Articles under Monastic Life

First Thought that Hinders Our Relationship With God

October 14, 2026

(This is a three-part post. Here is the Introduction.)

I begin this post by briefly characterizing the two thoughts. The first one is:

“God will love me when I have proved that I am lovable.”

And the second one is:

“God’s deepest love is meant for other people. I’m certainly hoping to get into heaven and avoid hell, but heaven will the continuation of life in the Church now, which is to say, it will be ecstasy for the right sort of people and pleasant enough for me.”

We can speak of these thoughts as having a demonic origin, but the demons also pay attention to our strengths and weaknesses, and because of certain patterns in our early lives, we can be more susceptible to certain types of thoughts.

These are both varieties of vainglory and pride, oddly enough. I realize that will be difficult to hear from someone struggling with these thoughts. I mention this because I believe that we will be able to use the tools given by Evagrius and Cassian to fight them off, if we understand their origins correctly. Their origins are in the shortcomings of our parents and others charged with our upbringing. Our job is to redeem our parents’ shortcomings through a clear-eyed assessment of the truth of our situation, through God’s love and forgiveness, and through a resolution not to blame them for our own struggles, and rather to trust God’s powerful help in untying these knots.

So again, the first thought is that God will love me when I have proved that I am lovable.

This takes a variety of forms, often hidden deeply behind more acceptable thoughts.

So for instance, I can see myself as a hard worker, or I can be invested in a self-image that is strong, or unusually intelligent or thoughtful. These seem to be plausible aspects of ourselves, and these traits are often rewarded by the appreciation of others. But they are precarious because they are driven by a root fear that we are not lovable.

If I can prove that I am special in some way, then I will be lovable, and then God will be alright with me. In the end, we don’t quite believe it. There’s an absurdity in there. We can’t ever arrive at a place where we will have earned God’s infinite love.

Behind this is a parental figure who himself or herself struggled with self-acceptance and therefore projected expectations onto us. A devout parent might be very anxious to make sure that we were properly raised and put extra pressure on us to live up to unrealistic expectations. Perhaps it’s a parent who had a dream to be an athlete or musician or academic and who saw in us a chance to achieve the goals that were denied in his or her life.

The fact that this usually comes from a situation in which the parental figure is struggling with self-acceptance gives us an insight into the intractability of the problem, since to understand the dynamic fully (which is not necessarily for healing, by the way), we would need to see the circumstances under our parent was not able to arrive at self-acceptance, and this produces the infinite regress that we call original sin, ultimately arriving at Adam and Eve’s estrangement from God and its effects on Cain and Abel. And so on and so on.

Sadly, we often discover the truth of our predicament precisely when we fail, and we begin reproaching ourselves. Our own lack of self-acceptance re-emerges with a vengeance. “There you go again! You’ve blown it! When will you finally get it right and stop being such a klutz!” But this is not God’s voice and, in point of fact, it is not your voice. It is a false thought, and one that causes intense pain and shame. What would it take to let go of it?

The truth is that God is not waiting for us to clear any bar at all to approach Him and be loved by Him. The worst sinner is loved by God and welcomed by God when he turns to Him for mercy. Think of the father of the prodigal son, watching for his son, running out to meet him without any reproach at all!

But admitting our neediness can be very risky, when we’ve spent many years crafting a persona of competence. It requires real faith to let go of that self-image. But it is worth it in order to shed that false thought that we must live up to some arbitrary standard before God will show us His acceptance.

Two Thoughts that Hinder Our Relationship With God: Introduction

October 9, 2026

For freedom Christ set us free, and we will experience freedom to the extent that we live the life of the Spirit of freedom in Christ. This necessarily means that we will need to be men and women of prayer.

It is important to note that in the monastic tradition, prayer is always a battle.

It’s a peculiar type of battle, however, as it’s a battle to believe and interiorize the reality that God is every bit as great as His reputation among the saints. That His love and mercy are real and meant for us, no matter how undeserving we feel. That no matter how dry prayer is, it is the path that will eventually put us face to face with the God Who is calling us out of darkness into His own marvelous light.

We also know that the battle is with the logismoi, those thoughts that obtrude themselves between our hearts and God. Part of the difficulty in identifying these thoughts is that they may have become so deeply engrained in our awareness that we confuse them with reality or with our own true assessment of reality.

These thoughts will almost certainly affect all of us at one time or another, and some of us will be affected by them profoundly for much of our lives. They are doors into greater self-knowledge and greater faith and love of God. But we must understand them properly to find the key to this door.

So, I would begin this meditation by having each of us ask himself, “How do I feel when I kneel down to pray?”

Do I feel like I am approaching a Father Who loves me, accepts me, is even seeking me out to share life with me? Do I feel like I’m sharing my concerns, hopes and dreams with someone who really cares about them?

