Question:
I want to give my life completely to Christ, but do not want to go to a
monastery. Is it really necessary to be in a monastery to lead a monastic life?
Can’t I live as a monastic in the world?
This is a
question that comes up quite often, except that it is usually in the form of a
statement. May God bless your humility in asking this instead of informing and
declaring that a monastery is not necessary for one who desires a monastic life!
First,
you must realize that God’s grace is present everywhere, but it is especially
felt in a monastery. When people visit a monastery, they feel that it is a holy
place where God is present. Paradoxically, the monastics who dwell in that
monastery more often feel the intense spiritual warfare that the evil one is
waging against them. When visitors came to one monastery and said to one of the
nuns, “It is so peaceful here,” she replied, “You feel the peace, we see the
warfare.”
Anyone
who strives to fulfill the Gospel commandments, who tries to live truly
according to the teachings of the Church, feels both of these aspects to some
degree: both the grace of God in their lives, but also the intense battle that
the devil and his legions wage against him. The more intensely we strive to
serve God, the more the evil one seeks to deter us from our path. This is most
true in the life of one who renounces the world and seeks to live completely
for Christ.
So, can
this be done while living in the world? Yes. And no. One can certainly, with
God’s help, live according to the Gospel commandments and the teachings of the
Church in the world, maintaining a job, being faithful in the Church, living
according to the “little holy trinity” of prayer, fasting and almsgiving,
reading the lives of the saints and other soul edifying books, etc. This is all
what the Church requires of all her faithful. This is all according to the
commandments. Such a person may participate in some “worldly” activities which
are not harmful—certain and limited sports, wholesome entertainment, etc.,
without losing his focus on God.
The
monastic life takes in what the fathers refer to as the “Evangelical advice.”
Remember the rich young man in the Gospel who asked the Lord, What must I do to
inherit eternal life? The Lord told him to keep the commandments, which the man
stated that he had done since his youth. Then the Lord said, if you want, sell
all you have, take up your cross, and come, follow me (Mark 10:21).
If you
want!!! In other words, it is not mandatory for salvation to give up
everything, only “if you want” These were the words which St. Anthony heard and
which led him to begin his monastic life. We know that his early monastic life
was spent at first with an elder on the edge of the town, and that later he
went off into the desert.
The world
holds many temptations for us. Some of the pleasures of worldly life are not
bad: marrying and having children are certainly blessed by Christ who worked
His first public miracle at the wedding of Cana in Galilee. Being with other
people—even those who are not of our faith—is not bad in itself, but it can
lead one down a wrong path if one is not careful. Certain entertainments, as we
mentioned above, are not bad in themselves, as long as they do not become
passions. But the monastic is the one who chooses the narrower path. In order
to follow this path, he must have others who are experienced in the dangers,
pitfalls and perils along the way. You can find this only in a monastery with
others who are struggling (while falling and getting back up again) on that
same path.
If you
are trying to walk that narrow path in the world with all its temptations and
you fall (and you will fall), who will help to lift you up again? More than
likely, those who are falling in the same pits as you will encourage you to
remain and wallow in the mire. In the monastery, not only do you have the more
experienced who can guide and reprimand you when you stray, but that great
grace from God also surrounds you and assists you in these struggles. The very
monastic garment itself is holy and guards the monastic.
Let’s
take an innocent example to illustrate how important the habit is: Let’s say
you are driving through a rather desolate area and are very thirsty. You come
upon a small settlement that has a few houses and a bar, but no gas station or
grocery store or other place where you could find a cup of coffee or soft drink
or tea. (There are many such towns in the west!) You stop your car and go in
the bar to get a non-alcoholic drink. There is nothing wrong with that in
itself. Yet when you are saying your prayers, you remember the things you saw
in the bar, perhaps lewd jokes, inappropriately dressed people, etc. Even
though you did nothing wrong, still, your prayer is disturbed by these
remembrances.
The monk
or nun who would be traveling along that same road and who is equally thirsty
would not go into such an establishment. The habit itself would be as the walls
of the monastery protecting him from doing so, for as innocent as his intention
would be in wanting a glass of ice tea, he could not bring scandal upon the
Church by going into such a place.
There is
another pitfall which catches everyone who tries to live the monastic life in
the world. Pride. This is not to say that pride does not assail those in the
monastery! It certainly does, however in the monastic setting, when one begins
to fall into pride, there are elders who are quick to cut off that sin in the
novice. You are not somebody in the monastery because you are fasting and
praying—everyone is doing that! You are not considered as “pious” because you
struggle to obtain the virtues—that is what is expected. But when you say, “I
can lead the monastic life in the world and not bother going into the
monastery” you are declaring already quite pridefully that you already know it
all! Then, instead of all your efforts going toward your salvation, you will
have lost everything.
There is
no question that there are monastics who live as anchorites. That life cannot
be compared to what you are requesting. Those who live such a monastic life do
so only after many years in a monastery and only with the blessing of their
monastic elder. When a brother would ask Elder Cleopa for a blessing to go off
into the forest alone to live, the Elder would tell him, “after you have been
in obedience for thirty years, then come back to me and we will think about
it!”
Do not
dismiss that grace which works invisibly in the monastery. It is very powerful
and without it no one in a monastery would be saved. The holy fathers say that
when you are saved you are saved in community; but when you fall, you fall
alone.
If you
want to be saved in the world, follow the commandments; if you want to as a
monastic, go to a monastery and submit to the superior of that monastery and to
its rules.
Source: http://orthodoxinfo.com/praxis/livemonasticworld.aspx
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