Category Archives: Benedictine

Links for August 29th 2010

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Monos,

  • “a non profit organization that is concerned with the current engagement between monastic culture, spirituality and contemporary society,”
  • “an attempt to offer a facility for the on-going dialogue between monastic spirituality, society, culture and church, and to begin to ask serious questions concerning the relationship between Secular Monasticism, Church and society, both historically and contemporarily. Monos also provides a facility for individuals and groups to explore monastic spirituality in terms of a lived Christian experience.” Offers retreats.

Monastic Matrix -

  • “A scholarly resource for the study of women’s religious communities from 400 to 1600 CE”

A History of Monastic Spirituality

  • from a Benedictine perspective, gives a primarily western account, but includes a pre-history and discussion of eastern traditions
  • A discussion of the some of the elements of monasticism
    • [Separateness] “The first thing that stands out is that these various forms of para-Christian monastic life have a tendency to set themselves apart, to separate themselves from the world in isolation from the rest of men. This isolation often has an exterior sign, a wall, a reserved enclosure, access to certain buildings being reserved to the ascetics. Yet frequently they insist rather on the cloister of the heart.”
    • [Celibacy, Renunciation] “We also find ascetic practices such as celibacy, at least temporarily, and poverty understood as detachment. These practices are meant to encourage interior vigilance.”
    • [Spirituality] “Finally, the third essential element: mystical aspiration that is to say a profound sense of the Absolute and a desire for communion with this absolute reality. This is perhaps the deepest foundation of the monastic life, for it is the source of a keen awareness of the radical insufficiency of this changing world. It is the driving power of the two other elements: separation from the world and ascetic practices.”

Benedictine Oblates

  • “While the Oblate does not take vows and is not bound to take up new religious practices, being a Benedictine Oblate brings about a very real, living relationship with the monastery of oblation. It will always involve a sharing in prayer with the community and usually entails more practical assistance in one way or another. The Oblate will seek to live a life that is marked by a certain balance of prayer and work, a striving for peace and a commitment to others in charity. It is a call to holiness and to witness to Christ by word and example as a member of a particular monastic family.”

Huffington Post » Sister Joan Chittister, OSB: The Artist and Monk Are One

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Here’s something that almost completely captures what we’re doing at the Art Monastery:

If, indeed, truth is beauty and beauty truth, then the monastic and the artist are one.

Monasticism, in fact, cultivates the artistic spirit. Basic to monasticism are the very qualities art demands of the artist: silence, contemplation, discernment of spirits, community and humility.

Basic to art are the very qualities demanded of the monastic: single-mindedness, beauty, immersion, praise and creativity. The merger of one with the other makes for great art; the meaning of one for the other makes for great soul.

It is in silence that the artist hears the call to raise to the heights of human consciousness those qualities no definitions ever capture. Ecstasies, pain, fluid truth, pass us by so quickly or surround us so constantly that the eyes fail to see and the heart ceases to respond.

It is in the awful grip of ineffable form or radiant color that we see into a world that is infinitely beyond our natural grasp, yet only just beyond our artist’s soul. It is contemplation that leads an artist to preserve for us forever, the essence of a thing that takes us far beyond its accidents.

Only by seeing the unseen within can the artist dredge it out of nothingness so that we can touch it, too. It is a capacity for the discernment of spirits that enables an artist to recognize real beauty from plastic pretentions to it, from cheap copies or even cheaper attempts at it.

The artist details for the world to see the one idea, the fresh form, the stunning grandeur of moments which the world has begun to take for granted or has failed even to notice, or worse, has now reduced to the mundane.

It is love for human community that puts the eye of the artist in the service of truth. Knowing the spiritual squalor to which the pursuit of less than beauty can lead us, the artist lives to stretch our senses beyond the tendency to settle for lesser things: sleazy stories instead of great literature; superficial caricatures of bland characters rather than great portraits of great souls; flowerpots instead of pottery.

Finally, it is humility that enables an artist to risk rejection and failure, disdain and derogation to bring to the heart of the world what the world too easily, too randomly, too callously overlooks.

Charles Peguy wrote, “We must always tell what we see. Above all, and this is more difficult, we must always see what we see.”

From “The Monastic Spirit and the Pursuit of Everlasting Beauty,” which appeared in The Journey and the Gift: The Ceramic Art of Brother Thomas.

via Sister Joan Chittister, OSB: The Artist and Monk Are One on Huffington Post.

Rose Marie Berger points out that the above is Sister Chittister’s response to the ceramic work of Brother Thomas Bezanson,

a Benedictine monk and ceramics artist who died in 2007. He accepted the rules of monastic solitude, and followed the advice of St. Benedict who said: “If there be craftsmen in the Monastery, [then] let them practice their crafts with all humility.” Brother Thomas spent the final years of his life at Mount St. Benedict Priory in Erie, PA, with the community of Sr. Joan Chittister. Below Sr. Joan reflects on art and the contemplative life in light of Brother Thomas’ work.

