PS I tried to upgrade. It caused a terrible mess with my bank. I'm so disappointed, but there's nothing to be done. Our last use of a credit card in Italy robbed us by a clever restauranteur in Florence. Excelsior!
Well, if you'd like an easy alternative, you can use Paypal to sign up as a monthly patron through my Ko-fi studio page. I have a policy of giving complimentary paid memberships to everyone who is a patron that way.
Oh, how I wish I could! Alas, we have avoided Paypal because it's yet another expense an 86yr old woman must not. So there it is. I will be praying for you Hilary, every day. Your gifts are rare and precious. I know you will be a blessing to many people in this. dark, benighted world. Please pray for me and my beloved spouse of 66 years. kr
Never know what strange creatures you'll run into around here. On the other hand, the Esolans and Hilary White are gifts from God and we would be fools not to enjoy those gifts.
PS I notice the date on your reply and realize how remiss I've been in replying This is the result of a mad gardener. I've spent most of the summer fighting weeds, watering, killing bugs etc. That's the beauty of winter and snow and Advent and, and.....
It was great to see you and Sister last night. So much fun. Such delicious
food! Such wonderful priests! Such a blessing to have lovely people who
but really one thing i think about or have been trying to figure out is.... why do penance? you can try penitential practices but if you don´t figure out the reason you wont persist, particularly alone. No one just goes to the desert, you go to the desert because you have to. because of a reason, because of an end. at the first chapter of the franciscans in portiuncula several brothers died because of the severe penances they were performing, this is according to i fioretti. they must have been really enjoying it to take it that far. when you read about things like this its just so foreign. And st thomas says any action takes its meaning from the end. but no one can simply will a different final end. st thomas and aristotle both say we cannot deliberate about our ultimate end, it is given. so we must lack this end. what is it about or material culture or catechesis or liturgy or child rearing these days that i guess cuts people off from this end. its given in baptism and or confirmation to those so called. i read a book called "the desert, a city" about the original scetis and one thing that struck me was that the desert fathers would simply say or pray, "eternity, eternity" over and over in their cells as they suffered in the cold.
Apropos of this, Lewis wrote in one of his letters once, “I sometimes have the feeling that the big mass-conversions of the Dark Ages, often carried out by force, were all a false dawn and the whole work has to be done over again."
Excellent article on a topic very dear to me. My vocation is marriage and fatherhood, but I still return again and again to the monastic well to reorient myself when things are slipping, in my reading (John Cassian all the way to Michael Casey), in retreat (have a week scheduled at Clear Creek this May), and in trying to integrate the attitude that I live in a domestic monastery and that every moment of my life must be lived from that vantage point. Try it. You'd be amazed how powerfully it changes the way you see and interact with the desert of modernity. Also, I was very pleased to see the video of Fr. Lazarus. I've watched dozens of interviews with him. The story of his conversion and journey into the desert is fascinating and he's incredibly enthusiastic, forthcoming and articulate when relating it.
I can heartily recommend Fr. Alexander Schmemann's "The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy" as a supplement to your argument here. One of the central themes of this book is how the intertwining, confusion, and ultimately submission of the The Church to state power has been the source of much mischief in both the East and West (taking different forms, of course, but sharing in the same same core problem), as such confusion blunts the ability and the willingness of The Church to call out the very worldly corruptions of the state and the society which supports it.
Bonhoeffer's "The Cost of Discipleship" also has some instructive and pondering-worthy passages about the co-option of the original spirit of monasticism into organs of institutional church and state power.
This is exactly right. The Church as a whole is NOT merely a building. Its US. Hearts and souls utterly sold out to Jesus. And that's a big, big difference we saw begin to manifest during the covid lockdowns of 2020, and I see it widening every day. We have the people who are All In, and we have the ones who are lukewarm Christians, and the ones who profess Christianity yet live like pagans.... Until we have people willing to live on their faces in prayer daily, until we have people willing to be the hands and feet of Jesus, to pray for the sick and see them healed, to cast out demons, walk in the spiritual signs miralces and wonders.... All the fancy, beautiful, and humble buildings won't make one iota of difference. Our faith should not be in a building, but in our Lord Jesus Christ.
