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CHAPTER THREE Monasticism 3.1 Monastic Christian Spirituality

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CHAPTER THREE Monasticism 3.1 Monastic Christian Spirituality University of Pretoria etd – Schutte, C H (2006) CHAPTER THREE Monasticism 3.1 Monastic Christian Spirituality The origins of Christian monasticism go back as far as the first century church where men and women, even entire families decided to live a life of perfect continence. An example is the Consecrated Virgins as brides of Christ, mentioned by Tertullianus who led a life of prayer, fasting, retirement, and good works, individually at home or in small groups generally living on the outskirts of towns. The first doctors of the church praised this ascetic way of life: Clement of Alexandria (215), Origines (253) in the East, Tertullianus (220), and St. Cyprian (258) in the West. They described the control of a person’s thoughts and passions as a necessary condition for one’s purification and dedication to God. When the Desert Fathers went into the desert they went there to lose in a sense their identity, to eradicate the personality, to become anonymous, to make of one self the void, becoming in the process an embodiment of silence (Cowan 2002:26). They believed that this in turn could potentially facilitate receiving light of the word of God and the empowering to love him even more. Virginity (or celibacy) consecrated to God realises in the soul the union of Christ with the church and replaces martyrdom as the way to give oneself to God (De Dreuille 1999:75). The example of St. Anthony (251-356) one of the first and most famous hermits in Egypt and one of the most famous of the hermits persuaded many to take up solitary life. He was a pious boy who lost his parents when he was still very young. When he was twenty, he was moved by the New Testament‘s call to leave all and follow Christ. He divested himself of all property and material things and put himself under tutelage of an experienced monk. He went into solitude in the year two eighty five 201 University of Pretoria etd – Schutte, C H (2006) entering a deserted fortress, where he stayed for twenty years living an austere life of self-denial. The sayings of Anthony included in the collections of sayings by the desert monks and nuns, show a wise ascetic who learned wisdom experientially in struggling against the obstacles of the world and the flesh. He willingly supported the lawful appointed bishops of his time but left doctrinal arguments to them and to the theologians. Prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude, charity, love of the poor, faith in Christ, meekness and hospitality were the virtues he emphasised and which later became part of early monasticism (Feiss 2000:192-193). Many followed this path of ascetics and solitude in the desert and soon monasteries were born in the mountains of Egypt where the desert became a city of monks who left their own people and registered themselves for citizenship in the heavens. A new society was born that owed its allegiance to no man save he who was prepared to dedicate himself to cultivate the blue flower of ascesis (Cowan 2002:28). The Desert Fathers (330) lived semi-eremitic life in solitary cells scattered in the desert around a central church where they gathered on Sundays, under Pachomius followed the development of highly organized types of cenobitic life (293-346). St. Benedict (550) dismayed by the low moral standards in Rome where he studied, fled the city to a deserted spot called Subiaco with the desire to please God alone, the spreading of monastic life in Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Europe brought with it abundant literature. The monastic ideal of unification excluding any diversion, leading monks or nuns to the divine and to the perfection of the love of God began to flourish (De Dreuille 1999:85). Many centuries later St. Francis (1182) would strip himself naked as a mark of complete renunciation of his family, the world and material things to serve God, literally following Christ in poverty and thus began in twelve hundred and nine the Order of Friars Minor. As late as nineteen forty Brother Roger would arrive at Taize where to since nineteen fifty people 202 University of Pretoria etd – Schutte, C H (2006) from all over the world flocked to experience some of the flavour and aspects of monastic life together with the brothers living there (Ramon 1994:7; cf Spink 1999:9). Although monasticism experienced decay and reform, degeneration and renewal through the centuries the monastic ideal to be united with God and linking heaven and earth in monastic community-life stayed alive and well (Mills 1982:127). Characteristic of the present spiritual trend in monasticism is a return to monastic tradition with a balanced synthesis of the values brought forth by the previous centuries. Bible, liturgy, and