Articles under Monastic Life

Making a Habit of Acceptance

August 6, 2026

During summertime, people will often point to me and say, “That habit must be really hot!” It’s true that black fabric absorbs sunlight and heats up rather quickly. For this reason, many monasteries in Africa and Asia wear white. But the tunic and scapular are relatively loose-fitting and do well when there’s a breeze. We experimented with a lighter-weight fabric years ago, for use during the summer months, but it wore out a bit too quickly.

Monks are meant to be companions of Christ, Who was poor and homeless. I’ve always felt it a bit unbecoming for monks to aim for physical comfort in the monastery. Saint Benedict warns monks not to complain about whether the material for their habits is too coarse (though he does insist that the abbot should make sure that they fit right!). In general, he wants them to accept what is given by the tradition through the community. A bit of discomfort offers me a small opportunity to make a sacrifice for Christ and His Church, and to experience a bit of alignment with those who live in real poverty.

Most places in the monastery are not air-conditioned for the same reason. There’s a general preference in the community for simply accepting the hot weather as part of what nature offers. It makes our food grow, the way God designed. In Chicago, it will be cold soon enough! And we will wear the same habit in December.

Conference: Two Meanings of Contemplation

July 31, 2026

In this conference, I would like to address a topic that could be considered the goal of our life as monks: contemplative prayer. We use this term in two ways in the modern Catholic Church, and so it is worth taking a moment to articulate what I mean by this.

In manuals of spiritual theology in recent centuries, “contemplation” took on a technical meaning. Contemplative prayer is that prayer which, strictly speaking, is the product of God’s action on the soul, and is not at all in our power. Contemplation is very nearly the prayer of union with God Himself, or the prayer of union is understood as the highest form of contemplative prayer. Needless to say, we are not capable of uniting ourselves to God; only God can bring about this union. Our task in seeking this union with God is to dispose ourselves by asceticism, by the practice of the lower forms of prayer, by reverent reception of the sacraments, and by meditation on the mysteries of the faith. Finally, there is growth in the theological virtues, especially faith and love, which dispose us to let go of the controls, as it were, and place ourselves in God’s hands, confident of His love.

This is more difficult than it might sound. We can place ourselves lovingly in God’s hands at any time, but we are often still clinging to various attachments. The final movement toward God requires us to let go of these attachments. An attachment works both ways: we are attached to the lower good, but it is attached to our souls. The extrication of our souls from this attachment will therefore often feel like we are losing a part of ourselves. This is why we need the motivation that faith and love bring, to soldier through this experience of dying to ourselves, which is, in fact, a freeing of our truest self from anything less than God. And the goal is proximate preparation for union with God: that is, for contemplative prayer, the culmination of our seeking after God as monks.

This is one meaning of contemplative prayer. The other meaning is both more colloquial and more traditional. It is a broader concept, though it includes the technical meaning I’ve just related. This definition of contemplative prayer, in general, owes more to human action than the technical version, though, along with all prayer, it presupposes the action of the Holy Spirit in our souls. When we speak about lectio divina as consisting of lectio, meditatio, oratio, and contemplatio, we are in the right neighborhood. In reading, we grasp the literal sense of God’s Word, and perhaps get a glimpse of the deeper spiritual sense. In meditation, we explore the implications of the Word that we are trying to grasp. We notice connections that allow the Word to permeate our hearts and our awareness, our default understanding of reality. In prayer, oratio, we take this Word and the desire it has stirred up in us, and return something of our own hopes and needs to God. And then in contemplation, we simply allow ourselves to be with the God Who has been working in our souls throughout this process.

In this popular sense of contemplation, we can more frequently have experiences that foreshadow the purest prayer of contemplation. An insight about God’s love may strike us as so beautiful that tears come to our eyes. We have nothing to say to God, other than in inward movement of gratitude and perhaps compunction, as we simultaneously become aware of our own sluggishness or lukewarmness. Indeed, I would categorize compunction as very near to contemplation and almost a prerequisite.

Such contemplation can occur in many different ways. In recent years, I have experienced it listening to music. The beauty of certain pieces has struck me inwardly in a new way. One way I could characterize the difference is that when I was younger, the experience of beauty in music would move me, but I was perhaps more interested in being moved by it, perhaps felt a bit special for being “in the know”. The experience today is the utter shock that fallible human beings can produce sounds that reveal true beauty, that open a door to the abundance of beauty that pours forth from the love of God. If humans are capable of listening to their musical materials and attuning themselves so as to channel such beauty, what is God like, Who underwrites this entire experience? The experience is less about me and more about the mystery of the God Whom I am aiming to discover.