I once spoke with a woman who had been part of a Benedictine option community gone awry. She spoke about how this sort of rejection of modernity is ultimately still a post-modern approach to the world. Ie. you get to choose the story you live in.
I’m just a dumb working class guy so take it with a grain of salt when I say that it seems to me that the crucifixion suggests we do not turn away from the world but face it and bear its suffering. That seems to have been Christ’s answer to Pilate’s “what is truth?”
Modernity is the desert. This is one of those ideas that is so obvious once someone says it.
Yeah, there is a whole stream of thinking among the traddie world where the solution is to band together - with strangers, mostly - and "create a community". But I've never seen one I'd be interested in joining, with the possible exception of the Tipi Loschi in Le Marche. And certainly not one made up of dreamy, idealistic North Americans. There are a lot of people pretty desperate for a solution to Modernity, or a way out, and the whole stream of "off-grid cabining" on YouTube is a part of that. Prepping and homesteading and all that. I really don't have anything against LARPing. I think it gets a bad rap, and I was in the SCA myself for 20 years, and I grew up in a kind of socio-cultural subgroup - SCA, sci-fi nerds, comic-book reading neo-pagan-friendly... None of us liked Modernia and we all wanted out pretty badly. But at the same time, no matter how deeply we got into our feudal households in the SCA or whatever, it was still Modernians trying to cope by escaping.
Rod Dreher irritates the crap out of me, and his "cultural appropriation" of my monks - to whom he would never make a serious commitment by oblature, as was obvious with his dilletantish approach to Catholicism - really got under my skin. "Yeah, buddy, your flirtation is my real life. Get some ability to commit." He came to Norcia when I lived there, and I was hanging around the shop that afternoon, shooting the breeze (about our mutual love of Stargate SG1, if I recall) with Br. Evagrius who was on the desk that day, when in comes Rod, with his obnoxious hipster glasses. I think Br. Ignatius introduced us bcs he knew it would annoy me. But at least that was when I realised I was in for reals, and wasn't just LARPing.
This is such a great article! I don't know how I missed it when it was published earlier (or maybe I just wasn't ready for it yet). I think this is the sort of thing that's been rattling around in the back of my head for a long time, but I hadn't been able to put it into focus. I think people tend to get caught up in the height of things and desperately wanting all that back. As you said, it's impossible from this state of decay. There's just not enough left to reclaim at this point. I also think many of us across the ocean don't have a clear understanding of the level of loss there actually is. There can be deceptive pockets over here that look healthier than they are (I'm not talking about the monasteries you mentioned but actual mainstream areas of the Church). It makes it very difficult to get a clear picture of reality.
I recently read Fr. Seraphim Rose’s translation of St. Gregory of Tours’ Vita Patrum (“The Life of the Fathers”), which are a series of brief lives of holy men from Western Europe (mainly France) during the 3rd to 6th centuries, and which focused in particular upon the establishment of Orthodox monasticism in Europe during that time.
Nearly half of the book consists of a series of introductions by Fr. Seraphim Rose in which he sets the stage and explains the context and background of the lives, and most importantly, explains why he saw this translation project as so relevant and necessary to our age. One of these reasons is because our age is in certain respects analogous to that faced by those fathers. We need to “recreate the desert” and build up an ascetical, hesychastic and monastic spirit in the West anew. The men (and women) in Vita Patrum felt this need deeply, but they did not necessarily have many tools or models on which to pursue it. Yes, they were able to do it and do it authentically and well.
In the last part of the introduction, titled “Orthodox Monasticism Today in Light of Orthodox Monastic Gaul”, Rose went through the different ways in which one might go about recreating that monastic spirit and life, and also the risks that are inherent in each. I mention this because I think we do not really appreciate how far we have fallen in terms of ability to deny ourselves and how incredibly worldly we all are, even those of us to feel a call to a more ascetical way of life. We have to be aware of these risks and pitfalls lest we attempt something that is way beyond our strength and capacity or is simply pursued in a prideful and deluded manner that will be guaranteed to result in spiritual harm to oneself and others.
