Our spiritual gym and cloister is built of living stones; we live in the midst of the humanity God has chosen for us.
Loved ones and loud ones and lonely ones and lousy ones, it wouldn’t be Cor Unum without them! In a “real” monastery, the idea is to become one of many who take up as little time as possible from the common purpose, contributing to and not distracting the overall effort which is unceasing prayer and praise. They live – and several touching stories indicate that they will even die – in such a manner as to make sure the Divine Office is supported and never interrupted by their human-ness.
Not so your monastery? No matter! Does is it seem as though others not only distract but conspire to capsize your devotional raft? We will learn together how to make the most of every interruption, every demand upon our time, how to turn distress into devotion and pressure into praise. Here in Cor Unum, we take what we do not have in terms of traditional monasticism and make something enviable of it, and “they,” those cloistered ones, will teach us how to do it!
They have their interruptions and distresses, too. What they have that we must cultivate is a vision and a determination that the nearness of God is and will ever be their good. Those words were not spoken by a hermit, but by a court official, a man with things to do, places to go, people to see, and as we can see in the Psalm that contains this proclamation (#73,) a man with hard questions and pressures in his life, as well.
So, as we have considered that those who take up modern, at-home monasticism do so in order to do lonely things in the company of many others, that they cloister their souls in order to win their race, and that they keep before them a vision and a hope. Of all the good pleasures and rewards this life may hold, the very best of all is the unbroken fellowship, the “Practice of the Presence,” of the unfailing, unforgotten, incomparable nearness of God.
Daughters of Mary,
Gregorian Chant,
by permission (Wikipedia)
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