Yesterday I made my simple promises as a Lay Cistercian, along with six of my friends. Three others, who already were junior Lay Cistercians renewed their promises. The promises are for one year, and need to be repeated annually for at least three years before lifetime promises can be made.
It was a lovely ceremony. We met in the monastery chapter room and, standing before the Abbot and the spiritual director of the Lay Cistercians, read our promises aloud, then signed three copies: one for ourselves, one for the Lay Cistercian archives, and one for the Monastery archives.
Here’s a picture of me signing my promises. The spiritual director, Fr. Anthony Delisi, and the abbot, Fr. Francis Michael, are sitting to the left.
After the ceremony we lingered in the cloister garden to chat with friends, including Fr. James Behrens. Here’s a picture of me, Rhiannon, and Fr. James.
Sorry no pictures of Fran — she was behind the camera!
In May, God willing and with the permission of my community, I will make my first simple promises as a Lay Cistercian. The Lay Cistercians are an association of laymen and laywomen who have chosen to live their vocation as Christians in accordance with the unique charisms of the Cistercian Order, adapted to the circumstances of life “in the world.” Lay Cistercians participate in communities associated with Cistercian monasteries; my Lay Cistercian Community is affiliated with the Trappist Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia.
I’ve been in the Lay Cistercian novitiate since Palm Sunday 2007. As my two-year novitiate draws to a close, I am invited to reflect on the following charisms which define Cistercian spirituality:
Early Rising
Encountering the Presence of God especially at the Divine Office
Recitation of the Psalms as song and prayer
Lectio Divina (”Sacred Reading,” or the meditative, prayerful reading of the Bible or other holy books)
Contemplative Prayer
Silence
Solitude
Simplicity
Living by the Work of One’s Hands
Obedience (for Lay Cistercians, not so much to an abbot as to Christ)
Stability
Celibacy (or, for Lay Cistercians, fidelity to one’s state of life)
Community
Hospitality to Newcomers
Conversion of Manners (i.e., ongoing conversion of life)
Humility
Patience
Doing all the above for the Love of Christ
Even for monks, living into the charisms is a process; and certainly this is, if anything, even more true for laypersons who embrace these charisms as guidelines for our own spiritual life.
The actual promises of a Lay Cistercian include:
Daily Eucharist, when possible
Liturgy of the Hours
Lectio Divina
Devotion to the Blessed Mother
Regular Participation in the Sacrament of Reconciliation
Embracing of Silence and Solitude
Regular attendance at the monthly Lay Cistercian gathering days
Attendance at the Lay Cistercian Annual Retreat, if possible
Acceptance of the Rule of Benedict as guide for living the Gospel
Obviously, there is much overlap between the promises and the charisms. But even though there are only nine promises, they look pretty overwhelming. The Lay Cistercian community acknowledges that everyone will live into these promises in a different way. For some people, daily Eucharist and Lectio Divina are easy, while embracing silence and solitude is a challenge; for others, it’s the other way around. I am woefully imperfect at each of these, but for now the key factor is that I have accepted each of these promises as an important principle for my spiritual life — even if at the present such principles are largely unrealized.
One of the questions I have been asked to reflect on as I discern whether or not the request permission to make my simple vows is this: “What changes in my life have I noticed since becoming a novice Lay Cistercian?” In other words, what difference has it made for me to participate in the Lay Cistercian community and way of life over the last two years? I can’t say that being a Lay Cistercian novice has made me more disciplined, or more committed to the Daily Office, or more holy in any kind of measurable way. But what it has done has been to make me more attentive: attentive to the sheer grace found in silence and solitude; attentive to the simple joys that can arise from participation in the Liturgy; attentive to the down-to-earth blessings that are available to me (and everyone) when I embrace such counter-cultural values as humility, patience, simplicity, and stability. Lay Cistercian spirituality is not glamorous or “sexy,” but it is deeply nourishing and quietly satisfying in the subtle ways it helps me to be more mindful of God’s loving presence in my life.
Assuming that both I and the community discern that I am to make my promises in May, it will be a time-specific commitment: I’ll promise to live the life of a Lay Cistercian for one year. I’ll need to do that at least three times before making the solemn promises that will make me a Lay Cistercian for life. During that at least three year period, I will continue to study, under the guidance of both monks and my elders in the Lay Cistercian community. With God’s help, I can grow not only in my experience of what it means to be a Lay Cistercian, but — most important of all — in my experience of what it means to be a Christian.
The Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia, is a beautiful place. It’s a peaceful environment, perfect for an hour, a day, or a weekend (or, if you’re a single Catholic man sensing a vocation to religious life, for a lifetime) devoted to prayer and contemplation.
Here are a few photographs I took at the monastery this past Friday.
One of the most respected of contemporary Benedictine spiritual writers is Mary Margaret (Meg) Funk, OSB. Her books include Thoughts Matter: The Practice of the Spiritual Life and Tools Matter for Practicing the Spiritual Life. She writes not only about Benedictine spirituality and contemplative practice, but also about interreligious dialogue, a pursuit she has been deeply involved in for some time now. I’ve just learned of her blog, which looks to contain all sorts of interesting entries. Here’s an excerpt from a recent posting that I suspect most readers of my blog will particularly enjoy:
We are all called to Contemplation, resting in God. There are many paths in this journey. This path very specifically taught by the Unknown author of the Cloud of Unknowing is for those attracted to the mystery and not inclined to go through images of Jesus, or Mary or through the life of Jesus Christ as devotion. The attraction is Christ centered, but beyond the images and stories. The Unknown author speaks for those who want the apophatic path (imageless) of us when He says, “ God is a jealous lover we must fix our love on him. Close the doors and windows on imagination because God is beyond our thoughts, concepts and images.” The teaching of the method is helpful and easy to understand, but hard to do: Practice: lift up your heart to the Lord, with a gentle stirring of love, desire Him for his own sake, not for gifts. We must Center all our attention and desire on Him.
This little video will give you some insight into why I like to hang out with monks. It features Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO, speaking at an Integral Contemplative Christianity Conference put on by Ken Wilber’s Integral Institute.
If you have a few minutes, head on over to Youtube: there’s more of Keating there for the watching.
Okay, so this book has a lame title. But the point of the book is neatly encapsulated in its subtitle: here is an introduction to the spirituality of St. Benedictine, written by a Presbyterian theologian who has a background in both Pentecostalism and the Baptist community. In other words, this isn’t some sort of Anglican “we’re just like Catholics only without the Pope” kind of a book. Dennis Okholm lives and writes squarely out of the reformed tradition, and as far as I can tell he understands how to love and appreciate monastic spirituality while remaining true to his identity as a Protestant Christian. And because the book is so utterly devoid of any kind of axes to grind (whether Roman or Reformed), what emerges is an elegant and eloquent testimony of how Benedictine spirituality really is simply Gospel spirituality. It may be written for Protestants, but I got enough out of the book that I’m convinced it would be useful for many Catholics as well. Read the rest of this entry »
Christianity Today has posted an article about the growing interest, particularly among young evangelicals, in various aspects of monastic and liturgical spirituality, including Celtic spirituality. Click here to read it.
Dare we hope that Christian mysticism could be the next arena where evangelicals will go to deepen their faith?
I just discovered that Flickr has a wonderful array of photographs (from a variety of photographers) shot at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia. Some of these photos are from a recent “spirituality and photography” retreat at the monastery; nearly all of them are breathtaking in their beauty. The photographs cover not only the awe-inspiring Abbey Church and adjacent buildings, but many also highlight the natural splendor of the monastery grounds.
Some years ago, the management world discovered Sun-Tzu’s The Art of War. This sixth-century Chinese treatise on military strategy considers not only the logistics of conflict, but also the psychology of winning; as such, it has transcended its soldierly origins to become a classic source of inspiration for the corporate boardroom as well as the battlefield. After all, if any metaphor can describe what business is all about, it’s that of warfare.
But maybe there’s more to working than winning — and this thought leads to a remarkable new way of envisioning and achieving success, as detailed by Sarah Caniglia and Cindy Griffith in their insightful new book, LaserMonks. I never thought I’d be reviewing a business book here on my oh-so-spiritual blog, but I guess I didn’t see this one coming, either. I should have, though — I’ve known about and admired the LaserMonks web-based business for some time now. This new book not only tells the story of a uniquely successful business, but reveals how another ancient text — The Rule of Saint Benedict — can be applied to any business model, with truly impressive results. Read the rest of this entry »
Sometimes, things are so obvious that your humble servant here simply misses them altogether. This is one of the gifts of contemplative practice: when I slow down long enough to actually remind myself that I am a breathing organism who continues to live and love solely by the grace of God, among other things I’m giving my brain a chance to catch up with my normal speed-of-life distracted self.
This morning, just as my wife and I were chanting the words by which we begin our prayer every morning (”O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me”), I got this little insight that, once I thought about it, seemed so utterly obvious that I really felt like a dolt for not having noticed it before.
