Quotes About Monasticism

The Bernardo-Benedictines... get up in their first sleep, from one to three A.M., in order to read their breviary and chant matins...

You were contemplating the mountain, Mr. Conway? Came the inquiry. Yes, it's a fine sight. It has a name, I suppose? It is called Karakal I don't think I've ever heard of it. Is is very high? Over twenty-eight thousand feet. Indeed? I didn't realize there would be anything on that scale outside the Himalayas. Has it been properly surveyed? Whose are the measurements? Whose would you expect, my dear sir? Is there anything incompatible between monasticism and trigonometry?

May I never be chained by the lifestyle of a householder But attain Dharma wealth in the midst of ordained monks; Free of conceit, may I make offerings to the [Three] Jewels And look on all beings with [the eyes of] compassion.

It's an oversimplication to say that more monks and nuns are the answer to the Joel Osteen-ification of Christianity... but it wouldn't hurt.

Here was an oddity: that in the latter days when laymen owned everything they didn't care much for anything, yet some priests who owned little or nothing developed ferocious attachments for ordinary objects—I once knew a monk who owned nothing, had given it all away for Christ, yet coveted the monastery typewriter with a jealous love, flew into rages when another monk touched it.

Because it is a formal order, with an unbroken line of saintly representatives serving as active leaders, no man can give himself the title of swami. He rightfully receives it only from another swami; all monks thus trace their spiritual lineage to one common guru, Lord Shankara. By vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience to the spiritual teacher, many Catholic Christian monastic orders resemble the Order of Swamis.

Il était comme ces moines qui sont obligés de faire effort pour s'arracher d'où ils sont et venir où vous êtes; imiter les rires et les mots auxquels vous êtes habitués; avoir la politesse ou le mépris de ne pas trop vous surprendre.

The belt / worn by a Benedictine was made of leather / but a Franciscan's cincture was rope. The gaudy sleeve / I once put on is fraying by the hour.

Monasticism is not about dogma; it is about God and an authentic spirituality. Its simple truths beckon to be rediscovered.

Monasticism resonated with me, with my imperfect, impulsive self, because it encompasses all human activity and asks that the disparate parts and moments of our lives be not merely tolerated, or managed, but sanctified.

The celebrated and largely successful attempt to solve them took place at the Synod of Whitby in 664. There the hinging issue was whether British Christianity should conform to the general life-plan of Christendom or whether it should be expressed by the monastic orders which had founded the Celtic Churches of the North.

He, Cromwell, says to his visitors, just tell them this, and tell them loud: to each monk, one bed: to each bed, one monk. Is that so hard for them?

Queers make the best monks.

Saying of the Prophet Monkishness No monkery in Islam.

Dicho del Profeta Monacato No hay monjes en el Islam.

Such an austere religion has never appealed to the masses and today may have less than 4 million adherents. Jains do not believe in a personal creator God. Liberation is through their way of life and entails becoming a monk or nun, which may not be achieved in their present existence. It is nontheistic; the gods are themselves souls on the way to liberation.

Benedict and Bernard and the other true monastic peacemakers of history have been effective because they have acted from a deep source of peace within themselves, dating a context for peace. This is the contribution a Christian man or woman of peace can make.

Cluny was created with the intention that it should be free from lay control, and was answerable only to the pope.

the Benedictine Rule, having no private property, abstaining from meat, and above all abstaining from sex.

and monasticism was an alluring, alternative lifestyle.

The life of a monk ought to be a continuous Lent. . . . This we can do in a fitting manner by refusing to indulge evil habits and by devoting ourselves to prayer with tears, to reading, to compunction of heart and self-denial" (71). A life of prayer, however, was not to be artificially divorced from a life of service.

For more than twenty years I was a pious monk, read Mass daily, and so weakened myself with fasting and praying that I would not have been long for this life had I continued. Yet all this taken together cannot help me in even one little crisis to be able to say before God: 'All this I have done, now please consider it, and be gracious to me.' What else did I achieve with this than to plague myself uselessly, impair my health, and waste my time?

It is indeed pitiful that a monk who does nothing else night and day except chastise his body achieves nothing by this diligence than to be cast into the flames of hell.

Wednesday: Pray for Strangers You See throughout This Day One of the elders said: Just as a bee, wherever she goes, makes honey, so a monk, wherever he goes, if he goes to do the will of God, can always produce the spiritual sweetness of good works.5