Monastery of the Holy Cross

Archives for July 2025

Martha, Mary, and monasticism

This year, at Sunday Mass, we have been reading through Luke’s gospel. Two weeks ago, we heard the famous story of Jesus’s visit to Martha and Mary, where Jesus chided Martha, “You are anxious and worried about many things!” Is this not the case for so many of us today? We are indeed anxious about many things. Jesus goes on to offer Mary’s actions as a contrast. She has chosen the “better part,” listening at the feet of Jesus.

For many centuries Martha and Mary were seen as types of the active life and the contemplative life. This interpretation is controversial today. But we are surely right to see a connection between Mary’s choice and monasticism. By withdrawing from the anxieties of the world, contemplative monks and nuns should become icons of peace, focusing all attention on Jesus.

Yet the reality is more complex. Today’s monks bring with themselves into the cloister all those worries that afflict modern persons. In this way, monasteries become places where our faith is truly put to the proof. Can we truly let go of those worries and put all our trust in God? Here, anxiety tends to arise not from the dense web of responsibilities that modern life poses for the laity, but from the dread of feeling useless in the face of today’s cultural challenges. The only remedy is the belief that God suffices for all things.

May this reality be a source of “the peace which the world cannot give” for all our friends!

 

Monasticism and Magdalene

To the modern mind, Saint Mary Magdalene doesn’t seem like a promising role model for monks. The Church’s mind thinks differently, and it benefits us to pay attention.

Let’s begin with the Offertory chant assigned for today. It reads, “Deus, Deus meus, ad te de luce vigilo [Psalm 62: 2].” “O God, you are my God, for you I keep watch at first light.” If we don’t associate Mary Magdalene with keeping a nighttime vigil, it is perhaps because we don’t read the Scriptures as carefully and synthetically as did our forebears in the faith. An important detail behind today’s gospel meeting between Mary and Jesus is found at the end of John Chapter 19:

“Now in the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been buried [John 19: 41].”

Jesus is buried in a garden and there appears risen from the dead. The image of a garden brings up all kinds of resonances, including with Eden. When Jesus first sees Mary, he refers to her as “Woman,”–Adam’s first name for Eve–as He did His Blessed Mother at Cana when he earlier spoke of His “Hour” [see John 2: 4]. Jesus is the New Adam, come to reverse the sin of the First Adam.

Another resonance is with the Song of Songs, which happens to provide the First Reading on this feast. In that masterpiece of eros-poetry, filled with garden imagery, the Bridegroom frequently goes missing, forcing the Bride to persevere in pursuing Him. The Bride says:

On my bed at night I sought him
whom my heart loves–
I sought him but I did not find him.
I will rise then and go about the city;
in the streets and crossings I will seek
Him whom my heart loves.
I sought him but I did not find him.

–Song of Songs 3: 1-2

Notice how this reading brings together the Psalm text with which we began, about keeping vigil at night. Mary Magdalene is not content to stay at home when her Lord is in the tomb. Her love impels her to go there in search of Him: “Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark [John 20: 1].” She finds an empty tomb, and not Jesus. Yet while Peter and John head home puzzled by the scene, she “remained outside the tomb [John 20: 11],” persevering, watching to see what happens, keeping vigil.

Saint Gregory the Great, the “Doctor of Desire,” saw himself as a watchman.

Saint Gregory the Great demonstrates his Benedictine sensibilities in a homily on this gospel, which is used for the Second Reading at this morning’s Office of Vigils.

“Though the disciples had left, she remained. She was still seeking the one she had not found…And so it happened that the woman who stayed behind to seek Christ was the only one to see Him. For perseverance is essential to any good deed, as the voice of truth tells us: Whoever perseveres to the end will be saved [Matthew 24: 13].”

The monastic life is dedicated to the search for God, keeping watch in the night for Christ’s return, contemplating God’s creatures for traces of God’s Word, yearning to see His beauty in all things. Like the Bridegroom, God evades easy capture by the Bride. Those who desire to make God their sole Good will have to step out into the night of naked desire and persevere in seeking Him through the heart’s desire. Many distractions and many doubts flood the mind that would pursue God alone. This is why monks urge each other on with the exhortation, “Persevere!” And in doing so, we are urging one another to imitate Mary Magdalene, whose love ensured that she saw Him Whom her heart loved.

Conference on the Priority of Persons over Rules

Tonight, I would like to follow up on a topic that I spoke about during Chapter last week, and that is the priority of persons over rules. I asked Br. Anthony to look up some examples of this contrast in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Some of the examples I will use tonight are the ones he found.

It occurred to me that a major source of the appeal of the Desert Fathers as spiritual teachers is precisely that they refuse to formulate rules. In fact, they seem to be better known for finding all kinds of exceptions to rules. Here’s an example:

A directive was once issued at Scete: “Fast this week.” It came about that some brothers from Egypt visited Abba Moses and he cooked them a little gruel. Seeing the smoke, his neighbors told the clergy: “Here, Moses has broken the directive of the fathers and cooked himself some gruel.” “We ourselves will speak to him when he comes,” they said. When Saturday came round, the clergy, well aware of the great discipline of Abba Moses, said to him before the company: “Oh Abba Moses, you have broken men’s directive but fulfilled God’s.”