Windows feature prominently in this luminous collection of photography and pithy meditations from Trappist monk James Behrens. In this striking and singular glimpse into the multivalent world quietly hidden within a third millennium cloister, Behrens eschews stereotypes and clichés. Instead of pious images of monks praying or studying, he lingers over a heap of old tires, mops hung up to dry, an old street sign overgrown by kudzu. Like many religious communities founded anywhere from fifty to fifteen hundred years ago, Georgia’s Monastery of the Holy Spirit — where all of these photographs were taken and presumably all these words were written — is rich with the splendors of nature; the community owns over two thousand acres of mostly undeveloped land. Behrens celebrates this bucolic treasure with his singularly unromantic eye: his gaze finds an autumn leaf caught in a spider web, or ominous clouds rolling in over a lonely old barn. But I don’t mean to suggest that this collection of images lacks beauty or warmth: far from it. Tenderness erupts in a candid snapshot of a dove huddling in her nest with her young, while technically gorgeous images of a bumblebee or a preying mantis are almost breathtaking in their loveliness. Pansies, stained glass, green leaves and red bricks, all dance through the book, giving it a colorful, almost kaleidoscopic feel. Read the rest of this entry »
Many books are available on the Rule of St. Benedict and how it applies to modern life. Esther De Waal, Joan Chittister, Michael Casey, Laura Swan, Norvene Vest and Elizabeth Canham are just a few of the writers who have offered their take on the Holy Rule for readers in our day. Almost without exception, all of these books are aimed at the layperson — either the Benedictine oblate, or else a person with no formal ties to a monastic community whatsoever, but who would like to unpack the wisdom of Benedict for their secular postmodern lives.
Right away, one can see the value of this collection of chapter talks from Basil Pennington during his tenure as the Abbot of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia: this is a book about the Rule of Saint Benedict written by a monk, for monks. “Written” might not be the best choice of words, for this book is an anthology of transcripts (several of these talks have also been collected in their original form as a two-CD audiobook). Those of us with secular vocations are basically invited to “listen in” on the kind of teachings that is normally reserved only for those in the cloister. Read the rest of this entry »
First, a confession: I fell in love with this book the moment I heard of its title. Bands like the Clash and the Jam provided the soundtrack to my undergraduate years, so I guess I have a soft spot for the punk world (even though I was never much of a punk myself). And while a title like this could easily signify a book that is more cutesy style than substance, I’m happy to report that this book has value well beyond its two-syllable rhyme. Read the rest of this entry »
The Rutba House is an intentional Christian community located in Durham, NC; on the back of this book of essays, it is described as a “community of hospitality, peacemaking and discipleship.” It’s also a leading voice in an exciting development within the Christian community: “neo-monasticism.” According to the online essay A Brief History of New Monasticism, neo-monasticism can trace its roots back to a variety of sources, from the thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer to the Taizé Community to the latter-day revivals of Celtic monasticism such as the Northumbria Community. Neo-monasticism is ecumenical, prophetic, rooted in tradition but radically open to the new ways in which the Holy Spirit is calling Christians to create countercultural expressions of communal life in Christ. Like so many other postmodern expressions of the faith, there’s no single “correct” form of neo-monasticism, but there are some recurrent themes. School(s) for Conversion is a collection of essays that seek to answer this question — What is neo-monasticism? — by considering a dozen of these qualities that seem again and again to show up among the many varied communities that are seeking to foster radical discipleship in today’s world. Read the rest of this entry »
I recently purchased the Folio Society edition of Christopher Brooke’s The Rise and Fall of the Medieval Monastery (it’s a beautiful book, so if you don’t already have it, you’ll want it. But do like me and locate a used copy, although you may have to be patient — they’re hard to come by). My copy arrived today, and in between oohing and aahing at all the lovely illustrations, I noticed something very mysterious indeed. On the inside covers is a hand-drawn map of the “Monastic Sites of Europe.” Presumably, of course, this refers to medieval monasteries, given the scope of the book; most of the foundations seem to be clustered in Italy, France and Britain. What confounds me is that only three monasteries are depicted in Ireland: Bangor, Mellifont, and Durrow.
What?!?!
By any calculation, far, far more than three monasteries flourished in medieval Ireland. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of Irish history or Celtic Christianity will recognize names like Clonmacnoise… Glendalough… Inishmurray… Kells… Kildare… Kilmacduagh… Skellig Michael. Many lesser known foundations existed in the middle ages, as well; one indicator is the prevalence of Irish round towers, which were often built at monasteries (and over 50 of which remain in existence today).
