What is the Monastery of a Cloistered Heart?

 

The Monastery of a cloistered heart is the person's own life.  A monastery is a place consecrated to God, a place of prayer, a place where God is loved and served. Our lives can be all of these things. Just as any building can become a monastery by being dedicated to God, so our lives can become "monasteries" by such dedication. 

This is more than a nice daydream.  It is simply truth.  

"Even now we are called to be a dwelling for the Most Holy Trinity.  'If a man loves Me,' says the Lord, 'he will keep My word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him.' (John 14:23)"  

(Catechism of the Catholic Church #260)

"O my God...grant my soul peace. Make it Your heaven, Your beloved dwelling, and Your place of rest. May I never abandon You there, but may I be there, whole and entire, completely vigilant in my faith, entirely adoring, and wholly given over to Your creative action." (St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, quoted in Catechism of the Catholic Church # 260)

As imperfect as we are, Our Lord actually desires to live within us.

Imagine. 

"Humility and charity are the two main parts of the spiritual edifice. One is the lowest and the other the highest, and all the others depend on them.  Hence, we must keep ourselves well founded in these two, because the preservation of the entire edifice depends on the foundation and the roof."  

(St. Francis de Sales)

Text © 2012 Nancy Shuman. 
thecloisteredheart.org   

What IS a Cloistered Heart?

We ask ourselves the question now and then, in different ways. 

Is 'The Cloistered Heart' an analogy? (yes).  Is it a way of life? (yes).  Is The Cloistered Heart an article, a book, a blog?  Is it Catholic?  Is it people who pray for the Church and the world and one another?  

The Cloistered Heart is basically an analogy in which our lives can be seen as "monasteries," places where God is loved and lived for and served.  

In the world but not of the world.  This is not a new or different idea; rather, it is an emphasizing, a kind of "underlining," of every Christian's call.  The uniqueness of this emphasis is in its monastic imagery. 

The word "cloister" speaks of total consecration.  Those who enter a traditional physical cloister make a tangible break from the world.  Compromise does not fit well in a cloister, nor does lukewarmness, nor does complacency.  The cloistered life is absolute. 

Christians living in the midst of the world are also called to live for God.  But for us, the break is not so clean.  The world is persistent in its tugs on the heart trying to live for God.  We need support in our struggles to surrender our lives to God and to resist the world's allurements.  This is where the imagery of the cloistered heart can be of help.  "If the cloister is in a man's heart, it is immaterial whether the building is actually there.  The cloister in a man's heart means only this: God and the soul."  (from Warriors of God by Walter Nigg, NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1959, p. 13)


Drafted by NS 8/3/17

Your Monastery

'You must know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, Who is within - the Spirit you have received from God.'  (1 Corinthians 6:19)

'Monastic life,' wrote Louis Bouyer, 'is nothing else, no more and no less, than a Christian life whose Christianity has penetrated every part of it.' With this in mind, I'd like to take a deeper look into what it can mean to 'be' a monastery in the midst of the world. 

As before, click on any line below to open that post. 


And Our Monastery Is...

The Right Address

In Substance the Same

Let Me Be a House of God




Samuel van Hoogstraten painting, digitally altered

The World For Which I Was Born

I was recently reminded of something a friend wrote to me some years ago. 'Sitting in a monastery of nuns,' this woman said in a letter, 'I knew I didn't belong in their life and yet I didn't belong out in the world either. The closer you get to His Heart, the farther you get from everything else, which is really as it should be... I felt that the problem with being in the world is that so often you are distracted from loving Him, which is all I want to do. When you are in the monastery, everything reminds you of Him no matter what chore you are presently doing. But His will is mine, so wherever He wants me is what I really want too. What I fear is taking Him for granted and becoming lukewarm.'

My friend's fear is one I know well. Taking Him for granted. Becoming lukewarm. How I wish I could say these things have never happened to me, but I cannot. Lukewarmness can seem normal, even cozy, and I sometimes find myself settling down in it and feeling right at home. Being distracted from things of God doesn't seem like such a problem then, when the world around feels eternal and entrancing and like it must be the forever-world-for-which-I-was-born.

But the truth is: the world around is not The-Forever-World-For-Which-I-Was-Born. 'God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in Heaven.' The Baltimore Catechism said it well.

'When you are in the monastery,' wrote my friend, 'everything reminds you of Him.' While monks or nuns enclosed inside walls are not yet in the Forever-World, they live twenty four hours a day inside a reflection of it. Their time is entirely spent on the pathway to Home. They wash dishes on that path. They do laundry on that path. They eat and sleep and garden and pray and laugh and sing on that path. They live in an entrance foyer to Heaven, and everything around reminds them of where they're headed and for Whom they were made.