the Fathers meditated on during Lectio Divina are considered anew as main sources of monastic spirituality. Time for silent prayer is given pride of place in the monastic timetable and guests are invited by abbot and monks to share in the quest for God by the monastice community (De Dreuille 1999:108). The historian Hans Lietzmann’s (1951:153) assessment of the monastic approach to the bible was representative of many Protestant Reformers suspicion of the way monks supposedly engaged with the bible. He states, “The mechanical reading and memorization of texts did not penetrate the heart and gave only the faintest biblical tinge to the world of ideas in which the monks lived.” The perception that the bible had a negligible influence upon early monastic life, playing a minor role in their spirituality, was one of the reasons according to Burton-Christie (1997:70) why Luther, Melanchton and others found the Christian monastic ideal problematic. After studying the way the monks approach and read the bible since the Desert Fathers in monasteries, he concluded this to be an unfair assessment. He argues just the opposite (see Burton-Christie 1997:70- 81). My research journey also showed that the monastic passion for the bible has been from the start deep, intense, and pervasive. The early monks cultivated a profoundly biblical spirituality, as an entire way of living, in order to be informed, and transformed by the word of God. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (trans. Ward 1981), one of the earliest and 203 University of Pretoria etd – Schutte, C H (2006) very important Christian monastic texts and my own exposure during the visits to monasteries, reveal an interesting hermeneutic of the bible. A word or text would come to the fore during a Divine Office or liturgical gathering of the monks or read or proclaimed by the abbot or a fellow monk. Followed by a careful discernment or scrutiny of these word(s) asking what possibilities did they offer, what challenges? During this process of discernment, they strived not only to understand the meaning of the words but also to root out any passions that could prevent them from interiorising the word of God deeply into their lives. The goal is to become transparent and open to new worlds of meaning opened up by the word of God, transformed by its power, and to become as monk a new sacred text or mediator of Gods’ presence in the world. Their hermeneutical focus is the following: ¾ Careful attention to the power of language or power of words in all its expressions be it during the Divine Office, the meditation on it in the solitude of the room or cell, the dynamic word uttered by an elder or even words of slander or gossip spoken in carelessness or anger. ¾ Emphasis is put on language and praxis, in the sense that the word in whatever form, meant mutual engagement becoming part of every fibre of a person’s life. ¾ As in the spirituality of the desert fathers, the handling of the bible reflects a lived, embodied character. The interpretation of sacred texts and the processes of radical personal transformation and conversion are viewed inseparable. Central themes of monastic spirituality identified during the reseaech journey are the following: 204 University of Pretoria etd – Schutte, C H (2006) ¾ A search for God and a renunciation of the world. Renunciation means to turn away from the mundane world by entering into the solitude of nature: the wilderness, a cave, a desert, or entering a monastery. The key is not so much the outer journey as the inner journey into the wasteland of the own heart or a climbing of an inner mountain (Skudlarek 1982:250). The quest for God or burning desire for God remains the heart of monastic life and not so much secondary aims (teaching, preaching, nursing, or other kinds of outreach) that are sometimes characteristic of some of the modern orders (De Dreuille 1999:110). Monastic life does however allow the search for God to take on a great variety of form (an inclusive approach) for example in Franciscan spirituality. Some monastic traditions focus more on a life of silent contemplative prayer (ascetics), others finding God more easily in liturgical music or worship, others in charitable services in society, and others combining these elements. My own experience at different monasteries is that various accents can be found in the monasteries; their proportions vary and give each house or abbey its particular unique character. For Mills (1982:152) the primary goal of monastic spirituality has been to offer monks on earth an image of heaven and to praise the virtues of transcendental life and avoiding the vices of sinful nature. The way to win this victory is an arduous denial of the body and will. He is convinced that throughout history this ideal was reserved for an elite group, spiritual elite that largely corresponded with the social elite.
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