Having just come from Koinonia Farm and gleaned from conversations there that, among some in the New Monasticism movement, there is a growing interest in connecting more deeply with the classic monastic tradition, I was eager to bring “old-school” monastics into the conversation. Here I speak with Cistercian monk Michael Lautieri, OCSO, current vocation director of Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia. In our conversation, I asked Michael how neo-monastic communities might better learn from monasteries and the monastic tradition. He offers two concrete possibilities—monastics living temporarily with neo-monastic communities as teachers, and core members of neo-monastic communities spending time in temporary monastic guest programs such as that offered by Monastery of the Holy Spirit. In regard to learning from monasticism, Michael stresses the need to actually experience monastic life firsthand in order to understand the monastic charism. And while he emphasizes monasticism’s adaptability and flexibility according to culture, circumstance, and religion, he’s also clear on what he considers the constitutive elements of any form of monasticism: prayer, silence, solitude, manual labor, and community. Michael also shares his thoughts on what he anticipates for the future of monasticism (mirroring Ivan Kauffman’s conviction that the future of monastic communities lies in stronger bonds with lay people) and his enthusiasm over the broad interest among lay people today in incorporating a depth of spirituality into their lives through learning monastic values and practices.
Embedded in this interview are two questions that have come to the fore for me over the course of this tour of communities. The first question is, simply: what is monasticism? One concern I have is that the New Monasticism movement has been re-defining the very meaning of the word, often with little concrete input from or experience of the classic monastic tradition. While this re-definition process from a fresh perspective expands the monastic imagination, so to speak, sometimes I have difficulty understanding just what’s monastic about particular expressions of the New Monasticism. Hence, I want to carry this question of what constitutes the essentials of monasticism into future interviews with monastics “new” and “old,” and especially into my Monastic Studies program at Saint John’s School of Theology upon my return this fall. Thus far, I’ve received three direct responses to this question: Mary Ewing Stamps, leader of the Methodist-Benedictine Saint Brigid of Kildare Monastery, emphasized the structural elements of stability of place, a leader, and a rule of life (incidentally, even though much of her own formation took place in a Benedictine monastic guest program similar to that offered by Monastery of the Holy Spirit, she prefers the idea of monastics coming to live as teachers with new communities in order to preserve the importance of a sense of place). Camaldolese-Benedictine monk Cyprian Consiglio, speaking from the eremitical (hermit) tradition and from years of involvement in monastic inter-religious dialogue, named the primacy of the interior life and contemplative practice as comprising the core of monasticism. And here, again, speaking from within the Cistercian tradition, Michael identifies the essential elements of monasticism as prayer, silence, solitude, manual labor, and community.
What these three monastics witness to is the fact that there is no definitive answer to the question of what constitutes the essentials of monasticism. Rather, there are many perspectives from within a shared body of experience that constellates around certain key features, while allowing for much diversity. Hence, I think Michael makes a crucially important point here: that monastic life cannot be adequately understood from the outside; it has to be lived. And to reiterate an observation I’ve made in earlier posts, this gap of experience between the classic Christian monastic tradition and the New Monasticism contrasts with new expressions of Buddhist communities in the West, in so much as the latter have mostly developed directly from what has been passed down from Asian monastic teachers; the lineage of tradition remains unbroken. Which brings me to my second question, reflecting my conviction that the classic Christian monastic tradition and the New Monasticism have much to offer one another:
How might this gap of experience between the classic Christian monastic tradition and the New Monasticism be bridged? And why? What does each have to offer the other?
Stay tuned…
Books mentioned or alluded to in the interview: Monastic Practice, by Charles Cummings, OCSO; Consecrated Religious Life: The Changing Paradigms, by Diarmuid O’Murchu
Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.
very interesting post. I am always amazed at the innovativeness of the Trappists (albeit occasionally pushed down by the higher authorities). to my mind monasticism is able to be most creative when it sets itself apart from the ‘hierarchs’–a tradition going back to the desert fathers, as a spirit led practice/movement.
