THOUGHTS ON A MONASTIC EXPERIENCE

by Loretta O'Brien

(A young woman considers what the life of the religious sister/nun should mean to her as she lives out her lay vocation.)

A two-week stay in a monastery does not qualify me to write with any authority on the religious life. It does qualify me, however, to describe the changes brought about in my perception by those weeks, and to relate the convictions that have grown in me with regard to the relationship between religious and laity. I have noted in point-form some of my reactions, to try to explain how I see the presence and example of religious as being vital for a laywoman who wishes to truly understand her place in the Church, and the way in which she should live.

*Religious Life is shockingly different to lay life. Religious vows and practices are so antipathetic to the minds of certain of the laity that religious are seen as something of a lunatic fringe; all very nice but not really relevant to most people. For others the opposite is the effect; that the religious life is the sign of superhuman virtue and that each religious properly belongs on a pedestal, to the extent that the laity should feel themselves to be very much second-class citizens in the Church.

*The case is rather this: that lay people are not deficient insofar as they do not practise what religious practise, but that we are diminished as laity when we do not incorporate the messages of the lives of religious into our own lives.

*We must live in the shadow of the cloister, within reach of the grille, in the sense of being guarded by the potency of their prayer, example and teaching, and never straying far from it. In fact, the aspects of their lives that are most contradictory to mine, are the very aspects from which I learn most.

For instance:

*I must measure the purity of my speech against the purity of their silence, not against the noise generated by the world. This is because their silence is not merely a thoughtless and soundless void; rather it is the sound of total and secret dialogue with God.

*Further, it is a practice which requires mortifying self-discipline... at least it did for me! Therefore their silence reminds me to use my speech well. My permission to speak when and where I choose is a privilege to be used for the love of God, just as they have relinquished the privilege for the love of God.

*They have given, not only everything that they did own, but even everything that they might own, to God. The poverty of spirit that prompts this can also prompt me to share more of what He has permitted me to own!

*The poverty of spirit that prevents them from desiring the wealth of others can, if I practise it, prevent me from becoming envious of others' goods and from being overly jealous of my own.

*They have given their independence to God by renouncing it. As a laywoman I retain a certain amount of independence, but I too can give my independence to God by using it to choose only what is holy.

*Their forsaking of independence for poverty and obedience (which is really crushing!) makes me realise that my independence is not a right to be squandered on that which pleases me, but is a privilege to be used for that which pleases God.

*I must measure my exercise of will against their reununciation of will, rather than against the hedonistic abandonment of the world. If they can kiss the floor, I can bite my tongue!

*Perhaps more than anything else, I benefit from the intensity of the prayer-life of religious. I don't mean only that I benefit from their prayer (though I know that's true!) but from their utter commitment to prayer and adoration. They are the examples who will save me from complacency about my own efforts, and tantalise my soul with the desire to reach further.

Paradoxically, I find that while religious are not the norm, they are the rule. Religious Life may not be the best way of life for each Catholic. But it is the best way of life!