As a laywoman in the world, I too am called to the pathway. But mine is not so clearly marked. I have no monastic schedules to keep me on the trail. I don't spend every moment of every day with a community of people all focusing in the same direction. If I listen to friends or co-workers or celebrities who don't know or accept why God made them, I can even lose sight of my own awareness of the truth.

Probably this is why some of us can feel more at home in a monastery than in the world.
Because really - we are.


(When I start to lose sight of my real pathway, I am helped by what several saints have had to say about this kind of thing.  A few of their exhortations can be found by clicking here.)


Painting: Jan van Helmont

The Right Address

Arriving for my first-ever retreat inside an actual monastery, I could not find the building. Nor could the friend who'd come with me, and who was doing the driving. We were at the right address, looking at the spot where the monastery should be, yet for the life of us we could not spot it. All of the buildings in the neighborhood looked, to us, the same. Most were rowhouses, standing shoulder to shoulder along the narrow city street.

There was no sign reading 'monastery' or 'convent.' Brick sidewalks stretched almost to the doorways. There were no front yards. The only monasteries I'd been to before this were miles away from towns, separated from the 'outer word' by fields or forests. Could we have been given the wrong address? I wondered.

Eventually we found an entrance to our destination and yes, here was the monastery - just a few feet from the street. It sat surrounded by cars, pedestrians, and lots and lots of noise. Its outside blended in perfectly with every other building.

'Their thoughts are fixed on God, not on the world; still less on the casual street that runs by their door.' wrote the Lathrops of this spot. 'A narrow strip of grass, railed in by a light iron fence, separates their dwelling from the sidewalk, and gives them an added safeguard in their retirement. All this is in accord with the aims of a community like that of the Visitation. Their object is … to prevent the intrusion of careless, worldly, noisy people, who may be inclined to invade the seclusion and sanctity of a life wholly ordered and consecrated to spiritual purposes. (A Story of Courage, p. 7)

'The countenance, then, if one may so describe it, of this building is calm, neutral, neither repelling nor inviting... it is in no way demonstrative. From a distance you cannot even distinguish it from other buildings. It does not dominate them. It does not tower up, or threaten, or warn you away...  It simply stands there, and waits..' 

As one striving to live 'cloistered in heart,' I look upon my life, even my body, as a 'monastery.' I can be a place where God is loved, served, lived for in the midst of the world. I do not stand out from people around me. I look like members of my family, dress like other women my age, talk like everyone else. No one passing me on the sidewalk would cry out 'why, look at that - there goes a walking monastery!' Yet my prayers and babysteps toward holiness happen, in large part, right in the midst of everyday life.

Standing shoulder to shoulder with others, in the middle of the world all around me, I'm situated precisely where I need to be.

I am at the exact right address for a cloistered heart.




Photo at top: Georgetown Visitation DC, 2002, N Shuman 

Photo of crowd from Pixabay

Text not in quotes © 2016 N Shuman
thecloisteredheart.org   



This post is part of our series 'A Story of Courage.' To continue in chronological order, click this line.

Revisiting Heroic Stones

Minute by minute heroics is a good way to cooperate with God in constructing the monastery of the heart. Each minute can provide a 'stone' of opportunity. Each can be lived well (perhaps even heroically) for God.

'Have you seen how that imposing building was built? One brick upon another. Thousands. But, one by one. And bags of cement, one by one. And blocks of stone, each of them insignificant compared with the massive whole. And beams of steel. And men working, the same hour, day after day.... Have you seen how that imposing building was built? ... By dint of little things!' (St. Josemaria Escriva, The Way 823) 

I am being given thousands, millions, of minutes to live on this earth. Each is insignificant compared to the whole .. but each one, added to each other one, is absolutely necessary to make up my life. I have the minutes, I have the mortar of free will, and I have the Architect's plan of Scripture.
  
I have recognized one seemingly inconsequential way in which I haven't been following the plan all that well. Sometimes I grab a few perfectly good, newly minted minutes, and slap the mortar on them with a harrumph. I have not considered this activity significant at all, because my harrumphs have been directed at 'things.' At inanimate objects like misbehaving computers, spoons that leap out of my hand onto the floor, remotes that play hide-and-seek.

I am anything but heroic when these items play their tricks. Huffs and grumbles and loud sighs pop right out of me in search of the offending object. 'Take THAT harrumph, you rotten, jumping spoon!'

I don't do this when others are around. At least - not when they're in the same room. Or, well, not when anyone is actually paying attention. Or, well, that's how it started. It began as a casual harrumph here, an innocent snap there. So what if it became something of a habit? It isn't as if it's hurting anything. Except, of course, a few hyperactive spoons.

