Monasticism has always been on the periphery, out of the mainstream, of society. With that Quakers can certainly identify, not only in our worship practices, our understanding of spiritual authority, even our history of intervention, often in unpopular ways, with issues of injustice. The few who are drawn to a monastic life evidence little interest in recruiting others. They rely upon the Holy Spirit to draw others to this pursuit. So they go about their calling to give honest expression to their wholehearted dedication and to the deepest human desire of finding oneness with their creator.
Very early in the book In The Spirit of Happiness the writer seeks to answer the question that few of us have ever considered important: “What Is Monasticism?” What I hope we can do today is see how Quakerism, our life together, shares some interesting similarities with the monastic life. In doing so I need to make you aware that we will run into a couple of words whose root meanings need, what do they call it, Oh yes, a make over. These are monk or monasticism, the word anchorite and the third are a famly of words like cenobitic, cenobial, even cenacle. Words are onery things – what you just heard sounded like the more common word cynic or cynical, nowhere near the same word. You change a vowel or two and it makes a tremendous difference, even if it sounds the same.
Monasticism has always been on the periphery, out of the mainstream, of society. With that Quakers can certainly identify, not only in our worship practices, our understanding of spiritual authority, even our history of intervention, often in unpopular ways, with issues of injustice. The few who are drawn to a monastic life evidence little interest in recruiting others. They rely upon the Holy Spirit to draw others to this pursuit. So they go about their calling to give honest expression to their wholehearted dedication and to the deepest human desire of finding oneness with their creator.
As a Christian movement monasticism is primarily an attempt to live the Christian life as fully as possible. The author of In The Spirit of Happiness states that monasteries prove that it really is possible for people to live together and strive to base every action on the love of one another, the love of God and the love of God’s Word, without trying to escape the realities of life. “It really is possible”, he argues, “to acquire peace, quiet, clarity of mind, self-control, and mutual understanding and cooperation.” This sounds a great deal like Quaker language, about living in that life and power that takes away the cause of war.
For many of us, the very idea of a “monk” conguers up visions of a hermit, one who withdraws from society and lives alone. Clearly we have had in Christian history people who, like John the Baptist, withdrew to the desert. The Greek word for withdrawing is anchor, which is why these were called anchorites. They withdrew from human contact to flee two things, the flesh and devil which to their minds were the two unavoidable enemies of salvation. What we have of the record of their experiences is that what they ran into in the desert was their own humanity and Satan himself to tempt them. One Catholic Priest of my acquaintance said:”The only thing you will ever do by yourself is go to hell.” It has only been in looking back that we have called these solitary souls Monks, thinking such a word comes from the same root from which we form words like monocle, monorail or Monarch. The 1783 book of word derivations by George Lemon challenges that notion – matter of fact, he calls it nonsense. His argument is that just as “Christianity gave us new invented Greek words for things Celtic, and we adopted them and forgot our own”, ‘monk’ and ‘monastery’ actually derive from the Celtic “mon” or “mein” from which we have words like mansion, per-man-ancy and words like minster which signify the missionary church, a place of temporary asylum or sanctuary. It has probabley been our cultural commitment to self reliance and rugged individualism which caused us to focus on personal salvation that clouded our being able to see that it was to a community of disciples that Jesus promised and then graced with his Spirit. First of all, Christianity is a spiritual pursuit while living in community.
In the early fourth century a man named Pachomius, seeking spiritual wisdom in the teachings of a desert father, an anchorite, named Palamon, was rejected and told to go home. But instead of going home he was instructed by the Holy Spirit to remain in the desert and create a place for pursuing the life of the Spirit because “very many eager to embrace the monastic life will come hither to thee”.
Pachomius is considered the father of cenobitic monasticism. Opps, there’s that other new word for us. Pachomius was not just a monk but a cenobitic monk. Just as “monk” has had a commonly accepted derivation, so has the word ‘cenobite’. Some say it comes from a joining of the Greek word ‘koinos’ or common and ‘bios’ or life. ‘Common life’ sounds like a good description of life in a monastery, maybe even life within a Friends Meeting, but I’ve discovered a much more persuasive and meaningful basis for this word.
Sr. Eleana Guerra (GOOAY-rah), the founder of the Oblate Sisters of the Holy Spirit, used the word ‘Cenacle’ when she prayed: “Oh, if only…unanimous and fervent prayers could be raised to Heaven in every part of Christendom, as they were one in the Cenacle [the upper room] of Jerusalem for a rekindling of the Divine Spirit.” She urged Pope Leo XIII to lead the Church back to the Cenacle, to the Upper Room, where the Holy Spirit was blown upon the infant church. She exhorted the Pope to invite the faithful to rediscover life lived according to the Holy Spirit. She called and prayed for a renewal of the Church, the reunion of Christianity, a renewal of society, and thereby “a renewal of the face of the earth”. The idea of a permanent Pentecost throbbed in her heart. She said, “Pentecost is not over. In fact it is continually going on in every time and in every place, because the Holy Spirit desired to give himself to all men and all who want him can always receive him, so we do not have to envy the apostles and the first believers; we only have to dispose ourselves like them to receive him well, and He will come to us as he did to them.” Sr. Elena challenged the Church to rediscovered life lived according to the Holy Spirit. She called for a return to the Upper Room, as she proclaimed “The first well-spring of renewing action is prayer, which connect us with the Spirit of Christ, He who renews the face of the earth.”
On January 1, 1901, at the request of Sr. Elena, Pope Leo XIII in the name of the entire Church invoked the Holy Spirit by singing the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus. Hear these words:
