To the poor of the world we give bread or whatever else our resources afford or goodwill suggests: we rarely receive them under our roof but instead send them to find lodgings in the village. For it is not for the temporal care of the bodies of our neighbours that we have fled to this desert, but for the eternal salvation of our souls. Therefore it is not surprising if we give more friendship and assistance to those who come here for the sake of their souls than to those who come for the sake of their bodies.
Category: SolitaryLife
eucharist?
They used to say of Mark the Egyptian that he remained for thirty years never coming out of his cell. The priest was in the habit of coming and celebrating the holy Eucharist for him.
Abba Macarius the Egyptian once came from Scete to the Mount of Nitria for the Eucharist of Abba Pambo.
The elder [Matoes] used to say: “I have faith in God that I do not have much to answer for on account of the ordination, since I do not offer the Eucharist.
Abba Macarius once visited Abba Antony then came back to Scete when he had spoken with him. The fathers came to meet him and, as they were speaking, the elder said to them: “I told Abba Antony that we do not have the Eucharist in our place.”
seelsorge
As we look back on the ordinary, not outstanding, anchoress, we visualize a single lady of some spiritual acumen, living a life of prayer, study, work, and spiritual guidance, in a cottage by the church, while she herself submits to the guidance of the parish priest. There are no “vows”, no exaggerated austerity or poverty, no special habit. Age for age, is it over-straining the facts to see a hint at the much-needed vocation for the many devout Anglican ladies whose spiritual gifts are now so shamefully wasted? It is very wrong for these ladies to force themselves to aspire to a monastic vocation which they know they do not really have. It is worse still when their gifts are squandered on “parish work” of very doubtful value. Is the possibility of some modern adaptation of the anchoress, primarily the spiritual guide of others, so very remote? It is, after all, a typical English compromise to which not a few loyal laywomen are already leaning. But, without pride of position, they need authority and recognition.
Martin Thornton, English Spirituality, 170
Sidestep the rather outdated language: the enclosed solitary as a person engaged in seelsorge. An outsider who can engage people on their pilgrimage with Jesus. And a person who can return to their chapel and bring these people before Jesus in prayer. When we move that reality to the modern age, is the internment.a place for seelsorge? (Personally, I would like to return to handwritten letters, but that is not the case for everyone.)
So, the mission statement of the anchorite is: prayer, mortification, and seelsorge.
… to be a contemplative
To be a contemplative Church means:
Diocese of Oxford
- To be deeply rooted in Christ as a branch in the vine, through prayer and worship, word and sacrament;
- To be sustained in joy and hope in the midst of a suffering world;
- To seek the continual grace and renewal of the Holy Spirit in our lives;
- To value deep wisdom and offer meaning;
- To take our theology seriously as dialogue with God as well as talk about God;
- To live in healthy rhythms of prayer and rest and work and be fully human;
- To be good news in an over active and busy world;
- To offer the gift of silence, still places and moments of encounter with the living God;
- To listen deeply to ourselves, to the world in which we live and to one another;
- To discern God’s call to us as individuals and communities;
- To wrestle with God;
- To surrender our doing in order to make space for stillness and dwelling, that God might be free to do and act within us.
fasts and abstinence
I was thinking about the table of fasts and abstinence in the 1662 Prayer Book. Since nothing like it exists in modern Prayer Books, I assume that it still stands. So, I was wondering what the Prayer Book required of me. I found these PRECEPTS OF THE CHURCH by Bishop John Cosin:
- To observe the Festivals and Holy Days appointed.
- To keep the Fasting Days with devotion and abstinence.
- To observe the ecclesiastical customs and ceremonies established, and that without frowardness or contradiction.
- To repair unto the public service of the Church for Matins and Evensong, with other holy offices at times appointed, unless there be a just and unfeigned cause to the contrary.
- To receive the Blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ with frequent devotion, and three times a year at least, of which Easter to be always one. And for better preparation thereunto, as occasion is, to disburthan and quit your consciences of those sins that may grieve us, or scruples that may trouble us, to a learned and discreet priest, and from him to receive advice, and the benefit of Absolution.
It needs a little re-jigging but I think it is a workable Rule of Life. What thinkest thou?
… by way of the Cross
Jesus said:
If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
Matthew 16:24 (KJV)
The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle.
CCC, 2015
is contemplative life possible in the Anglican Communion?
I was thinking about William of Glasshamption (aka Fr William Sirr SDC), especially a piece he wrote about the contemplative life in the Anglican Communion.
When I read the letter, I was struck by the need for contemplative life within the Anglican Communion. In a world full of action and busyness, contemplative life is a secular necessity. There is no return to the old days. Contemplative life in a social media age!
But, I wonder, is the contemplative life possible within the Anglican Communion? Is there room in the Anglican Communion for individuals who separate for “prayer and mortification”? Does it fall inside of “mission action plans”?
So, read! Reflect! Share!
Spring, 1933.
“Now there stood by the Cross of Jesus His Mother”
To our FRIENDs
THE COMPANIONS OF
BLESSED MARY AT THE CROSS.GREETINGS TO YOU ALL.
