Cor Unum Abbey

         Let’s put our monastic imaginations to work once again.  Imagine for a moment that you are spending the day . . . or the rest of your life! . . . cloistered with the nuns in Regina Laudis Abbey, or with the Carthusian monks who have their monastery high in the Swiss alps (might as well imagine scenically!), and think for awhile what it would be like to have your days and nights absolutely ordered, but completely filled with the pursuit of God!  What would it be like, really?

There is a monastic romance to the idea for many of us, and nearly all of us long, during some seasons, for more solitude than life will ever afford.  We seldom consider, however, what monastics tell us about the most difficult parts: the interrupted sleep, the unending ordeal of crucifying all natural desire for self-reference and self-promotion, and the battles that arise when doubts assail the unique vocation that the monastic has chosen.

What will ever prove that the right choice has been made?  Each enters the monastery with talents and abilities that could certainly be put to good use in the world outside.  A well-founded monastery makes use of the best of each postulant, novice, and professes nun,  identifying their God-given gifts, but some abilities do perish on the vine.  Other strengths are developed and brought into the high service of worship and prayer, art, literature, craftsmanship, and teaching.  What would our strengths be?  What will we discover as we journey on in this monastic endeavor?

At first we will get to know our weaknesses: some will find they are more adept at making excuses than ever they suspected, and some will discover that, for all their desire to know and love God, there are things they seem to love better!  In Cor Unum, as in any monastery, it doesn’t really matter what weaknesses are uncovered, it matters that we remain, and keep our small commitments until  we are able to keep the large one, that of becoming fervent and consistent monastics, praying until the answer comes, worshiping until we have touched the Lord’s pleasure, worshiping with our voices and worshiping with our lives, abiding in Christ, His Word abiding in us.  It is He who established this interior monasticism, and we prove it as we abide in Christ.

Imagine today, and look around you at the consecrated walls and windows of Cor Unum, the monastery of the heart.

Young Violinist,

Schorle, by permission, Wikipedia

We have our “cells,” the place . . . and the time . . . when we are closed in with the Lord.  For some, the day is wide open and the choice is broad; for most something must be sacrificed.  Here in Cor Unum, we make it a happy sacrifice.

Those who have turned back to dust in the earth, who watch us from heavenly seats, see and know.  What price, what sacrifice could compare with the glory and the joy and the majesty and the peace and the good and the wisdom and the strength and the fellowship of an hour alone with God!  They know.  Nothing compares.  The investment of time, relaxation, and pleasure are scarcely worthy to be called “sacrifice.”  The sacrifice is seated upon the Throne of Grace, and the Altar of Mercy is there.

When we say we believe and call ourselves believers, what could ever better represent our believing than this, that knowing Who God Is, we seek His Presence at His invitation.  Not that anyone on earth should see and give us praise, but those in heaven, who are with the Lord in Paradise, do watch.  Monastics keep this awareness in Saint’s Days and celebrations; it is not a bad thing to remember that those who have gone before us are not dead, but ALIVE!  It appears that they may be watching our faithfulness and so may also behold our hypocrisy if we do not live according to what we profess to believe.

We believe, we believe! . . . in a glorious and approachable God, and by that faith we will live and move and have our being . . . living in and with the God Who loved us to the degree of the sacrifice of His Son for our lives . . . our God has welcomed us and called us into His Presence, into the glory of His vaulted heavenly chamber, where the Lord Jesus Christ sits at His right hand.   We read of those invited to the wedding feast who would not come; we are invited into the very throne room of God, and we in Cor Unum will come, and we will stay to worship and pray, here in the monastery of the heart.

Where will you most often find your phone when you’ve lost it?  You probably know just where that is.  Mine is more often than not in my bathrobe pocket (carrying it with me out of the bedroom in the morning and never thinking to look in such a silly place!)  When I start searching for it later, my closet is ringing!  Perhaps it’s the Lord, calling to see if I’m coming!

The Father waits in secret.  Jesus told us that.  Monastics believe it.  He waits, and we believe He waits with some anticipation, as we do to see our grown children coming home, our grandchildren coming in the door, our husbands and wives home from the office . . . the Fed Ex truck!

Here in Cor Unum Abbey, that spot is our “cell,” the one we prepare for ourselves, the place where we know we will meet with God.  Some “tents of meeting” have been remarkable for the resonance of holiness they acquire.