Our life is arranged so as to promote the prayer of contemplation. I mean that in several ways. Every Christian is called to contemplative prayer, but few are called to craft an entire existence around it. When our founders were looking for assistance in starting the monastery and in entering into the Benedictine world, they were seeking a strictly contemplative way of life. This is how we found our way into collaboration with Christ in the Desert. In spite of the many obvious differences in our locations and even certain emphases within the life, in both cases, we are communities that do not have an apostolate, nor have we a real industry, though that is new for us.

The difficulty involved in an apostolate is not that it isn’t, ultimately, ordered to contemplative prayer. It is rather that apostolates involve the monk in considerations that are easily influenced by the world. If one runs a school, there are accreditation boards to satisfy, there is the need to train monks to teach, and most likely the need to interview and hire teachers and staff and to oversee payroll and job reviews. Industries have similar constraints. When entered into in the right spirit, these certainly can be sanctifying. And I have a great deal of respect for monks who are able to balance the demands of prayer and the demands of an apostolate, as you know.

The way our life is organized, then, is not simply that we have more free time to prayer. That we do, and hopefully we take advantage of it. But we are also free to follow where prayer leads, without having to look over our shoulder and answer to the requirements of associations that do not have prayer as their goal.

I appreciate very much Dom DeLatte’s observation about certain monks making a sacrifice of themselves for the sake of the community. As I was thinking my way through this conference, the example that came most readily to mind is the work that I do as a fundraiser. When a benefactor makes a large gift, this is a great blessing, but it can also come with obligations. A benefactor may have expectations that we will make decisions about the liturgy, for example, that will prompt him or her to remain a benefactor. We lost some benefactors when we turned out altar around. But the decision to face East was made, I believe, from a desire to live the contemplative life more authentically, especially in our circumstances in a large city. Our own discernment suggested that there was a need for a greater sense of transcendence. In a modern city, which is often hostile to any powers beyond itself, we must have the spiritual freedom to take the steps that will best promote the search for God.

This freedom is perhaps the best place to conclude. God wishes for us to be truly free to seek Him. This freedom is both an interior freedom from vices and imperfections and an exterior freedom from the compulsions of life in an overly-connected world—from any type of coercion in seeking to be perfect disciples of Jesus Christ.

Mary Magdalene, Model for Monks

July 23, 2026

Mary Magdalene, whose feast day we celebrated yesterday, might not seem like a model for contemplative monks. When we look at the liturgy of her feast, however, we discover many relevant themes. After all, she was the person chosen by God to see Christ first after His Resurrection. Saint Gregory the Great pointed out that she received this privilege because she did not give up seeking Christ, whereas the Apostles, upon seeing the empty tomb, went away. She persevered in her quest.

What was the source of her resolution? Surely, the Church tells us, it was because of her great love and devotion to Jesus. Her life at this point was completely focused on Him. As Jesus had purified her of seven demons, her heart was further purified by her love and devotion. Blessed are the pure of heart! For they shall see God. This Beatitude summarizes the monastic life. After the pattern of Mary Magdalene, the monk seeks purification by repentance, and by constant prayer and devotion to God. Even when God seems distant, the monk perseveres. His hope is to encounter the risen Christ, and then, after the pattern of Mary Magdalene, to announce to the world, “He is truly risen!” with the conviction of one who has truly seen Him.

The World, the Flesh, and the Devil: The Third Precaution Against the Devil

June 18, 2026

The third precaution is to rejoice in others’ progress as if it were our own, preferring their advancement to our own. John says that we should do so especially with regard to those who are least attractive to us. In one sense, this is a corollary of the dominical teaching to love our enemies, which is the real test of charity. If there is someone we work with or otherwise encounter on a regular basis whom we find disagreeable, we may profit from doing some extra work at prayer. We can pray for this person’s well-being, perhaps his or her conversion, and take the time to think about what gifts he or she brings, even if these gifts are not immediately accessible because of some brokenness or ignorance.

This doesn’t mean lying about others’ shortcomings. It means being honest about what it’s going to take to love that person in his or her reality, rather than loving what we wish he or she would be if only our superior insight would be heeded. In my experience, this is more readily done when we know how profoundly God loves us despite our own failings, remembering that we have not earned our friendship with God. While we were God’s enemies, His Son died for us.

This brings me to an important conclusion: the necessity of meditation on the life and actions of Jesus Christ. We will notice, for example, that He did not help everyone He found. He often asked what the person needed before He helped, even though He would have known what that person needed. He could be very patient with sinners but also quite forthright with those who assumed their own righteousness or spiritual competence. He acted with authority where it was called for and, as a human being, submitted even to unjust authority. He sought out our salvation rather than His own safety and, by His humility and obedience, rescued us from death. We should ask Him frequently to fill us with His Holy Spirit, that we may know the difference between true goodness and its counterfeit. To be Him be power and glory forever. Amen.

