To complete this year’s series on the novitiate curriculum, we hear from Abbot Michael Brunner about his course in “Monastic Spirituality.”  

 

 

Monastic Choir Stalls

The novitiate is the year of basic training for someone entering the monastery. St. Benedict himself likens it to military training. It is rigorous and the novice has a lot to learn in addition to the discipline of the monastery. He has to study and begin to internalize the Rule of St Benedict. And then he studies monastic history, liturgy, the Psalms and Scripture. In our house, he studies Latin as well. And then there is Monastic Spirituality. That may sound impressive. But just ask someone to define “spirituality” and see what you get as an answer. Everybody has a spirituality, because everyone has a spirit. It is very personal. So, it is a fair question to ask: What is supposed to be different or distinctive about a monk’s spirituality? It begs the question to say it is supposed to be monkish. Every monk is different, and some are VERY different from their peers, like Thomas Merton, whom his community knew as Brother Louis. 

You might think this monk business began with Saint Benedict, but it certainly did not. His rule, written in about 525 A.D., was a synthesis of 2 or 3 hundred years of practical monk wisdom. Monks began cultivating their spiritual life in the Palestinian and Egyptian deserts: we call those monks the Desert Fathers. Most of these monks that most people have never heard of, Saint Benedict refers to as the REAL monks. Monk, monachos, means a solitary soul. So that is the root of monastic spirituality: the soul alone with God. God is the beloved to whom the monk’s body and soul is to be attached, particularly in the person of Jesus Christ. But just as the love between any two people is unique, so is the love relationship of each monk to God. Love is not easy, so this relationship has to be cultivated. Cultivation, too, is somewhat unique. Every gardener or farmer has his own style. But there are basic lessons to be learned, and we see these lessons in the lives and teachings of the Desert Fathers. So these we look at first in learning Monastic Spirituality. Take Abba Nilus, for example. He said, “Everything you do against a brother who has harmed you will come back to your mind at the time of prayer.” 

 

 

Abbot Michael blessing the cowl of Br. Basil Piette

As you might suspect prayer is at the root of monastic spirituality, personal prayer. The Liturgy of the Hours, once called the Divine Office, is community prayer. Personal prayer is, well, very personal. For monks it begins with the Bible in Lectio Divina, divine reading. That is taking the Bible as a letter from God written to you personally, and then responding to that personal message. The big problem in personal prayer is distraction. Not surprisingly Satan tries very hard to distract monks when they pray. That is why part of monastic spirituality is separation from the world and all its distractions. This has become more difficult in the 21^st century with ubiquitous WIFI and smartphones. We all know what a distraction those last devils are. 

After examining the Desert Fathers and their advice and techniques, we look at modern spiritual masters. I’ve already mentioned Thomas Merton. He inspired the post-WWII generation of vocations, secular and religious. One modern master is Michael Casey, O.C.S.O., a Trappist monk of Australia. He has written many deeply insightful and practical books on the monastic spiritual life and its practices, one of the most profound being on Lectio Divina. Perhaps one title of his sums it up best: An Unexciting Life. Such a life begins with humility, a countercultural virtue if ever there was one. It is that virtue that opens the monk’s spirit to God’s word and what God is doing in a monk’s life. Humility and simplicity. Monastic spirituality “is not rocket science,” but very few rocket scientists know its practices. 

Abba Ammoun asked Abba Sisoes, ‘When I read the Scriptures, my mind is wholly concentrated on the words so that I may have something to say if I am asked.’ The old man said to him, “That is not necessary; it is better to enrich yourself through purity of spirit and to be without anxiety, and then to speak.”

 

 

The Monastery Garden