Thanks, Matt. The tension between institutional inertia and creative innovation has been a recurring theme and something I’ll be taking up again shortly, especially in light of my stay here at Monastery of the Holy Spirit.
The comments that seemed to suggest a “setting apart from the hierarchs” were what I found a bit disturbing. I really like the point about monasticism as a lay movement in the sense of its purpose as a renewal movement for the entire church (rather than a spiritual elitism), but such a movement will defeat its own purpose if it excludes or dismisses out-of-hand any part of the church, including the “hierarchs”. Talk of relating to the laity *as opposed* to the hierarchy only widens the perceived division between the two, even though monasticism may have great potential for reducing it.
“Institutional inertia” vs. “creative innovation” sounds like a skewed way of framing the dilemma, making it less of a vital tension and more of a dichotomy. I think your own language about the need for both stability and flexibility is a better way of putting it.
I would take issue with the word “perceived.” In a church wherein we are compelled to accept the structural absurdity that only a closed society of self-selecting celibate men determine what is true and normative for the entire human race, and wield juridical power with virtually no accountability, then passing over the very real divisions present in our ecclesial life smacks of denial. Just ask the sisters next store about their perceptions! At the same time, because monastic orders function as participative hierarchies, I think there’s something they have to teach the whole church about maintaining legitimate lines of authority without disenfranchising the vast majority of its membership.
I agree that I applied the potentially dichotomizing terminology of “institutional inertia” and “creative innovation” a bit hastily. In fact, when I was a member of the Camaldolese-Benedictines, the “hierarchs” themselves often appeared to be the visionaries and innovators, or at least supportive of innovation and experimentation.
Reblogged this on african monastic.
I agree that monastic orders can provide a good model for participatory hierarchy, and I do believe we have the church structures to allow for that, however imperfectly they may function in practice. I’m not saying we should deny existing divisions, just pointing out the irony that whatever hierarchy/laity divisions we do have in the Catholic Church are often exacerbated by the very people who decry them the loudest.
This debate is as old as the church; in fact it’s as old as human society per se. What we ought to be able to hope for in the church, however, is that the debate between the two sides– whether framed as the authorities v. the people or the institution v. the movement– be carried out openly, respectfully and vigorously. Those with a taste for monasticism know that our speech ought to be rooted in interior silence but it is nonetheless important to speak if we feel that the truth we see can be helpful. Perhaps the greatest sadness of the way this tension is lived out in some areas of Catholic life today is that it is left unspoken, which, over time, erodes community life. It has this effect because conversation is precisely what holds communities together at the human level.
As someone who explored a traditional monastic vocation as a young(er!) person in the 1980s, one of the things I find most encouraging about the new monastic movement is that it is appears to be so creative. And it seems to me that creativity is often the way forward in the tensions between the two sides we are discussing here. It is hard to argue against creativity because it so often proves itself in fruitfulness. Would St. Paul have succeeded in his arguments with Peter and James leading up to the Council of Jerusalem without the fruit of the churches he had planted? Would his towering theological creativity have gained the currency it achieved over time without those same churches?
A contemporary case in point can be seen in the fact that Evangelical Christianity is the fastest growing religion of conversion (as opposed to growth through natural increase) in the world. This is so, in part at least, because it is so de-centralized and thus can respond so quickly and creatively to needs on the ground. I greatly admire the evangelicals for this and feel it speaks volumes to the wider church.
Much the same point is made, in a very different context, where Charles Taylor allows his own voice to come through on the needs of contemporary Catholicism in a few passages of his masterful book, A Secular Age. Taylor notes that what the Catholic church needs in our “age of authenticity”, where mobilization based on cultural– or even religious– traditions rings increasingly hollow, is new forms of life. These new forms don’t necessarily need to replace or even decry older forms of Catholic life but they do need to be allowed to exist and, better still, encouraged.
Has the Vatican’s own enthusiasm for a new evangelism understood Taylor’s point or the compelling evidence of the store-front evangelicals in the slums of the global south and the slums of Philadelphia?
There are some tentative signs suggesting that it has: but only time will show.