(Here is the Introduction to the whole series. Here are The First Precaution Against the World and The Second and Third Precautions Against the World. Here are Part 1 of the Introduction to Precautions Against the Flesh and Part 2 of the Introduction to Precautions Against the Flesh. Here are The First, Second and Third Precautions Against the Flesh. Here is The Introduction to Precautions Against the Devil. Here is The First Precaution Against the Devil and The Second Precaution Against the Devil.)

The World, the Flesh, and the Devil: The Second Precaution Against the Devil

June 3, 2026

The second precaution that Saint John of the Cross offers the religious is to see Christ in the superior. Again, this is not possible in a strict sense outside of religious life, but when he expands this precaution, we can get some insight into the principles behind it. The monk must obey the office, not the personality of the one inhabiting it. We do not obey authority to curry favor, nor do we resist authority because we don’t like the person wielding it.

One of the strangest aspects of the modern liberal order is the corruption of our understanding of authority. There isn’t space to go into detail on this question, but we have a default conviction that authority is bestowed by competency, and that it is mostly a question of power. All true authority derives from God, as we read in the Scriptures. It manifests itself in any corporate exercise: in the governance of a city or state, or of a university, family, team, or business. To be a university president, it is not necessary to be the best scholar. But whoever the president is, he or she has the authority to act in the interests of the university by setting policy. The presumption is that these policies should be followed, whether we like the person who is president or not, and even whether we even think the policies are unwise or unjust. When the latter is the case, we do have a certain right to raise the issue, perhaps first with someone with mediating authority, but it always must be done with respect for the office. Respect for authority is respect for all the persons under that authority.

To see Christ acting directly through authority figures is not strictly necessary and perhaps not advisable. We may be involved in an instance of accepting God’s permissive will rather than His positive will. Think of Saint Thomas More as he went to his execution: “I die the King’s good servant, and God’s first.”

The World, the Flesh, and the Devil: The First Precaution Against the Devil

May 27, 2026

John of the Cross offers us three precautions when engaging in spiritual warfare against the Devil. He is writing for contemplative religious, and so we will need to translate these into terms that will make sense in the world. But it probably is good to bear in mind his original teaching in its religious context, so that we don’t subtly weaken his points.

The first precaution is that we never take on any good work, outside of what is assigned under obedience and the obligations of our state. In translating this to the secular situation of the laity, it’s important to note that we cannot, for example, equate a boss, or a pastor, or even a spouse with a religious superior, to whom religious make an explicit vow of obedience.

Outside of the cloister, this then calls for discernment and an earnest effort through prayer and consultation to hear the Holy Spirit and have the docility to say yes. How does this work, practically?

First of all, the obligations of our state in life do present an analog between the cloister and the Christian life of the laity in the world. If we are students, we have an obligation to do our study, show up for class and the like. If we are parents, we have obligations to our spouses and children. If we are employed, we have obligations to our company and coworkers, and so on. If a new project will cause us to fail to meet these obligations, then it is probably not from God.

In cases that are unclear, Ignatian spirituality offers us a method for discernment. First, we must be clear about the likely outcomes of competing plans of action. Let me use an example from the late Cardinal George of blessed memory. When he returned from the conclave that elected Pope Francis, he spoke to a meeting of religious leaders and described the awesome responsibility of choosing, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the next successor to Peter.

The first question is, who are the candidates likely to be in the running? If there are, let’s say, three strong candidates, I need to ask myself: What are their strengths and weaknesses? What situations in the Church is each one likely to address? Are there situations in the Church that I find urgent, and how will each one meet these challenges?

The next step is the one that calls for prayer and deep faith. I need to imagine each person being chosen pope and imagine the likely good or lack thereof that will come of each candidate’s potential papacy. Only when I arrive at peace with the prospect of each candidate as pope, with all of his strengths, weaknesses, and personal experiences, will I be ready to vote. At that point, I will no longer be at the mercy of my own fears, whims, preferences and agendas. I can ask myself: which one of these options genuinely seems best for the Church? And answer it honestly.

So when we are presented with an initiative of some kind, if a colleague asks me to join in a new project, I need to be clear about what the likely effect will be of saying yes and of saying no. When I am ready to accept both options with peace in my heart, then I am ready to ask which one is best for me, for my family, for the Church.

