More catching up

One of the things that I have wondered about in terms of this blog is how much personal material I should include. When I first heard about blogs, and thought of them as a sort of online diary (never imagining that I would start one myself!), I regarded the idea of writing about one’s own life online as horribly egocentric. And, while I have also recognised that the genre of blogs dealing with “religious life” (or, less frequently, with monasticism) do have a role to play - indeed I would have found them rather useful had they existed ten or fifteen years ago! - I have been fairly clear that that is not what this blog is about. Indeed I have rather an aversion to idealised presentations of monasticism, for the truth of the life is only to be grasped - and that only fleetingly - in the rather messy nitty gritty of what happens when our ideals fall apart. But I don’t really feel able to write concretely about the messier stuff, for that usually involves people or situations whose privacy I need to respect. In any case, my primary purpose in starting the blog was to provide a space in which I can process my own reading, and, when all is said and done, I’m not convinced that being a monastic is fundamentally different from being any other kind of a baptised Christian.

However, I am also convinced that theology is integrally related to the whole of life and have no desire to engage in purely abstract discussions. And I have become aware that in recent years that my writing has sometimes acquired a more personal tone than it previously had. In this sense, I sometimes feel like writing things about things that arise out of concrete situations (e.g. my reactions to the sort of homilies that get preached on Trinity Sunday might not be a bad way to process my reading of Zizioulas!), but am still a bit hesitant about this.

In any case, having mentioned that I was making profession, and given that it has rather disrupted things in the last couple of weeks, it may be appropriate to say something about it briefly! I thought that I may have been able to post a photo of myself prostrate on the floor of the church, but that hasn’t worked out yet. But that was, perhaps, one of the most memorable moments for me. I was touched to hear afterwards of the impression that the ceremony made on all sorts of people, but, to be honest, during it my major concern was with not getting totally mixed up (which I almost did a couple of times - I almost forgot to sing the Suscipe, after endless practicing) or getting obviously emotional. But lying on the floor during the litany of saints lasted long enough for me to begin to take something of it in. (Indeed it lasted longer than it might otherwise have done as I had included saints who are not necessarily always included - but whom I regard as pretty central to the tradition - and our long-suffering cantrix ensured that it remained singable!) I was conscious of standing in a tradition, and of being sustained by the generations who have gone before us. And, after that, after receiving the cowl, while greeting all of the professed sisters, I was conscious of being taking up into the community in this time and in this place.

However, I still need to process all of these impressions more and so I won’t say much more. In one sense life continues as it is, and it will be good to get back to normal life again. But, whenever I put my cowl - and the practicalities of getting it over my head will still take some getting used to - I am also struck by a certain sense of newness.

 

On Pachomius

Readers may have noticed that I am reading the Life of Saint Pachomius. This is my Lenten reading this year, a choice influenced by the fact that I am going to be making my solemn profession on the feast of Saint Pachomius, 15 May. While I had read bits and pieces of secondary literature on him, and found him an attractive, if challenging, figure, I had never read the Life and this seemed a good opportunity to do so!

Pachomius is known as the founder of coebobitic (or community) monasticism, in contrast to the anchorites or hermit monks. While there is clearly a continuity with the spirit of the anchorites – and one encounters the same emphasis on Scripture, self-knowledge, and a strict asceticism that is nevertheless combined with great gentleness and care for others – the emphasis in Pachomian monasticism is on the koinōnia which is seen as imitating the lives of the apostles.

I probably won’t quote much from this work as I am reading it in Dutch and don’t have an English translation easily available. But here is an extract from Placide Deseille’s L’Évangile au Désert (Paris: Cerf, 1965) 30-31, which I translated a few years ago and therefore happen to have on computer. It provides a glimpse of this important saint who had a profound effect on later monastic developments.

Saint Pachomius is the founder of coenobitism proper. He was born to pagan parents in the region of Esuch around 290. Forcibly conscripted into the army around the age of twenty, he encountered the charity of Christians who brought food to the young recruits of his regiment. He exclaimed: “Oh God, with your help, if I am delivered from the tribulation in which I now find myself, I will serve the human race in your name.” He was soon freed, received baptism and placed himself under the instruction of an elder named Palamon. After about seven years his spiritual father died and, while he was seeking to discern the will of God, an angel appeared and revealed: “the will of God is to put oneself at the service of humanity in order to call them to himself.” Thus Pachomius, having understood as he said to himself that “the will of God in taking the concerns of others onto himself,” proceeded to gather together disciples in order to realise “this perfect community spoken of in the acts of the apostles in which the group of believers was united heart and soul; no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, as everything they owned was held in common.” (Acts 4, 32)

Gathered around Tabennesi, the first Pachomian monastery, and then around Pbow, which became the residence of the Abba General, it was not long before many branches formed a flourishing congregation that comprised up to five thousand monks. Pachomius also created a monastery of nuns. Humble of heart, he was able to combine a great firmness with a goodness and a profound humanity. A spiritual father in the fullest sense of the term he was gifted in the discernment of spirits but proved at the same time to have an extraordinary genius for organisation. Twice a year the general chapters determined the exact observances for the entire congregation. Within each monastery the monks were grouped into “houses” attached to the work that they did. In place of the individual liberty of the anchorites, the rules revealed to the holy legislator “filled with the Holy Spirit” substitute a uniform observance that, while relatively supple and full of discretion, nevertheless makes obedience the corner-stone of the monastic ascesis.