On Monasticism

My first rule of blogging is not to say something unless I have something to say.  However, I've been sick for two straight days, my sleep schedule is all out of wack so I'm wide awake at 4 am, and I'm worn out on old re-runs of The West Wing.  So I'm going to break my rule and blog anyway, even though I have no earthly idea what I'm going to write about right now. ...  Well, I received a newsletter today from a group of monks.  I guess I'll write about them.

Shortly after getting married, Allison and I drove for almost a solid week in a 15 foot Budget truck with all my stuff from Fort Worth, TX to Boston.  We stopped in Washington, DC along the way and spent a day at the National Cathedral.  If you haven't been there, you need to go.  That church is magnificent. Apparently (as I learned in an episode of the aforementioned TV show), you can lay the Washington Monument on its side and it would fit inside that cathedral.  Anyway, while I was there I signed up to be put on the National Cathedral's mailing list.

Shortly thereafter I received a mailing from a group of Catholic monks in Wyoming who are building a monastery after the old order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.  Having always been somewhat fascinated by monastic life, I read through the newsletter which contained the following summary concerning Carmelite monks:

"They live a life of prayer, solitude, penance, and strict separation from the world.  Their lives are completely dedicated to interceding for the Church and the world.  St. Therese proclaimed the Carmelite vocation as being 'love in the heart of the Church.'  As the heart circulates blood throughout the whole body, so the Carmelite is called to circulate grace throughout the Church.  This is the essential meaning of the vocation of these cloistered monks."

Let me diverge for just a moment.  Truthfully, I find no biblical support for such a vocation.  Nowhere in either Testament of Scripture do I see God calling His people into any kind of cloistered existence.  In fact, if any of my friends came to me asking for advice about whether to join a monastery, I would (probably vehemently) argue to them a biblical case against the cloistered existence, waxing long about the imperatives of the Great Commission and the immensity of the Christian task yet to be completed in the world.

And yet, as I read this short synopsis of what it means to be a Carmelite monk, I was entranced.  In fact, the description precisely fits Paul's primary metaphor the Church ... the Body of Christ.  If we (collectively) are Christ's body, doesn't it make sense that there would be a heart?  And that this heart would serve a specific function in the Church, just as it does in the physical body?  I mean, mouths are made to speak; hands are made to work; feet are made to walk; eyes are made to see; ears are made to hear -- and you get my point.  

These monks dedicate their entire lives to prayer; specifically, intercessory prayer for the Church and the world.  Who can argue with that?  Come to think of it, the monastic tradition has been a pillar of the Church throughout its entire history.  I cannot deny the importance of monks in some vital aspects of the Church's mission: safeguarding biblical manuscripts; translating the Scriptures into unknown languages; teaching sound doctrine and calling the Church back to Scripture, as in the case of Aquinas and Luther.  

So now I give money to this monastery from time to time; not a great amount, but with great love.  Because I want to believe that their vocation actually does what they believe it does -- circulate grace throughout the Church and the world.  Grace that I need as I interact with people who are lost in sin and helpless apart from Christ.  Grace that I need to love my wife as Christ loves me.  Grace that I need in order to carry out my own part in the Great Commission, whether in Africa, America, or perhaps both.