Not least among many marvellous recoveries the Anglican Communion has restoration of the made in the last hundred years is the vigorous Religious Life which had been so rudely suppressed at the Reformation. We realise not only what has already been done in this direction, but also how much more must yet be achieved ere we reach the goal set before us. But whether we consider the immediate past or the unknown future, we thank-fully take courage and press on again.
Now as we look around at this stage of the revival we find contemplative communities of women happily established in our midst. This is the highest peak we have attained in the recovery of the Religious Life. It gives promise that the men will soon follow.
We cannot, however, forget the great shock it gave Newman, those many years ago, when he first realised there were no monks and nuns in the Church of England, and we wonder whether we are sufficiently concerned to-day to find we are still left without one established community of men set apart wholly for this supreme work of prayer and mortification. Are we fully alive to the serious loss it must be for the Church to remain bereft of monks of this description?
There can be no doubt of the increasing need there is of men who will make daring adventure in the field of prayer. We mean men after the pattern of what Jacob once proved himself to be. He determined he would by prayer win a blessing from God. For this purpose he carefully sought and diligently planned to be alone, and alone he wrestled in prayer through the long watches of the night until the breaking of the day. “I will not let thee go unless thou bless me.” He declared he had seen God face to face, and as a prince, he won power with God and with men. It is true he ever afterwards bore the marks of the struggle he had gone through-but he prevailed.
It is men like that the Church needs so desperately today-men who will deliberately go apart to be with God alone, and stay. They must be men wholly surrendered, and determined with dauntless courage to follow God through every tedious and painful vicissitude, and to endure in prayer right on to the very end, whatever the cost may be. That is the way prescribed by God, and it is in that direction such men of God have always “I give myself unto prayer.”
“The help that is done upon earth, God doeth it himself.” But He deigns to ask for our co-operation as fellow-workers together with Him. God will not consent to act in loneliness.
Think—a divided Christendom has to be reunited, a distracted world has to be mended, all nations have to be brought to do Him service. These are blessings we all yearn for. And these are blessings we know God wills to give. Indeed, He is even now holding them out and waiting to bestow them upon us. without our utmost co-operation. Wherein, then, do we fail?
It is not in activities that we are in danger of falling short. In some respects our activities are excessive. It is in prayer and mortification we sorely need strengthening. And it is to monks we must look to help us to fill up this deficiency.
In our recovery of the Religious Life we have reversed the true order in which the Religious Life originally came into being. In the early days of the Church the solitaries came first, and then the monks and nuns. Men were the pioneers, and the women Then out of this monastic life of prayer and mortification sprang the various orders of active religious, raised up one after the other to meet the pressing needs of the time.
We, on the other hand, started in the revival by first recovering the active life-Sisters of Charity devoted to the poor and sick. Then came other active Sisters for the purposes of educational, preventive and rescue work. After that the men followed-mission priests and lay Brothers, communities of men for training ordinands, for the care of aged and infirm sailors, and for the ” downs and outs ” And most of these communities of men and women have spread out into the mission field.
Now we discover that, quietly and without observation, enclosed nuns have come to life, like the seed hidden and growing secretly in the earth. We find them here just as we suddenly find the flowers in full blossom in the garden, without seeing them unfold. There is yet awaited, last of all, the coming of enclosed monks as of men born out of due time. Then we shall have completely recovered.
Until the enclosed monks are born to us the power of the Church is seriously weakened. We suffer because of the absence of their lives of prayer and mortification-the two most essential implements needed in the terrific warfare for God against the world, the flesh and the devil. The Church is waiting for such lives-waiting for you, young men, because you are strong, and the Word of God abideth in you, and you have overcome the wicked one, you who can ensure that there are men as well as women always standing by night and day to praise the Lord.
Without such monks we are in grave danger of losing sight of the fact that there are some things God has set the Church to do for Him that can only be accomplished by prayer and mortification. Is it not precisely to this purpose of prayer and mortification our Lord was referring when He said to His disappointed disciples, “this kind goeth not out except by prayer and fasting”?
God’s arm is not shortened. Somewhere among us are those to whom God is waiting to impart this rare vocation. And we ask for your prayers during this centenary year, that He will graciously impart it now; and that they to whom this call shall come will fully and courageously respond to it; and that, please God, once again the desert will shoot out her blossoms and restore to the Church these specialists in prayer and mortification, monks as well as nuns, monks who will, like Moses on the mountain-top, stretch forth their hands in strong and never-failing supplications while those on the plains beneath continue their heroic activities.
Who can doubt that we, too, shall then prevail? It will be the breaking of a new day. With the help of our God, we shall leap over the wall.
God bless you.
enclosure and stability
Eremites, or “inhabitants of a desert,” from the Greek ἔρημος, sometimes called solitaries, recluses, or anchorites, were men and women who retired into the desert to live a spirituality of contemplative isolation. Taking their inspiration from the forty years that Israel spent wandering in the desert and the forty days that the Lord spent fasting and battling with temptation in the desolation, hermits embraced a spirituality of on-going conversion, spiritual combat, penance, and solitude.
