Category Archives: Benedictine

Thomas Merton: “Contemplation cannot construct a new world by itself”

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Thomas Merton, in the introduction to the Spanish language edition to his complete works:

Contemplation cannot construct a new world by itself. Contemplation does not feed the hungry; it does not clothe the naked… and it does not return the sinner to peace, truth, and union with God. But without contemplation we cannot see what we do… Without contemplation we cannot understand the significance of the world in which we must act. Without contemplation we remain small, limited, divided, partial; we adhere to the insufficient, permanently united to our narrow group and its interests, losing sight of justice and charity, seized by the passions of the moments… Without contemplation, without the intimate, silent, secret pursuit of truth through love, our action loses itself in the world and becomes dangerous.

Winner of Otherhood’s “The Artist’s Rule” Comment Contest: Cole Matson

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For his comment on Otherhood Podcast: Episode 1 with Christine Valters Paintner, Cole Matson is hereby awarded a copy of Paintner’s book, “The Artist’s Rule.” The comments were all great, and the decision was a hard one.

The passion and devotion Matson offers in his poetry really captured my attention, though. And I’m a sucker for the old mystics.

The winning comment:

Nathan and Christine,

Thank you for this wonderful podcast. It was good for me to hear the effect that being a Benedictine oblate has had on Christine’s artistic practice, as I am considering oblation myself.

In support of contemplation bearing fruit in artistic creation (as in a motto of the Dominican Order, “to contemplate and to share the fruits of contemplation”), I thought I’d share with you a couple of the poems that arose out of a recent Ignatian silent retreat, after I had been reading John of the Cross and Lady Julian of Norwich.

“For John of the Cross”

Lord, let me love You
with the flame of ten thousand fires.

Let me love You
with a flame that dries and crackles,

burns and blackens the crust of my soul,
hides deep down in the heart of things,

to warm and beat,
flickering forth with tongues of fire

to burst through the shell of my cindered soul,
and leap to dance as love again.

Lord, make me all flame.

“For Lady Julian”

Lord, teach me to love my weaknesses
as Lady Julian loved hers,
seeing that the soiled, torn stain of our sins
blackening the white cloth of our humanity
was such a little nothing
because that cloth was worn by Christ,
who picked us up out of the Pit
and sat us next to Him at table,
with His Father and His Spirit,
all of us dazzling white,
with the wounds we ripped into our flesh
shining scars praising God’s glory,
His merciful meaning: ‘Love’.

Blessings on your work.

Cole

Runners up

I loved this, from Greene Fyre, via facebook:

To oblate in clarity, nor obtuse. To endeavor obscurity: a recluse? Divining the divine: propinquity. A pursuit sublime from antiquity.

Thanks also to Donelda Seymore, Genora W. Powell, Jaqui du Rocher, Jann Durkin and many others for your thoughtful reflections.

Contact nathan@artmonastery.org if you’re interested in joining our Artmonk Reading Group, where we’re about to go through The Artist’s Rule together.

Otherhood, the Podcast: Episode 1, Christine Valters Paintner and “The Artist’s Rule”

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Otherhood, the Podcast: Episode 1, Christine Valters Paintner & "The Artist's Rule" [ 27:05 | 17.43 MB ]

Meet Otherhood, the Podcast.

In this, the first episode, I interview Christine Valters Paintner about her new book (the Artist’s Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul With Monastic Wisdom), the oblate life, and what it means to be both an artist and a monk.

BTW, we’re giving away a free copy of the Artist’s Rule to whomever leaves the best comment on this post. Just sayin’.

NY man sues Minn. monastery, alleging clergy abuse – WSJ.com

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ST. PAUL, Minn. — A New York man filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging that he was sexually abused at a Bronx church in the 1960s by a priest who went on to become abbot of a Minnesota monastery and helped found an institute to deal with the problem of clergy sexual abuse.

via NY man sues Minn. monastery, alleging clergy abuse – WSJ.com.

Monks at Portsmouth Abbey Use Web in Recruitment – NYTimes.com

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So the monks, who for centuries have shied away from any outside distractions, have instead done what many troubled organizations are doing to find new members — they have taken to the Internet with an elaborate ad campaign featuring videos, a blog and even a Gregorian chant ringtone.

“We’re down in numbers, we’re aging, we feel the pressure to do whatever we can,” said Abbot Caedmon Holmes, who has been in charge of the abbey since 2007. “If this is the way the younger generation are looking things up and are communicating, then this is the place to be.”

That place is far from the solitary lives that some may think monks live. In fact, in this age of all things social media, the monks have embraced what may be the most popular of form of public self-expression: a Facebook page, where they have uploaded photos and video testimonials.

