Today is St. Clare’s Day, one of history’s great “monks.” She became the contemplative that her dear friend, St. Francis, always wanted to be. Francis had “church building” projects to work on, but Clare was free to pray long hours before the Blessed Sacrament with her sisters. To gain that freedom, she surrendered her considerable material wealth. It was a price certainly worth paying.
Last week I did my “canonical retreat,” so-called because canon [Church] law requires priests to spend at least five days a year “retreating” from noise to gain the one thing necessary. For a fruitful retreat, one must first till the soil, and the soil is silence. Only by sitting quietly in the garden of God, listening and looking about, can one draw near to the supreme Good. For starters, the gift of silence costs us our “devices.” It is a price certainly worth paying, at least for a week. This means leaving devices behind or at least removing their “power” over us (by means of the off switch helpfully provided by your device’s manufacturer).
The best place to do a retreat, in my experience, is a Benedictine monastery. I did mine at a priory four hours north of my little farmhouse here in West Cork, so I brought my phone along for directions. Not many years ago I would have used a map and a brain (helpfully provided by my Creator) to find my way around, but paper maps are in short supply these days, and my brain has been addled by my phone. So I arrived at the monastery with phone in tow. Upon settling into my cell (not the phone, but the little room assigned by the monks), I turned my phone on to turn it off and noticed two “urgent” messages. “How am I going to resist the impulse to check messages?” I wondered. “People will think I’m avoiding them.” Then I remembered: I am avoiding them! I powered down the phone and hoped people would understand. The good news is that within 24 hours I wasn’t even thinking about my phone, and when I used my phone (on airplane mode) as an alarm, I had not the slightest desire to check messages. Detox can happen very quickly in a monastery.
Why so quickly? Because the joy of communal prayer quickly replaces the phone’s isolated dopamine hits. Which do I want: singing Gregorian Chant with a chapel full of brothers, or a few squeaky hits of “virtual” music from a little plastic device? There’s really no contest. One’s first immersion in monastic chant (if you are with people who know how to sing and know how to pray) simply floods the mind and soul. It drowns the temptation to look at merely virtual stuff. The trick, however, is persevere with the monks in their long prayers after the initial, other-worldly euphoria wears off.
The first night I sat on my little bed and looked at my alarm clock, which doubles as a smart phone. I was no longer tempted to look at digital media, but I was tempted to sleep through Matins until Lauds at 6am. But the monks start their day at 5am, so I sighed a little and set the alarm for 4:30. One wonders if one can really get up at 4:30, find one’s way to the chapel in the dark, and chant in Latin for 90 minutes, even for five days. But it gets easier each day.
I’ve done retreats at many monasteries, and each one delivers treasures. I received at least two this time. First, for priests, committing to the full monastic discipline means “hearing” a Mass before celebrating one yourself. This particular monastery uses the older form of the divine liturgy, which is broader, deeper, and fuller than more recent versions. In particular, Mass in the older usage does not have “concelebration,” so each priest offers his own Mass every day rather than simply joining another priest at Mass. But before the monks trundle off to find an altar for their individual Masses, the Prior offers a Sung Mass with all the monks around him “hearing” it. This opens up all sorts of treasures, as the priest need not concern himself with rubrics and “doing the Mass right.” He can simply pray the Mass, fully appreciating the texts, and joining his brothers in soaring chant before he will “say” his own Mass. It made me realize why older Catholics would talk of “hearing a Mass,” and how that is not a bad thing, as we were taught in the 1980s.
The second treasure I received from the monastery was the daunting night office, called “Matins,” which contains two “nocturnes.” In my monastery, Lauds followed immediately after Matins, so we were in the chapel from 5:00 to 6:30 each morning chanting the psalms, hymns, responses, and readings. The night and the morning offices, if combined, normally take an hour and a half, although at feast days it can take over two hours.
The only way to get through this (which includes constant posture changes, from standing to kneeling to bowing to sitting) is to surrender. You allow yourself to be carried along by the rhythms of scripture and tradition, drifting down the well-worn waterways traveled by so many before you. Pretty soon an hour or two has gone by, during which time you’ve seen some truly beautiful landscapes float by. Admittedly, it’s hard to get going at that hour of the morning, but after about 20 minutes I found myself in the “zone.” In fact, on the last day, even though I’m not that proficient in Latin, I was easily grasping every word for long stretches, almost as an infused knowledge. I know many of these psalms by heart after forty years of praying them in English, but I was still surprised and delighted to be chanting the same words Jews and Christians have been chanting for 3000 years, in an ancient language and in deeply-felt communion with them.
These long psalms describe Israel’s hopes and disappointments, her victories and defeats, her faith and her perfidy. Repeating them several times a week, one is lifted above the earth, transcending our own brief moment in history, seeing things from heaven’s perspective. One begins to see that life, as God so gives it, has its ups and downs, but that He is always with us. The monastic discipline, in my experience, leads one into a kind of ecstasy. It is not an irrational ecstasy, but a moving out of oneself into the logic of the Word Himself. Truly remarkable!
This particular monastery, like all communities, is not perfect. In all monasteries, saints and sinners, angels and demons, live within their hallowed walls. But thank God for them. Most people have never even visited a monastery, and few appreciate the inestimable good they do for all of us. Every young man or woman that assumes the monastic habit is trying to love God with all they have. The world, the flesh, and the devil pit themselves squarely against these men and women. Many persevere, and many do not. God bless them for trying to overcome evil with good, and for providing houses of deep prayer for all of us. The visible Church certainly depends on the invisible monastics more than we can ever know. St. Clare, pray for us!