Sister Chittister’s website

Benedict’s “Conversatio Morum”, Ezra Pound’s “Make it new” & Confucius’s “日日新”

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I discussed the panoply of translations of Benedict’s vow Conversatio Morum. I wonder if the intent of Coversatio Morum, is similar to the Confucian 茍日新，日日新，又日新. “If you renew yourself for one day, you can renew yourself daily, and continue to do so.” 1

Ezra Pound fixated on 日日新 2, which he turned into his famous mantra for modernism: “make it new!”

“Pound received the notion that ideas need to be constantly renewed from ‘Da xue’ [Confucius's 'Great Learning']. He first translated this notion as ‘renovate’ (TH, 12), then as ‘As the sun makes it new / Day by day make it new /Yet again make it new’ (Con, 36). Besides entitling his 1934 collection of essays Make It New, Pound frequently utilized this notion in his prose, such as Jefferson and/or Mussolini (112-13) and Guide to Kulchur (278), as well as The Cantos (LII/265, XCII/649, XCIV/662).” 3

  1. “The Great Learning 大學”, Translated by A. Charles Muller ↩
  2. Confucius: the Great digest, the Unwobbling pivot, and the Analects By Ezra Pound, Confucius (p.36) ↩
  3. Notes to “Ezra Pound and Confucianism: remaking humanism in the face of modernity By Feng Lan” ↩

The Elements (part 1): Conversatio Morum » “Conversion of Life”

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[This series of posts, "The Elements of Monasticism" asks the question, what exactly is monasticism? The first three Elements are from the Catholic Benedictine tradition: Conversatio Morum, Stabilitas Loci, and Obedientia.]

Conversatio Morum (or Convertio Morum) is interpreted variously: from merely “to live the Benedictine form of the cenobitic life” / “fidelity to the monastic life,” to “conversion of life”1 or “continuous renewal of life.”

Isn’t the former, “fidelity to the monastic life” sort of circular for a vow? The vow of Conversatio Morum is to live the benedictine life, which means to take the vow of Conversatio Morum…

I prefer the “conversion of life” interpretation of Thomas Merton, who I’m sure I’ll be writing about more at In Otherhood. Merton felt that Convertio Morum was central to monasticism. At Diverse Journeys, Meath Conlan (an artmonk in his own right) writes: Continue reading →

  1. St. Benedict’s Toolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Everyday Benedictine Living By Jane Tomaine ↩

Getting the questions right

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Examples of the secular world learning from the world’s ancient contemplative and spiritual traditions abound.  Neuroscientists, psychologists, doctors, cognitive scientists and cosmologists are learning from inner technologies of meditation and contemplative practice.

But what of the outer, visible, measurable technologies of those traditions? How are we learning from those technologies that fit into what is broadly called monasticism? And how are we impacting them? This blog asks the question:

What can the secular world learn from monasticism?

and

What can the secular world do for monastic traditions?

Some interfaith and secular groups are already learning from monasticism.  For example, I live in an ex-Franciscan convent in Labro, Italy with a community of artists called the Art Monastery, where we live together as “artmonks”.  We are growing our own monastic order: the International Otherhood of Artmonks.

Why can’t anyone build or be part of an “otherhood”? Any community or movement—whether seculary, interfaith, or of a single spiritual tradition—can choose to benefit from the wide array of monastic technologies that humanity has produced in the past 3000+ years.

This blog is about:

  • secular monasticism,
  • and high-tech monasticism,
  • and art monasticism,
  • and religious monasticism,
  • and interfaith monasticism,
  • and scientific monasticism
  • and integral monasticism
  • and more…

This is for:

  • Artmonks and other Creative contemplatives
  • “Re-monks” (part of the Christian “new monasticism” movement)
  • Co-ops, cohousing and other intentional communities (member of intentional communities around the world)
  • Benedictine, Augustine, Franciscan monks
  • Neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, information scientists
  • Doctors and medical professionals
  • Secular buddhists
  • Regular folks who want to add a little order to their lives
  • Sufi fakirs
  • Theravadan monks, Tibetan buddhist monks, Zen monks
  • Advaita Vedantan monks, etc.
  • …

Have an idea for an otherhood you want to start?

Monasticize your community’s future. Add a little order to your life. Grow your own Otherhood.

About the author

Nathan Rosquist is a writer and composer living as an artmonk at the Art Monastery in Labro, Italy.  He has a MBA in Sustainable Community Economic Development from Bainbridge Graduate Intitute.