The priority of persons is often very explicitly taught by the Fathers. Here is a saying of Antony the Great:

Life and death depend on our neighbor: for if we win over our brother, we win over God, but if we offend our brother, we sin against Christ.

Here, I will note that we do not typically win someone over by quoting the rule book to him. This doesn’t mean that it isn’t sometimes an act of charity for someone to state the Church’s teaching clearly. Among the spiritual works of mercy are instructing the ignorant and admonishing the sinner. Saint Benedict clearly wants the abbot to intervene when a brother is acting disobediently or contrary to the community’s customs.

But notice that here, it depends in another way upon persons: the abbot is the one who determines when and how to intervene, and this can’t be predicted ahead of time by rules. Our current Abbot Visitor, Abbot Cuthbert, once quoted another abbot, I believe an abbot of Solesmes, saying that in a monastery there should be many strict rules, and many dispensations from those rules. But there are not rules for when to grant a dispensation. That depends on the abbot’s personal judgment.

The abbot according to Saint Benedict is a master of virtue. And we know that the virtuous action cannot be legislated ahead of time and out of context. I believe that Alasdair Maclntyre, in the book Dependent Rational Animals, has also demonstrated that we cannot learn virtue apart from the concrete situations that involve us in the lives of others, and involve them in our lives.

What this means in practice is that virtue can only be learned by faith. In other words, we learn the virtuous action by imitating the one who already possesses virtue, which means that we trust that person’s example, and we act without fully knowing what we are to learn by that action. And then, one hopes, through consenting to that action by an act of trust, observing the consequences of that action, and sympathetically observing how it affects others, we gain insight into what is truly virtuous.

So again, the Desert Fathers embody this principle very strictly. We have example after example of virtuous actions and the responses of the other monks, usually edified, but occasionally scandalized. Typically those who are scandalized are so either because they insist on a rule, or because they insist on the action fitting their understanding of the situation, rather than trusting in the example of a wiser monk.

Conference on Thoughts

It’s been awhile since I last addressed this subject. Evagrius, Cassian and Maximus offer a good deal of technical advice, and we should make a habit of regularly reviewing their teachings. What I offer tonight is a reflection on my own experience in the spiritual battle, including insights from spiritual direction with many monks, priests and others over the years.

Our thoughts are not ourselves. This can’t be overstated. Just because we have a thought or a feeling, no matter how intense it is, does not make it worth our time or worry. All thought should be subject to discernment.

I say this because I have watched well-intentioned people get very hard on themselves for having certain kinds of thoughts. Yes, sometimes we bring these on ourselves by our earlier choices. But this still doesn’t mean that we will make any progress by getting sad about having them, or getting angry or frustrated with ourselves or others.

Any thought can be let go of, or we can at least loosen its grip on ourselves. It is a good practice, maybe ten minutes a day, just to sit still and watch our thoughts. There are many images for how to do this, and how to learn to disengage from a thought. One is to imagine thoughts as so many boats floating down a stream. It’s alright to look at what is in the boat, but don’t get in the boat yourself; let it float away.

Another way to disengage is to use a word or short phrase. I often use, “Amen,” or “Jesus,” or “Jesus, Mary, Joseph,” or “Holy angels of God.” In some ways, the content doesn’t matter. The words are there to place gently upon whatever thought we wish to let go of. Many thoughts recur frequently. The worst thing we can do is get angry because they won’t go away. Again, if I have an angry thought against a brother, I take the word “Amen,” and set it lightly upon that thought and let it go. If it returns, I’m not surprised, I’m not impatient; I simply make the same action of reciting my sacred word and moving on.

Making a habit of doing this intentionally each day is very useful because we learn—slowly, eventually—not to get taken in by thoughts when they surprise us.

Another important habit to cultivate is to question our thoughts, especially if we can notice that a thought has accompanied us into the monastic life from our families, workplaces, or local cultures (for example, urban life, country life, academia, the art world, the military). What was the right way to sweep a floor at home might not be the way the community wants me to do it. If I’m corrected, I am offered the opportunity to let go of another kind of thought.

A particularly pernicious thought is the idea that I have some responsibility to change someone else, to focus on his faults and figure them out. Let’s figure ourselves out first. But we can’t do this, frankly, if we’re always right. All that means is that we never get to the bottom of our prejudices and preferences. If we are always angling to get our way, even if we cloak it under the pretense of helping other to do things “the right way,” we will never question our thoughts. We will never broaden our horizon.

It’s good to ask questions, to be the dumbest person in the room. To be curious about what other people’s experiences are. To notice how others do things differently, especially when they seem to excel in something.

In the best case scenario, we would have holy mentors. But would we even know whether they were holy? That’s another thought, and I’m not sure we’re well-positioned to recognize real holiness or insight. But we can always gain valuable experience by trying out someone else’s method of action. And God will reward us for our self-denial.

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