With that, I will quote and summarize what Rose had to say about the possibility of, and risks and pitfalls to, pursuing monasticism in today’s world. I have not used ellipses or other indications of redactions; just know this is a partial and not continuous quote. This is a difficult book to find, and expensive second-hand. It is possible to find it online in PDF format with some searches. Rose’s reflections on the situation in the West still have much to teach us. The situation may be a bit more “mature” than the time at which he wrote, but much of what he had to say continues to apply to us here today.
“The [monastic] aspirant who wishes to undertake the monastic life today finds before him three general types of monastic situation:
“1. A long-established institution with a definite place in the church ‘organization’. … Such institutions perform an immense and difficult – and usually thankless – labor in handing down the Orthodox monastic tradition as well as possible in a world that is profoundly hostile to it: these monasteries are actually citadels of Orthodoxy in a foreign world. Monastic aspirants today, however, are easily disillusioned by such monasteries, looking at their faults (both real and imagined) with an overly-critical eye, and regarding them as ‘idiorhythmic’ and as having departed from pure monastic traditions; those who do stay in such monasteries can find it a heavy burden, due most of all to the immense disharmony between the Orthodox spiritual life and the life of the contemporary world. But the unbroken connection with the past in such communities, and the very suffering required to remain in them, continue to produce spiritual fruit. Those who can remain in them without falling into apathy, carelessness, or discouragement can attain to a high spiritual state; but very often the young aspirant will leave them in order to seek something more ‘correct’ or ‘perfect’.
“2. An individual struggler, usually a convert, inspired with the highest monastic ideals (often skete or hermit life), ‘opens a monastery’ and begins to live according to his idea or adaption of the great monastic strugglers of the past, sometimes attracting a few disciples. This is the most dangerous of the monastic path open today. Its great temptation is over-reliance on oneself; its great pitfall is loss of contact with the age-old monastic tradition. The 20th century has already had a rich experience of eccentric ‘elders’ whose ultimate authority is their own opinions. Prof. I.M. Kontzevitch, in his classic work Monastery and its Epoch felt compelled to write a special section on the false elders’ who cripple and ruin so many souls in their spiritual pretentiousness; among converts this is an especially dangerous temptation. Even when they do not go far astray, such ‘elders’ are seldom able to offer the monastic aspirant anything more than their own inexperienced human opinions of what monastic struggles should be. Often, in such monastic attempts, spiritual wounds remain unhealed through a lack of mutual trust between spiritual father and spiritual child; thus deeply-rooted sins and inclinations may remain unconfessed and untreated. (This can happen in the ‘established monasteries also, but usually with less serious spiritual consequences since the authentic monastic environment itself can at least partially compensate for any personal deficiencies.) Sometimes, also unknown to the aspirant himself, the energy for struggles comes more from the passions, especially from hidden pride and vainglory, than from a genuine thirst for God. Numerous examples from the past, to be sure, show that such a path is a _possible_ one; but the conditions of today’s world render the probability of success and spiritual soundness in such an undertaking rather small. When his own spiritual energy and resources are exhausted, the individual struggler on such a path often collapses and gives us spiritual struggle (and sometimes Orthodoxy) altogether. …
“3. More often in recent years: a group of two or more young strugglers rediscovers the ancient traditions of monasticism and begins to struggle together, usually in a coenobitic way of life. Traditional monastic phenomena are spoken about and sometimes strictly followed: ‘hesychasm,’ ‘elders,’ ‘confession of thoughts,’ strict obedience, and the like. Such groups open new monasteries or move into old monasteries and ‘renew’ them, and often they have notable success, especially if their leader has personal ‘charisma’. The leader is characteristically Orthodox ‘by blood’, not a convert, although the group as a whole may seem to have definite ‘convert’ characteristics. Such groups have a rather good chance of relative stability and outward success, but they face special dangers which should not be underemphasized. Among the chief temptations to such groups, especially if they are very successful are: outward success can blind them to inward deficiencies, community solidarity and well-being can cause them to become inflated with a false sense of their own importance, and the appearance of ‘correctness can produce spiritual smugness and disdain of those outside of the group who are not so ‘correct’. If these temptations are not overcome, a deadly ‘group pride’ can take the place of individual pride and lead the whole community on a fatal path which none of its members can recognize because it is not his _personal_ doing; the ‘renewed’ community can become so much out of harmony with the ‘unrenewed’ rest of the Church as to form a virtual ‘jurisdiction’ of its own, and even end in a schism brought about by its own exaggerated feeling of ‘correctness’.