But the development of such behavior is far from heroic. It has pulled me away from 'heroism' toward a grumbling, critical habit of internal whining. If I let it, it can alter the way I look at life. It certainly is not seeing things "through the grille." Having realized this, I am asking for grace to overcome my misuse of minutes...  each one precious, each one a minute in which I have the chance to be heroic. Not just passably good enough, but heroic. I don't have to give in to big sins, and I don't have to indulge in moments of whining.

If I am tempted to grumble - why, look at the opportunity I'm being given! I can resist the temptation, and I can thank God in that very moment. Thank You, Lord, that I have a computer on which to write of Your goodness, and if that device is acting up right now, give me patience to deal with it and to turn this moment to good. Thank You, Lord, for plenty of food to eat. Thank You that I don't have to eat it with my hands.

And thank You for a nice, washable floor to catch all my leaping spoons.

This is an edited repost from our archives. It is linked to Reconciled to You and Theology is a Verb for 'It's Worth Revisiting Wednesday.
© 2015 N Shuman thecloisteredheart.org 
  

In Substance The Same

'The Christian life is nothing else but Christ; the monastic life is nothing else but Christ. The requirements for the Christian and for the monk are in substance the same; the difference lies only in the particular kind of stress that is given to them. The Church exists so that souls should lead the life of Christ; the monastery exists for the same purpose. Whether it is union with Him in the world or in the cloister, it is union that is the soul's purpose.'

Dom Hubert Van Zeller, The Yoke of Divine Love, Templegate, 1957, p. 182

 









Painting of monk: Restout, Seated Carthusian Holding Open Book, in US public domain due to age
Silhouette of praying man via Pixabay

And Our Monastery is.....

The Monastery of a cloistered heart is the person's own life.  A monastery is a place consecrated to God, a place of prayer, a place where God is loved and served.  Our lives can be all of these things.  Just as any building can become a monastery by being dedicated to God, so our lives can become "monasteries" by such dedication. 

This is more than a nice daydream.  It is simply truth.  

"Even now we are called to be a dwelling for the Most Holy Trinity.  'If a man loves Me,' says the Lord, 'he will keep My word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him.' (John 14:23)"  (Catechism of the Catholic Church #260)

"O my God.... grant my soul peace.  Make it Your heaven, Your beloved dwelling, and Your place of rest.  May I never abandon You there, but may I be there, whole and entire, completely vigilant in my faith, entirely adoring, and wholly given over to Your creative action."  (St. Elizabeth of the Trinity)

As imperfect as we are, Our Lord actually desires to live within us.

Imagine.

Text not in quotes © 2012 Nancy Shuman. 
thecloisteredheart.org     

Painting: Fritz von Wille, in US public domain due to age

What Makes a Monastery?

'It is monastic life which signifies a monastery, 

and the fact has no vice versa. 

The most 'correct' monastery building 

in the world would not be a monastery 

if monastic life did not pulse within it.'

Mother Mary Francis PCC, A Right to be Merry; click here for link

 

That First Monastery

When “the cloistered heart” first entered my mind in the 1980s, it was nothing more than a phrase.

Beginning this blog a year and a half ago, I wrote of the monastery I'd envisioned back when  the phrase first occurred to me.  This was not a monastery constructed (yet) of analogy, but simply an imaginary building made of weathered stone.   Moss and vines crept up the walls.  Trees were evergreens, maples, birches.   Smells were of cedar and pine, and freshly dug moist earth.  I knew the walls inside would be permeated with incense and the scent of beeswax candles, smells that had seeped for decades into plaster and wood.

Sounds of leaves rustled in a gentle breeze; birds twittered above, there was a distant rustle of deer in the underbrush.  From a tower overhead a bell pealed, its voice deep and throaty.  It did not shatter the silence; it enhanced it.  Inside the walls, the gentle rustle of soft shoes shuffled, along with a swish of habits.  And then came the song.  Chant rising, falling, soothing, praising.  I listened from outside and felt that first hint of longing.

I wanted to flee to that monastery.  I was drawn to the holiness I imagined inside its walls, to the silence that did not speak against God or mock Him or live in ways that brought Him displeasure.

This was a confusing desire to me, a happily married woman and a mother who loved her life.  It made no sense.  I enjoyed homemaking, had wonderful friends, was blessed with a prayerful, loving husband.  Plus:  my social nature and love of freedom and night owl tendencies would have lasted three days, tops, behind cloister walls.

So what, really, was going on?

I pondered this for a number of months, even for a few years, and always in secret.  My journal "heard about it" a few times, but even there the subject lay mostly dormant.  Like a seed hidden in the dark, however, "The Cloistered Heart" made tiny, undetected movements toward the light of day.  I thought of the step a person must take to enter a cloister, to make a specific decision to live totally - not just mostly - for God.  I began to envision my actual body as a monastery, a place where God could be praised in the midst of the world.

