«A SINGLE ANXIETY BURNED IN HIS HEART: TO PLEASE GOD ALONE»

Saint Gregory the Great, in the Dialogues, states unequivocally that Benedict, driven by the desire for God, initially embraced the solitude of a hermit. Not only that, but when he became a father in the Spirit, he wanted to surround the various monastic foundations in sacred cloistered enclosures, almost to relive the exemplary experience of the desert monks. All this certainly not out of aristocratic contempt for the world. Quite the opposite. It must be made clear, to avoid misunderstandings, that cloistered life is not primarily a choice but – if we can use an oxymoron – a free obedience: «Therefore, behold, I will seduce her, / I will lead her into the wilderness / and speak to her heart» (Hos 2,16). The desert is therefore a space of revelation, a place where God manifests himself and calls to a communion of life. What should a monastery be, even today, if not a place of revelation, where God manifests himself face to face, in the breath of the Spirit? Moved by the reading of some illuminating texts by Sr. Chiara Augusta Lainati, I tried to understand a little better what the term claustrum means (which perhaps we too easily derive from claudo). We must know that, just as Israel was freed through the desert by God, to then enter the promised land, so too we, the new Israel, have been saved in Christ through his Passover of death and resurrection to be introduced into his inheritance (kléros). The Church of the desert, of which monastic life is a prophecy, is the Church destined to enter (en klerò) into this property (klèros), into this promised inheritance, into this land received by lot. The word clausura derives, in all probability, from these roots, through the assonance of the Jewish Greek of the Alexandrian environment klàostron and the Latin claustrum.  Therefore the klàostron-claustrum is not so much a closed area (arctum reclusórium) but the possession of God, and whoever enters it, enters His inheritance. Outside, there is the pro-fanus or what is close to the sacred, which is on the border with God. From that profane everyone turns their gaze to this possession, which is God himself, to this enclosure, seen, therefore, as the mythical garden of Genesis where at dusk the Most High he loved to walk. The exire de saeculo, which characterizes Benedict, is therefore only for an entering (en klerò) into the fullness of the promised inheritance (klèros). But the cloister is also the land of naked faith, of pure trust in the Spirit, where one learns to live daily from the hand of God. It is a land of struggle where one exercises discernment so as not to succumb to the deceptive charm of believing only in oneself (autopistis), in self-sufficiency (autoritmia) and in narcissistic self-adoration (autolatry). It is not simple, nor obvious, nor immediate, because the monk will always be crossed by the demon of sloth that will make it unbearable, and therefore useless, to dwell in the cell, to live in his own heart and in his own body (habitare secum), making him in this way easy prey to various fears (real or imagined illnesses), intolerant towards others (who become a target on which he can vent his frustrations), and tempted to abandon monastic life for a more urgent justified service for the Church. Here then are the thousand expedients to escape, to abandon a cloistered landscape, considered monotonous and poor for self-realization. Nowadays, then, the tools are not lacking, just think of the means of communication. But a media overexposure, if it, on the one hand, makes one more famous, on the other risks, in the long run, to present a face without a soul, falling into the ridiculous. And we could go on, but I will stop at a passage from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov where Elder Zosima speaks of the monk and the function of monastic life:

Fathers and teachers, what is a monk? Among educated people, these days, this word is pronounced in a mocking tone, or even as an insult. And the further it goes, the worse it is. Yes, it is true, unfortunately, it is true, even among monks there are many idlers, many sensual and lustful, many insolent vagabonds. It is of these that educated and worldly people speak: “You,” they say, “are lazy, you are useless members of society, you live off the work of others, you are shameless beggars.” And yet there are so many humble and meek monks, thirsty for solitude, silence and fervent prayer! But people talk less about these, perhaps not at all, and these people would be surprised if I told them that from these meek men, thirsty for solitude and prayer, the salvation of Russia will come once again! Because they truly keep themselves ready, in silence, for that day and that hour, for that month and that year. Meanwhile, in their solitude, they preserve in all the purity of divine truth the image of Christ, intact and beautiful, received as a gift from the ancient fathers, the apostles and the martyrs, and when necessary, they will show it to the world, now shaken in its human truth.

The solitaries, known only to God, are the yeast that disappears in the mass of flour and that little by little ferments it all and raises it for the bread of each day placed on the table of the sons of man.

Commentary by b. Sandro Carotta, osb
Abbazia di Praglia (Italy)

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves,
Prinknash Abbey