“In view of these contemporary monastic situations, all of them with their particular dangers and temptations, it would not be an exaggeration to state that Orthodox monasticism as a whole in the late 20th century, despite a few appearances of outward prosperity, is weak, fragile, shallow-rooted and mostly immature. Any of the three paths that have been described (and other paths) _could_ produce sound monastic fruit; but the probability of failure, as well as of spiritual fakery, is greater than ever before.
“Monasticism, despite its other-worldly goal, is still in the world, and its state cannot but reflect the state of the world contemporary to it. The pampered, self-satisfied, self-centered young people who form the vast majority of those who come to monasticism today cannot but bring with them their worldly ‘baggage’ of attitudes and habits, and these in turn cannot but affect the monastic environment.
“To commit oneself to a conscious battle against the principles and habits of modern comfort is a rare and dangerous thing; and thus it is no wonder that our monasticism is so weak – it cannot but reflect the feebleness of Orthodox life in general today.
“In all humility let us admit the poverty of our Christianity, the coldness of our love for God, the emptiness of our spiritual pretensions; and let us use this confession as the _beginning_ of our monastic path.
“The monastic life, indeed, even in our times of feeble faith, is still above all _the love of Christ_, the Christian life par excellence, experienced with many patient sufferings and much pain.”
Great. I’m familiar with that one. That site you to digitally “borrow” it an hour at a time and cannot be downloaded. Here is a PDF version that you can save as a file and also print:
Great. I’m sure he appreciates the donation. He has a wealth of Orthodox works there as something of a public service since many works are out of print and difficult to obtain otherwise. Hope you enjoy it.
Actually this specific thing is of great interest to me personally. I became an Oblate at Norcia, and soon learned the very early history of monasticism in the Valnernina. A group of Syrian monks in the 4th century, chased out of their desert by Nestorian heretics, came to Italy to ask the pope for a place to live their monastic life. Many of them headed up to Umbria where I live, and settled here and did much to convert the still pagan population here; one of them became the first bishop of Narni. Another, St. Isaac of Spoleto, settled on the site of an ancient pagan "sacred forest" at Spoleto, up on the mountain called Monteluco (Mountain of light) and set up a great monastic foundation there. Its direct descendant survives to this day in the form of a Franciscan monastery. From Monteluco monks of the Syrian type spread into the Valnernia and established a monastery at what is now called San Eutizio. And it was there that Sts Benedict and Scolastica travelled as young people to learn the monastic way of life. This is a fascinating story I want to tell on the website at some point.
That's fascinating. I think you will enjoy the book. There are maps and detailed geographical descriptions and photos included in the book, and you can still visit some of these sites and villages. Rose's narrative of the brothers Sts. Romanus and Lupicinus and of their sister Yole, who was a nun, provides a fascinating view into the pioneering efforts of these strugglers to establish an authentic monastic presence in Gaul.
The reason why Rose decided to translate this book was to try to show that the West also has "Eastern", i.e. Orthodox roots. It was Rose's spiritual father, St. John Maximovich, who had been biship of Paris before he went to San Francisco, who taught Rose of the importance of investigating and reintroducing the Western experience of Orthodoxy. Rose dedicated the translation to St. John: "himself the most recent of the great Orthodox Hierarchs of Gaul and new Apostle to the lands of the West."
While its a bit further afield, Rose also translated a book called The Northern Thebaid, about the early pioneers of Russian monasticism and hermeticism in the "deserts" of the North. Again, can be found in pdf form online:
Huh. I've visited that site only because there are a lot of Seraphim Rose's works available there. I wouldn't necessarily read too much into that; it looks like he uploads various books. For what it's worth, he also has made available Seraphim Rose's book "Nihilism", which is staunchly anti-fascist and anti-Nazi.