"The world is not safe from sin and evil," I wrote in 1990, "even the body is not safe from harm.  But within the cloistered heart there is refuge.  The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid.  In the cloister, I am always safe..." 

Tomorrow, God willing, we will talk more about what the analogy of the cloistered heart has become.

Text © 2013 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thecloisteredheart.org   
 
Painting:  Ernst Ferdinand Oehme, Burg Scharfenberg bei Nacht 

Click here to leave comments in the Parlor
This post is linked to Catholic Bloggers Network Linkup Blitz 

up the staircase

The corridors in our cloister are long and winding.  One leads to another, which leads to another, and before long we’ve reached a staircase…

We begin to step.  Only one stair at a time, of course, even if we’re anxious to make our way up speedily.  We do not reach holiness in one quick swoop.  The realization that I can take it one step at a time actually gives me hope.  And so I inch my way forward, taking today’s step toward not complaining when tempted to, tomorrow’s toward more prayer, the next day’s into opening the Bible a bit more often…  

I will trip once in awhile, I will hesitate.  I might take a tumble; after all, even Peter denied Jesus.  But Peter didn’t stay down; he got up, allowed the Lord to forgive him, and continued his climb.  

Our Lord Lights the way; He does not let me “climb” alone.  As I make my way, I hold onto the strong railings of Scripture and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  When my faith and determination grow wobbly, I open those and I LEAN….. 

I look up at the staircase.  Have I brought with me anything that weighs me down or makes me afraid to take the next step closer to God?   In Matthew 4:20 I’m told that Jesus’ first disciples, upon hearing His call, immediately dropped their nets to follow Him.  Are there “nets” entangling me?  Is there some sin or vice that I need to drop?

If so, I can talk to Jesus about it right here, right now.  So what if I just stumbled across a random blog?  Even while looking at a computer screen, I can pray.  Jesus' mercy and love are waiting for ME.  

For prayer and meditation:   

“I will instruct you and show you the way you should walk; I will counsel you, keeping My eye on you.” Psalm 32:8

“Lead me in the path of your commands, for in it I delight.” Psalm 119:33-35

Text not in quotes © 2012 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thecloisteredheart.org      

Before the First Bell

The first cloistered heart monastery I envisioned was nestled in a forest of green.  Nearly twenty years before, however, there had been a foreshadowing.  In itself this was a startling occurrence, for my level of interest in monasteries at the time was zero.  I was an active, single, compulsively busy young woman, and religious life was possibly the farthest thing from my mind.  

I was taking a semester off college and working for an insurance company.  Our office was located on an upper floor of a building in the center of town.  One day, as I bustled about filing papers, I happened to look out through a large wall of windows.  My view went over the tops of shorter buildings across Main Street, to a large old church a block away.  The church, with its weathered gray stones and one large round window, made me think of a monastery. Without warning, I suddenly envisioned rows of black-habited figures walking through a kind of “enclosed garden” in the middle of that building.   There was no such garden in this church, and at that time I didn’t even know about cloister gardens.  Yet I had a sudden mental picture – like a daydream that was not actively imagined but was rather “dropped into my head” intact - of black-habited figures walking along silently.  My sense was that this was a place of prayer right in the middle of the bustling, busy, noisy city.  It was as if the garden inside high walls was not known to anyone scurrying by outside, and although those inside could hear noise all around, they were largely unaffected by it.

Never mind that buses rumbled, tires screeched, horns blared.  Inside the walls, hidden from the view of people rushing by, there was a secret place of prayer.  Even now I can picture the silent figures slowly moving, a soft autumn wind teasing the edges of their veils.

This mental picture was suddenly there and suddenly gone, leaving in its wake a thought most unexpected.  This was:  “I’ll probably belong to God someday.”  The belonging would be, I felt, as total as the belonging of a nun.  I remember going on with my work in the office as though this unusual vignette had not crossed my mind… but I never, ever forgot it.  

I now look back and realize that the sense of people in an enclosed garden, right in the middle of a busy city, captures exactly the essence of “the cloistered heart.”  Mine is not the call to withdrawal into a silent hermitage.  Mine is a call to interact with the world and live in the midst of it.  To be in the world while not being of it.  To be a “place” where Christ can be adored, met with, and honored no matter where I happen to be.  

The photo I share here, of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, was taken by my friend Linda.  It's not unlike the scene, all those years ago, that triggered my foreshadowing.  And today it captures my sense of wanting my very life to be a "monastery".... right in the middle of the world.

Text not in quotes © 2011 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thecloisteredheart.org