So if Ireland clearly was the home to so many monasteries in centuries past, why does a book on medieval European monasticism only show three foundations on its map? Read the rest of this entry »
You are currently browsing the archives for the monasticism category.
Welcome
THE WEBSITE OF UNKNOWING (www.anamchara.com) is all about Christian mysticism, Celtic wisdom, interfaith spirituality, the emergent conversation, and assorted other topics.
Click on this image to learn more about books by Carl McColman, or click here to buy copies.
Madonna is studying the Kabbalah. The Shack is a runaway bestseller. Centuries after he died, everyone's reading Rumi. Yoga, Buddhism and other eastern practices are more popular among Americans than ever. So what gives? At the heart of all these cultural trends is mysticism, a vague word that can be translated as "the spiritual principle at the heart of religion." Many people believe mysticism is the golden thread that unites all the world's religions. Others scoff at the idea. Come decide for yourself in this class as we explore major themes and writings from the world's great mystical traditions. Using Andrew Harvey's The Essential Mystics as our textbook, we'll examine the world's great wisdom traditions — Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, as well as pagan and philosophical forms of mysticism — acknowledging both the common ground and the distinctive qualities of each mystical path. Class is taught from an academic/nonsectarian perspective. Textbook: The Essential Mystics : Selections from the World's Great Wisdom Traditions. Instructor: Carl McColman
July 22-August 12, 2009 7:00-9:00 pm Click here to register
Upcoming Events
Carl McColman will be co-leading the following retreat at the guesthouse of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, GA. For more information or to register, click here.
July 17-19, 2009:
Wisdom of the Christian Mystics
(with Fr. Tom Francis, OCSO)
From the Desert Fathers to Julian of Norwich to Thomas Merton, Christian history is filled with stories of men and women who experienced a profound sense of God's presence in their lives. Can the teachings of the mystics still speak to us today? The mystics themselves would say “yes” – and furthermore, that their message is not just for priests or monks or nuns, but is indeed meant for the entire people of God. With this in mind, during this weekend we will look at several ways in which the wisdom of the Christian mystics can provide insight and inspiration for our age. This will include the universal call to holiness – St. Paul 's directive to “pray without ceasing,” and the promise from the Psalms to “be still and know God.”
Looking Ahead: October 30-31, 2010 Portland, Oregon: Several Events; Times and Locations to be Announced
Facebook
Twitter
If you'd like to follow me on Twitter, my user ID is @earthmystic.
Whenever I post to this blog, an announcement is generated for my Twitter feed, so you can always keep up to date with what's going on here.
Carl McColman talks about mysticism: what it is, and why it matters, in this interview which originally aired on Atlanta's AM 1690 in September 2008. Click here to listen.
What others say…
"www.anamchara.com is a beautiful site that lists books and web sites introducing all aspects of Christian mysticism."
— Abbot Christopher Jamison, host of
"The Monastery" on the BBC
"One of the best spiritual blogs around"
— John Skinner, author of Hear Our Silence and translator of Julian of Norwich's Revelation of Love
"Thanks, Carl, for your fine and much needed work."
— Richard Rohr, author of Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer
"Recommended website"
— Steven Sadler, author of Looking for God: A Seeker's Guide to Religious and Spiritual Groups of the World
"Carl McColman is part Ken Wilber, part Richard Rohr, and part Indiana Jones’ dad."
— Brittian Bullock, blogger, Sensual Jesus
"As a former professor of education, I tend to critique instructors rather severely. However, Carl McColman, in my opinion, ranks as one of the all-time great instructors. He has an unbelievable mastery of his subject matter & an uncanny ability to translate esoteric matter into understandable form. On top of that, he's very personable. This is my second Evening at Emory Class with Carl and I will sign up for any class that he teaches!"
— Student evaluation form
Free Julian Prayer Cards!
If you'd like a free Julian of Norwich Prayer Card, send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to:
Carl McColman P.O. Box 1146 Clarkston, GA 30021
I'll send you three cards (one for you and two for friends). Sorry, I can only send these to addresses in the USA.
I’d love to hear from you
Email me at
or send old-fashioned mail to:
Carl McColman
Post Office Box 1146
Clarkston, GA 30021
USA
Sorry no pictures of Fran — she was behind the camera!
Posted by Carl McColman 
Posted by Carl McColman 
Posted by Carl McColman 