One family welcomed a visiting missionary from a very poor area in Mexico.  They made their guest room sparkling clean and inviting for this dear man who lived amidst such squalor and poverty.  They afforded him every kindness and consideration possible, and at first they thought he was just enjoying his room so much that he wanted to stay there, in seclusion, every morning.  Then they realized that he was up long before dawn, worshiping and praying, filling his room with the friendship he had with God.  He came down to breakfast, glowing.  Three days later, when he left them, they went into the room he had occupied and could barely stand for the lingering effect of the Presence … the friendship! … of God.

Ah, my dear Sisters, and Brothers, too!  There is a tent of meeting, a holy bower, for each of us in Christ and with the Father.  Beloved, FIND YOUR CELL!

Exodus 33:7-11 … Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the “tent of meeting.” Anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp. And whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrances to their tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent.  As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the Lord spoke with Moses.  Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to their tent.  The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.

Nun in Corridor, public domain

         To make our monastic lives “work,” we must realize and reconcile the opposing monastic concepts of community and solitude, silence and celebration.

         The nun’s cell is sacrosanct.  Nuns don’t “hang out” in one another’s rooms, like college girls in a dorm.  In her cell, she dwells alone with Jesus Christ.  His crucifix is usually the only ornamentation.  (Traditional Carmelite orders also gave each postulant a skull for her desktop . . . a far cry from a bud vase or a bowl of potpourri.)  Just as does the large one in the Refectory, the miniature skull in a nun’s cell reminds her of the absolutes of life and death and helps her to be sure that she will not live forever, so that she might live each day for Christ.

         In the more traditional orders, monastics spend many hours alone each day, in study, private prayer, and meditation.  They spend as many as seven hours in vibrant worship and exaltation, singing together full-throated and full-hearted praise, filling their sanctuaries to the rafters with hymns of joy and commemoration of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

         Each of us in Cor Unum must find our own cell.  It’s in the house, somewhere!  A chair . . . a little desk . . . the bathtub, if necessary!  One Sister actually used to up-end a Samsonite suitcase in her closet, go in and close the door and “pray through” her difficulties until she knew the Lord’s direction and her faith was firm. 

It has been said that the Christian life would be easy to live . . . if it weren’t for other PEOPLE!  The people aren’t going away, and we know that they are just the right implements for perfecting our love and faith, but we must escape to the mountains to be alone with God, even if the closest we can get is a lawn chair in the backyard.  There, we must learn to make our time with Him count.  For today, find your cell; name it and claim it and anoint it with prayer. Stay awhile with the Lord; He will be waiting for you there tomorrow and the day after that.  Oh, my dear Sister . . . my Brothers! . . . find your cell, and make it your heaven!

Abbey photo … 

Love is in the air today . . . and every day in the monastery!  The Sisters cherish deep and abiding love and mutual respect within their walls, learning ever to “see Jesus” in one another.  Cloistered life is founded upon the love of God and of His Son, the Word made flesh.

         When Origen, the 3^rd century monastic, began teaching the idea of sacramental reading, he explained that Jesus Christ, being Himself the Word Incarnate, was there in the reading.  To him and those who learned from him, Jesus Himself is the “interpretive key” to all Scripture, and that instruction is as sound today as it was then.

         Origen taught that the Presence of Jesus in the Word, because it is a Living Word, could touch and teach all those who read it in faith.  He taught Ambrose and Ambrose taught Augustine . . . and many today are teaching us the same thing.

         Francis Frangipane suggests kneeling in prayer with an open Bible, acknowledging that Jesus is the Word of God.  It is for the true monastic to put truth into action; if we believe it, we act upon it.  We believe that the Father waits for us in secret, and so we find our way to Him.  We believe that He is near to those who call upon Him, and thus we lift our voices and pray.  We believe that in His Presence is fullness of joy, and so we bring our souls into heavenly courts.  We believe that Jesus is the Word made flesh, now risen to the right hand of God.  By that faith, we read Scripture prayerfully, interactively, learning to know the Father as we go, praying, repenting, rejoicing, bending our will to Jesus’ lovely nature day by day.

         What response have we to the Word of God, the Word Made Flesh, but to return His love?  We can only find Him in and through His Word and Spirit, and so we read and listen and ponder with humble expectation that Jesus will be revealed.  We cannot comprehend the degree to which He would be known of us, but we can see the lengths to which He went to make sure that we approach that greatest of all privileges.  To know Him IS to love Him.

          Happy Valentine’s Day, dear Sisters and Brothers.

Grateful acknowledgement to Andreas Cruz

this is his beautiful photograph