Last week I did my “canonical retreat,” so-called because canon [Church] law requires priests to spend at least five days a year “retreating” from noise to gain the one thing necessary. For a fruitful retreat, one must first till the soil, and the soil is silence. Only by sitting quietly in the garden of God, listening and looking about, can one draw near to the supreme Good. For starters, the gift of silence costs us our “devices.” It is a price certainly worth paying, at least for a week. This means leaving devices behind or at least removing their “power” over us (by means of the off switch helpfully provided by your device’s manufacturer).
The best place to do a retreat, in my experience, is a Benedictine monastery. I did mine at a priory four hours north of my little farmhouse here in West Cork, so I brought my phone along for directions. Not many years ago I would have used a map and a brain (helpfully provided by my Creator) to find my way around, but paper maps are in short supply these days, and my brain has been addled by my phone. So I arrived at the monastery with phone in tow. Upon settling into my cell (not the phone, but the little room assigned by the monks), I turned my phone on to turn it off and noticed two “urgent” messages. “How am I going to resist the impulse to check messages?” I wondered. “People will think I’m avoiding them.” Then I remembered: I am avoiding them! I powered down the phone and hoped people would understand. The good news is that within 24 hours I wasn’t even thinking about my phone, and when I used my phone (on airplane mode) as an alarm, I had not the slightest desire to check messages. Detox can happen very quickly in a monastery.
Why so quickly? Because the joy of communal prayer quickly replaces the phone’s isolated dopamine hits. Which do I want: singing Gregorian Chant with a chapel full of brothers, or a few squeaky hits of “virtual” music from a little plastic device? There’s really no contest. One’s first immersion in monastic chant (if you are with people who know how to sing and know how to pray) simply floods the mind and soul. It drowns the temptation to look at merely virtual stuff. The trick, however, is persevere with the monks in their long prayers after the initial, other-worldly euphoria wears off.
The first night I sat on my little bed and looked at my alarm clock, which doubles as a smart phone. I was no longer tempted to look at digital media, but I was tempted to sleep through Matins until Lauds at 6am. But the monks start their day at 5am, so I sighed a little and set the alarm for 4:30. One wonders if one can really get up at 4:30, find one’s way to the chapel in the dark, and chant in Latin for 90 minutes, even for five days. But it gets easier each day.
I’ve done retreats at many monasteries, and each one delivers treasures. I received at least two this time. First, for priests, committing to the full monastic discipline means “hearing” a Mass before celebrating one yourself. This particular monastery uses the older form of the divine liturgy, which is broader, deeper, and fuller than more recent versions. In particular, Mass in the older usage does not have “concelebration,” so each priest offers his own Mass every day rather than simply joining another priest at Mass. But before the monks trundle off to find an altar for their individual Masses, the Prior offers a Sung Mass with all the monks around him “hearing” it. This opens up all sorts of treasures, as the priest need not concern himself with rubrics and “doing the Mass right.” He can simply pray the Mass, fully appreciating the texts, and joining his brothers in soaring chant before he will “say” his own Mass. It made me realize why older Catholics would talk of “hearing a Mass,” and how that is not a bad thing, as we were taught in the 1980s.
The second treasure I received from the monastery was the daunting night office, called “Matins,” which contains two “nocturnes.” In my monastery, Lauds followed immediately after Matins, so we were in the chapel from 5:00 to 6:30 each morning chanting the psalms, hymns, responses, and readings. The night and the morning offices, if combined, normally take an hour and a half, although at feast days it can take over two hours.
The only way to get through this (which includes constant posture changes, from standing to kneeling to bowing to sitting) is to surrender. You allow yourself to be carried along by the rhythms of scripture and tradition, drifting down the well-worn waterways traveled by so many before you. Pretty soon an hour or two has gone by, during which time you’ve seen some truly beautiful landscapes float by. Admittedly, it’s hard to get going at that hour of the morning, but after about 20 minutes I found myself in the “zone.” In fact, on the last day, even though I’m not that proficient in Latin, I was easily grasping every word for long stretches, almost as an infused knowledge. I know many of these psalms by heart after forty years of praying them in English, but I was still surprised and delighted to be chanting the same words Jews and Christians have been chanting for 3000 years, in an ancient language and in deeply-felt communion with them.
These long psalms describe Israel’s hopes and disappointments, her victories and defeats, her faith and her perfidy. Repeating them several times a week, one is lifted above the earth, transcending our own brief moment in history, seeing things from heaven’s perspective. One begins to see that life, as God so gives it, has its ups and downs, but that He is always with us. The monastic discipline, in my experience, leads one into a kind of ecstasy. It is not an irrational ecstasy, but a moving out of oneself into the logic of the Word Himself. Truly remarkable!
This particular monastery, like all communities, is not perfect. In all monasteries, saints and sinners, angels and demons, live within their hallowed walls. But thank God for them. Most people have never even visited a monastery, and few appreciate the inestimable good they do for all of us. Every young man or woman that assumes the monastic habit is trying to love God with all they have. The world, the flesh, and the devil pit themselves squarely against these men and women. Many persevere, and many do not. God bless them for trying to overcome evil with good, and for providing houses of deep prayer for all of us. The visible Church certainly depends on the invisible monastics more than we can ever know. St. Clare, pray for us!
One of my monastic friends, Fr. Thomas Wagner, from Niederaltaich Abbey in Bavaria
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