A new Web site (portsmouthabbeymonastery.org) answers questions on how to become a monk — one F.A.Q.: “Do I have to give up my car?” (yes) — and print ads announce that “God Is Calling.” Some monks will even write blogs.

via Monks at Portsmouth Abbey Use Web in Recruitment – NYTimes.com.

Theophane the Monk was an artmonk

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Next week I’m heading to the Vedanta Society’s Olema retreat center in Marin County. One thing I’m definitely bringing is Theophane the Monk‘s Tales of a Magic Monastery.

Here’s one of his tales:

There’s a monk there who wears a red robe. I was wondering why, but it was my little son who dared to ask him why. “Mister, why are you wearing that red dress?”

“Sit down, sonny, and I’ll tell you. When I was your age I used to dream about becoming a monk. I knew that monks usually wore white robes, but in my dreams I was usually wearinggreen. When I got older I got my parents’ blessing and went off to become a monk. But I went searching all around for a monastery where the monks wore green. No one had ever heard of such a  place, but I thought surely there was some place that corresponded to my dream. Continue reading →

“The monastery is neither a museum nor an asylum…

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“The monastery is neither a museum nor an asylum. The monk remains in the world from which the monk has fled, and the monk remains a potent, though hidden, force in that world. Beyond all the works which may accidentally attach themselves to the vocation, the monk acts on the world simply by being a monk. The presence of contemplatives is, to the world, what the presence of yeast is to dough … if the monk stands, in some sense, above the divisions of human society, that does not mean the monk has no place in the history of nations. The monk has always been, and always will be, by the vocation, sympathetic to any social and cultural movement that favors the growth of the human spirit.”

—Thomas Merton, “The Silent Life” (via Dr. Calvin Mercer’s Monastic Project)

A Benedictine vow ceremony

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Some of the Labro artmonks recently visited the relatively new Benedictine monastery at Norcia, where an international group of monks sings the entire chant office in Latin every day.

The Benedictines are not a centralized order. Rather, each house enjoys a considerable degree of autonomy, since it is the abbot who interprets the Rule for that particular community. For this reason there can be a great deal of difference from one monastery to another: traditions form based on history, culture and local circumstances.

The Monastero di San Benedetto in Norcia is unique for two reasons:

  1. It was founded from scratch in 1998 without being conditioned by previous historical circumstances.
  2. It is located at the birthplace of St. Benedict, and therefore is in a privileged position to draw from the sources of Benedictine spirituality, namely the Rule of St. Benedict as well as the pre-Benedictine monastic tradition. The Vatican II document on Religious Life, Perfectae Caritatis, urges religious to return to the spirit of the founder, and that’s what we are trying to do.

One of the monks mentioned that he put his vow ceremony on Youtube, so here it is:

Christine Valters Paintner is an artmonk

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[part of the "__ is an artmonk" series]

One of the Art Monastery’s spiritual teachers, Dr. Joel Levey, just forwarded me a link to the Abbey of the Arts, the “virtual monastery” of Christine Valters Paintner OblSB, PhD, REACE.

What I read on Paintner’s site resonates with so many of the conversations we have been having at the Art Monastery Project for the past three years (not to mention, this morning). More importantly, it gives those conversations acute clarity and voice. It gives me, in the words of Joel’s partner Michelle, “truth bumps.”

This feels deeply timely for us artmonks. We just wrapped a 4-day visioning retreat and are stepping into a 7-day silent Jesuit retreat on the Rule of St. Augustine this Saturday. We’ve been sharing resources on various monastic rules (of Augustine, Benedict, etc.), with a view to concocting our very own Art Monastic Rule.

Did I mention that she has written books called:

  • Lectio Divina: Contemplative Awakening & Awareness,
  • Lectio Divina: Transforming Words and Images into Heart-Centered Prayer
  • The Artist’s Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom?

Or that she is offering a course called ”Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist” that begins January 17th 2011, the day we wrap up our second Artmonk Retreat in Joshua Tree, CA (which is being led by Joel & Michelle Levey)?

Western Lineage

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The Rule of Benedict draws on the Egyptian tradition (Eastern), such as the Pachomian rule; the Cappadocian tradition (Eastern), such as Basil’s rule; and the North African tradition (Western), such as Augustine’s rule. The third was a more direct influence than the second, but the first was the most influential, coming through John Cassian and then the Rule of the Master (from an unknown author soon after 500 AD). All had the purpose of regulating the life of monks living in the coenobium.

Via Monastic habits for non-monastics–Glimpses from Dennis Okholm | Grateful to the dead.