There is one more piece to this process for those who do not have a religious superior. Are there persons in my life from whom I am obliged to seek counsel before a decision of this weight? Are there persons whose counsel I respect who could help me think through the decision? I said a moment ago that a spouse is not a religious superior. Spouses are not bound to obey each other in the way a religious obeys a superior. But married persons are bound to make important decisions only after consulting their spouses and listening to counsel openly, without trying to sway their response with emotional reactivity. The decision may still be yours to make, but it should take into consideration the counsel of the spouse. And if we trouble someone for advice, we should take it very seriously.

Another thought along these lines: when should I help someone? In the monastery, I’ve discovered that this isn’t as obvious as it sounds. Monks like to be helpful, but not everyone wants to be helped. Important questions include, “Has this person asked for my help, and am I willing to offer the help that he says that he needs?” “Is someone else supposed to be helping, and will my help be an implied criticism of someone in charge?” Helping someone can be delicate if there is an imbalance of power. Can I help in such a way that the person isn’t shamed by my magnanimousness? Can I do so as a true sister or brother rather than as a benefactor?

The World, the Flesh, and the Devil: Introduction to Precautions Against the Devil

May 22, 2026

By the sixteenth century, the era of Saint John of the Cross, the Church recognized three particular enemies of the soul: the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. While this formulation doesn’t appear explicitly until the high Middle Ages, the monastic Fathers wrote about spiritual warfare from a similar set of considerations. Their view of the soul was based on the three appetites or desires that move us to act. The lowest, the concupiscible, is our desire for bodily life and pleasure. The corruption of this desire is what Saint John calls the Flesh. He also says that the attacks against by the Flesh are the most tenacious and continue as long as the old Man survives in us. This comports well with what the monks of old warned their disciples, that sexual desire and the desire for inordinate eating will be temptations to the end of our lives for most of us.

The virtues that help us to govern these desires are especially temperance and courage.

More noble than the concupiscible desires are the irascible desires, which we normally think of as related to emotions like anger and sadness. We desire safety, honor, recognition, and the freedom to act, and when these are thwarted we are tempted to lash out in anger or grow sullen and cynical. These desires are nobler because they relate our souls to the world around us, rather than simply to our own bodies. The corruption of these desires is what John calls the World. He says that these are the simplest temptations to vanquish.

The virtues that we need to cultivate to fight back against the World are courage and especially justice.

The most difficult temptations to understand arise from the Devil, and these attack the intellect and will. The will is our “intellectual appetite,” meaning it is what we want to do after we’ve weighed options and made a decision. The vice that is especially dangerous here is pride, which is the vice that characterizes the Devil himself. The cardinal virtue that needs cultivating in this case is prudence. The Church’s own reflection on the Incarnation helps us to see the importance of the dispositions of humility and obedience. These two stances, modeled for us by Christ Himself, show us how to develop a truly Christian prudence, one that can fight back against the Devil’s temptations.

What are these temptations? The Devil wants us to misjudge, to choose what is evil disguised as good. In other words, we are likely to be led astray by projects that appear to be good, but in fact weaken our docility to God and to the obligations attached to our state of life. This is connected to pride because we often choose tasks with an unrealistic view of our own ability to bring them to a good completion. We may seek out projects that will make us appear more virtuous to others than we are, rather than choosing a less spectacular path that leads to genuine virtue.

The Word, the Flesh, and the Devil: The First, Second and Third Precautions Against the Flesh

May 15, 2026

Now we turn again to Saint John of the Cross. In the autumn, I mentioned that he had written a short work on our theme for a new Carmelite convent. So he is writing to women who would presumably already be committed to a program of celibate chastity, regular and difficult fasting, and other typical deprivations associated with religious life. But I also believe that what he has to say will be very much of use to persons in the world.

In his first precaution against the flesh, John asserts that every one of my religious brothers and sisters was sent by God to fashion me, as a sculptor fashions a sculpture by blows. Unkind actions, words and gestures cause me pain, but if I see this as purposed by God, I can remain submissive under these treatments. He believes that we will not make headway against sensuality if we are not able to bear these difficulties with patience.

To translate this into the secular state, I think that we can say that, in any line of work that we have undertaken to serve God, our first presumption should be that the difficulties caused by others in that line of work can be borne for just this purpose. We can to learn to bear with irritation, annoyance, pain and the like. Granted, these areas of work do not come with the same guarantee that religious vows are meant to safeguard. Still, bearing the weakness of body and character of those whom God gives us in our walks of life will go a long way to purifying us of self-regard and a lazy selfishness.

John’s second precaution is that, if a work is in the service of God, we should not give it up when it ceases to bring us satisfaction or pleasure. The liturgy, keeping the accounts, cooking, whatever it is. We should learn to do these things apart from whatever pleasure we might expect from them.

