Palate and Penis
The control of the one aids in the control of the other, and the control of the other in the control of the one. The Desert Fathers knew this, and enjoined the control of both.
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Two Worries about Meditation
One Christian friend worries that his meditation practice might lead him in a Buddhist direction, in particular toward an acceptance of the three marks of phenomenal existence: anicca, anatta, dukkha. He shouldn't worry. Those doctrines in their full-strength Pali form are dubious if not demonstrably untenable. As such, they cannot be veridical deliverances of any…
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Visions of Tom: Jack Kerouac’s Monastic Elder Brother
Thomas Merton's "spontaneous prose" is to be found in the seven volumes of his journals. That's where you will find the real Merton in all his depth and complexity, his faith, his doubts, his inner (and outer) conflicts, and his endless self-examination. I never tire of re-reading them. This essay by Angus Stuart delineates…
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The Monk and the Worldling
Monk: The world you love cannot last and betrays its vanity thereby. Its impermanence argues its unreality. It is unworthy of your love, noble soul! Worldling: The God you love is worthy of your love should he exist, but he does not, or at least you have no proof that he does; no proof sufficient to…
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Claustration
Claustration may be likened to social castration. If voluntary, it often follows upon the insight that social intercourse is idle and unproductive.
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A Monk and his Political Silence
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