Do I feel like prayer is an obligation, and one that I’m not really up to? That I would put off praying if I could, to get myself in better shape spiritually, to be “presentable” to God? Do I attend common prayer dutifully, but struggle to enter into it because it seems to be about someone else? That is for those better qualified than I am to pray, perhaps someone whom God loves more than He loves me? When it is time for lectio divina, am I eager to hear what God has to say, or do I fear that it will just be more criticism and guilt-tripping? Or more high-flown sentiments that seem meant for those blessed to be saints, but in the end not applicable to me?

These distracting thoughts, which are, in fact, false, fall into two types which I would like to unpack over the next two posts.

The Nativity of Our Lady and the Birth of Our Community

September 9, 2026

Yesterday, we celebrated the feast of the Birth of the Virgin Mary. Aside from its intrinsic significance in the liturgical calendar, it is a date with special meaning for our community. Our three founders all made their religious professions on September 8 with the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, before transferring to monastic life. The founders have now been in vows for over fifty years—longer than half of our community has been alive. So we had a special celebration of their fidelity to their vows and of God’s fidelity to our community.

During our celebration, Fr. Edward shared a few memories of his vows and his ordination to the priesthood. Even though I’ve heard some of these stories many times, they are very important to share, especially with the new men in the community. These stories always include and presuppose, in some sense, God’s actions. God acts in concrete circumstances, and His providence has shaped us into a particular community with a unique expression of monastic life. This is true for every monastery. It is only through the memory of God’s actions in the past that each monastery understands His unique mission for us today.

The Cross We Need

September 4, 2026

“God doesn’t give us the Cross we ask for; He gives us the Cross we need.”

This was perhaps the most helpful teaching I received from my Novice Master, when I was a young novice. Youth is a time for ideals, for great efforts in service of noble goals. This is as it should be, and it is part of what makes the young so attractive. And so, at that tender age, I was eager for ascetical practices of all kinds, ready for every kind of self-denial—so long as I was still in control. I was eager to take up several Crosses of my own choosing.

Eventually, a great purification began to take place in me through sufferings that were not of my choosing. In fact, these were often baffling, contrary to my beliefs about what religious life ought to be like. It helped me to remember that this was the Cross God chose for me, the one I needed. It was precisely in those areas in which I was spiritually blind that I needed the painful actions of grace to open the eyes of my heart. That meant accepting all manner of contrary experiences as a participation in the saving Cross of Christ, the Cross I had not (intentionally) asked for.

In a similar way, repentance is never easy, but at least when we can name our own faults, we can rebrand repentance as self-help. We can seek out the advice that appeals to our tastes and promises improvement according to our own self-assessment.

On the other hand, when someone else points out our faults, however accurately, it is quite a bit more painful. They might even call our attention to faults that we didn’t know we had.

Sometimes a hidden fault of ours is uncovered in the rough and tumble of everyday life, revealed through circumstances not entirely in our control. In monastic life, we often find that progress against one sin uncovers a completely different sinful habit that we weren’t aware of. For example, pushing back against gluttony by fasting often makes us irritable. What this reveals is that I have the sin of anger within. But I’ve been avoiding it by distracting myself with delights of the palate. Here, a sinful disposition is revealed to me. But this time, instead of a person pointing it out to me, the revelation comes through the hard truth of reality.

There is a conundrum in all of this. If we want to be holy, we must address our hidden sins. Yet these are the ones we most readily resist confronting. This raises a question: is there a way to dispose ourselves so that when unexpected criticism arrives, we can receive it humbly, with a willing heart? Can we take up this unasked-for Cross?

To answer this, I offer another anecdote. A couple of years before entering the Monastery, I was having dinner with a very dear friend. I can no longer remember the context of her criticism, but I remember the substance of it well. In the course of our conversation, she suggested that I could do a better job of listening to what other people were saying and asking them questions. I remember the sting of hearing this, but I also went home resolved to capitalize on this tough advice.

What made me able to receive this rebuke profitably (I hope!) was the mutual love shared between two friends. My esteem for my friend short-circuited the typical reaction of defensiveness. Love turned the shame of acknowledging a fault into motivation for change. The effect is the one that Jack Nicholson’s character discovers in the movie “As Good As It Gets.” He says to Helen Hunt’s character, the only person in the movie who has shown him kindness, “You make me want to be a better man.” Her kindness opened his heart and made him ready to welcome the hard truth that he needed to change his life. Love makes all things possible.

So a strategy for living in the truth with greater fidelity is to love more. Whether the hard truth is delivered by a comment or by the unbending fiber of reality, love provides an opening to our hearts. “Where there is not love, put love — and you will find love [Saint John of the Cross].” When we love our neighbor, we are better disposed to any and all truths about ourselves that he or she may bring to light.

This also works in our encounter with the world around us. When we love, in a proper way, the creatures that God gave us, we can learn to trust them as His messengers. God’s message always emanates from His love. Reality is not an obstacle—even when it brings suffering—but was fashioned by God for our benefit. For “all things work for the good of those who love Him [Romans 8: 28],” even the Cross that we have been avoiding.

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?