Anchorites and anchoresses were a related form of consecrated life during the Middle Ages. These urban hermits (frequently women) lived in the solitude of an “anchorage,” or “anchor hold,” a small cell built against the wall of a church. Stability and enclosure as a means of protecting contemplative prayer are hallmarks of this form of consecrated life, much more so than in the more generic eremitic way of life. The door of the anchorage was sealed by the bishop in a liturgy resembling a funeral, signifying that the anchoress who enclosed herself therein had died to the world. A tiny window called a “squint” allowed the anchoress to listen to Mass and receive holy Communion. Another window led out to the street, enabling benefactors to deliver food and receive spiritual advice. The anchoritic way of life persisted until at least the sixteenth century, notably in England.
Hermits and Consecrated Virgins, Ancient Vocations in the Contemporary Catholic Church:
A Canonical-Pastoral Study of Canons 603 and 604 Individual Forms of Consecrated Life
So, the “marks” of the urban recluse are
- on-going conversion
- spiritual combat
- asceticism
- solitude
- stability
- enclosure
I do not like the term penance in this context—I think asceticism is closer. (Penance is a part of asceticism, but not all ascetic practices are penitential.)
I think there is a sense in which 1, 2, and 3 can be summarised by the term asceticism.
So, as a starting point, these are the marks of the enclosed solitary life:
- asceticism
- solitude
- stability
- enclosure
asceticism and me
I am wondering how I could “up my game”. While searching the internet, I read the following and it makes sense:
Asceticism in Modern Spirituality
While it’s true that asceticism – like many aspects of faith and human life – was abused at times in Church history, the legacy of asceticism is that of making saints. And it still has that power today in your own spiritual life. Why should you practice asceticism? Here are some powerful reasons.1. Asceticism combats habitual sin. If you struggle to control your desire for something you tend to abuse (food, drink, sex, comfort, etc), practicing self-denial is like building your spiritual muscles against it.
2. Asceticism builds the virtue of temperance. Temperance is the virtue that balances our desires for physical goods. When our desires are out of balance (a condition of Original Sin called “concupiscence”), we need to reset the balance with self-denial.
3. Asceticism protects you against the excesses of the culture. Like the culture the early Christians lived in, our modern culture has deified entertainment, luxury, and physical pleasure. While Christians can give lip service to resisting these temptations, the truth is that we’re immersed in this culture and it’s difficult not to be transformed by it. Asceticism helps us to set our hearts on the greater goods and to resist laxity of heart and open our hearts to be transformed by grace.
4. Asceticism moves our hearts away from selfishness. We live in air-conditioned comfort, even in our cars. We get used to having entertainment literally at our fingertips. Everything in our lives is built around convenience, entertainment, and comfort. Even the largest hearts among us can become lax when we get used to being comfortable all the time. Self-sacrifice prevents our modern lifestyle from sinking too deeply into our hearts. This was the reason Saint Francis required his brothers to serve the poor by living among the poor and why Dominicans also took a vow of poverty. Monastic orders at the time lived luxuriously and religious men and women were losing the true sense of their vocation. The same principle applies to lay people living in the world.
5. Asceticism can be an act of love. Like the first Desert Fathers and Desert Mothers, we can offer our self-sacrifice as a token of dedicating our complete lives to Jesus. Asceticism can exercise the theological virtue of charity. It can be an act of love for God, and we can also offer our voluntary suffering for the salvation of souls, making it an act of Christ-like love for our neighbor.
Asceticism plays the same role for us today that it did for the early Christians after the Edict of Milan. It shapes our hearts away from concupiscence (sinful desire) towards God and selflessness. It exercises the selfless love of charity. Of course, we want to avoid the excesses and abuses that have given asceticism a bad name (think of Hollywood’s portrayal of the scrupulous Catholic whipping himself bloody with a Cat-O-Nine-Tails in front of a crucifix all night). But properly used, asceticism is an invaluable tool in our spiritual toolbox.
The Role of Asceticism in Modern Spirituality
maybe?!
Sometimes, I wonder if the modern church could make me a follower of Jesus. Some of the things I hear from “church people” are completely disconnected from everyday life. (That includes my everyday life! And, honestly, I get more push-back from church people to living as an enclosed solitary.) Maybe the best way is to say that the church is very good at answering questions that no one asks.
I am just a voter, a consumer, or a “parishioner,” and I should behave accordingly. Sometimes, I am told that I am very privileged to be a voter, a consumer, or a parishioner. The message is that I am called to surrender me for the community.
Maybe the following quote makes the point much better:
It is frequently said that a reformation has to begin with each person’s reformation of himself, but it has not happened that way, for the idea of reformation has given rise to a hero, who very likely bought his license to be a hero very dearly from God.
A little further, Kierkegaard writes:
… the abstraction of leveling is a principle that forms no personal, intimate relation to any particular individual, but only the relation of abstraction, which is the same for all. No hero, then, suffers for others or helps others; leveling itself becomes the severe taskmaster who takes on the task of educating.
Two Ages
In the end, I am stuck. Forward or backward? Prophesy or escape? Should I risk all (including me) for a community with little interest in me?
Anyway …
this solitary life 