This, again, will happen in any line of work. There will come a time when it no longer pleases. The world today urges us to move on rather than accepting the possible benefits of tedium and self-conquest. Again, I am not saying that there will never come a time when the problems associated with your work will not be a good reason to look for another job. But we can first use that boredom and nuisance for spiritual gain.

What derives from this is his last precaution, that we should no longer hope for pleasant feelings in lectio divina, in the liturgy, in any prayer or spiritual exercise that we undertake. Indeed, when they bring bitterness, we should embrace the difficulty, what Benedict would call the dura et aspera.

John’s suggestions seem timely in our world today. The world is geared toward maximizing choice, which usually means maximizing pleasure and comfort, avoiding anything we find inconvenient or annoying. We are frequently told that authenticity requires giving in to any and all desires and curiosities, regardless of whether the kind of instability this invites does real damage to our character. It is a sign of the loss of a larger Christian worldview, centered on the Cross and the hard work of redemption. This season is an opportunity to re-engage in recapturing the world for Christ beginning with our own hearts.

Silence (and Noise) in the City

April 22, 2026

As the weather warms up, we tend to keep our windows open, as we only have air conditioning in a few areas of the Monastery. This lets in more of the typical noise of the city. This time of year, more people are outdoors, so there’s more sound to start with. Sometimes I’ve been asked whether the noise causes problems for prayer. This question isn’t as easy to answer as it appears. Many “problems” in life are so only because we don’t have the insight to handle them properly. Perhaps if I were fully a man of prayer the noise wouldn’t be an obstacle at all.

As a general rule, I don’t find the noise to be distracting. Chicagoans are famous for being able to stop mid-sentence when the El trains pass by, then pick up where they left off. Noise is the baseline background to everything one does in the city. But more than that, noise is a sign of life. It happens because people are in motion, engaged in activity (admittedly not all of it edifying). We monks are here to serve just these people by our prayer and our witness to the joy of the Gospel. In a quiet way, literally, we offer an alternative vision of community and invite those around us to see the difference that Christ makes. The fact that our habits are radically different from the world around us is exactly what draws attention.

The World, the Flesh, and the Devil: Introduction to Precautions Against the Flesh, Part 2

March 18, 2026

(Here is the Introduction to the whole series. Here are The First Precaution Against the World and The Second and Third Precautions Against the World. Here is Part 1 of the Introduction to Precautions Against the Flesh.)

There is a place for pleasure in the Christian life. Aristotle astutely noted that pleasure typically accompanies the completion of a good action, an action with a properly ordered goal. What the flesh would have us do is to seek this pleasure for its own sake. Here lies the beginning of addiction. When pleasure is unhitched from productive actions and achievement, it becomes its own goal. And when it becomes its own goal, our bodies demand that pleasure continually increase in intensity.

So, goals exercise a certain restraint on pleasure. If they are worthwhile, they always entail accepting a certain amount of discomfort, pain, and danger. To become a great academic requires reading and writing when it is not pleasurable to do so. It requires sacrificing other potential good actions which might bring a certain amount of comfort. It requires being tested and corrected by one’s teachers and peers, perhaps even being subject to ridicule and career sabotage. But the young scholar undertakes those risks, believing that becoming learned and being able to credibly teach others will lead to the pleasures proper to a cultivated mind.

As Saint Paul again points out, athletes deny themselves all kinds of things. We can take up his metaphor and note how strength conditioning requires that we continually force our muscles to move weights that cause pain and discomfort.

We have seen that goals naturally tend to reorient pleasure. But what about choosing proper goals? Saint Ignatius of Loyola has made one important contribution to this theme. If I need to choose between two courses of action, when will I know that I am ready to make the choice? The answer has to do with unearthing hidden fears, sensual inclinations and the like. In addition to gathering information germane to my choice, I also must frankly examine the likely fallout from each choice. Only when I am ready to accept whatever discomforts are associated with both choices, am I ready to choose fully rationally, without being swayed by an irrational aversion to difficulties.

If a lot of this sounds like Stoicism, that is because the Stoics’ take on these questions is remarkably similar to the Christian. One area where the Christian parts ways with the Stoic is in this notion of provoking the flesh by voluntarily taking on deprivations. If I could summarize this briefly, and inadequately, while the Stoics contributed much to our understanding of these battles, they shared with other schools of Greek philosophy a tendency to conflate sin and ignorance. They moved closer to the Christian position than did, say, Socrates, but there is still a sense that once the intellect is healed, the will inevitably follows. The Christian, by contrast, believes that the will must be regenerated by grace in order that the intellect may be healed.