Ms. White, I recall you writing that you knew your time as a journalist and activist was over, while still being unable to see a door that would open onto the work to come. Until one day you stood before an art supplies shop (as I recall), which pointed to the passageway you'd been seeking.
Your offerings here at the Sacred Images Project feels to me like such a door. I have been wandering in a circle for so long. Somehow you have pointed to the possibility of a very concrete direction. Thank you. May God bless you always and in all things.
It was an extremely difficult period, and because it's me one fraught with a great deal of anxiety about the future - because apparently even at this age I still haven't learned that things *happening* in life isn't the most important part - and quite long. I had moved to Norcia in 2014, but didn't leave Lifesite until the following year, and continued to write about All That, in various ways until 2017. After that a feeling like a cone of silence fell over me and I lost all ability to write. That time, 4.5 years in a farm house in the middle of nowhere, was like entering a cocoon stage. I felt it was correct for me to live through it and wait for whatever was next, but it was still very difficult. I'm the sort of person who likes to solve problems, and just sitting quietly in the countryside with no real plan, waiting for a signal from God, was not in my nature. It was an eremitical period in a way, and I understand a little more how difficult true eremitical life would be. One never asks, while marvelling at the apparent miracle, how the caterpillar feels being transformed that way. It can't be easy.
I saw in your story quite similar parallels with my own struggle since I came to Germany long ago, which became steadily more difficult after I started freelancing. I only returned to the Church in May of last year, and since I recently started going to Mass and receiving Communion every day, mental barriers that always had seemed impregnable have been falling. Germany as a nation is a horrible place to be Catholic. So my paramount worldly concern now is to be in a better location. Better in the sense that it will make it less difficult for me to serve. While accepting that it may be God’s will for me to remain here. That is why I am praying my version of your art supplies “window” will appear soon. To be continued
Yes, I love Germany and get on probably best with Germans of all the European national characters, but the country itself, politically and socially, is extremely depressing. I think the only place that's worse would be the UK.
I bet your Sts Benedict and Scolastica story will make a great YA book with your beautiful art, to cancel out all the trash out there. So much of what we’ve written is lost on the interwebs, it’s ridiculous. Therefore, why not permanence? You know so much & can weave all you know for God’s Glory.
"The way forward is through the desert."
Hear, hear.
Thank you, Hilary!
PS I tried to upgrade. It caused a terrible mess with my bank. I'm so disappointed, but there's nothing to be done. Our last use of a credit card in Italy robbed us by a clever restauranteur in Florence. Excelsior!
Well, if you'd like an easy alternative, you can use Paypal to sign up as a monthly patron through my Ko-fi studio page. I have a policy of giving complimentary paid memberships to everyone who is a patron that way.
https://ko-fi.com/hilarysacredart
Oh, how I wish I could! Alas, we have avoided Paypal because it's yet another expense an 86yr old woman must not. So there it is. I will be praying for you Hilary, every day. Your gifts are rare and precious. I know you will be a blessing to many people in this. dark, benighted world. Please pray for me and my beloved spouse of 66 years. kr
I'll take it, thanks.
Have't stopped trying to find a way. But most certainly glad never. was involved with
paypal. xxx.
Hi Kathy,
Fancy meeting you here.
Never know what strange creatures you'll run into around here. On the other hand, the Esolans and Hilary White are gifts from God and we would be fools not to enjoy those gifts.
PS I notice the date on your reply and realize how remiss I've been in replying This is the result of a mad gardener. I've spent most of the summer fighting weeds, watering, killing bugs etc. That's the beauty of winter and snow and Advent and, and.....
It was great to see you and Sister last night. So much fun. Such delicious
food! Such wonderful priests! Such a blessing to have lovely people who
love our Lord!
but really one thing i think about or have been trying to figure out is.... why do penance? you can try penitential practices but if you don´t figure out the reason you wont persist, particularly alone. No one just goes to the desert, you go to the desert because you have to. because of a reason, because of an end. at the first chapter of the franciscans in portiuncula several brothers died because of the severe penances they were performing, this is according to i fioretti. they must have been really enjoying it to take it that far. when you read about things like this its just so foreign. And st thomas says any action takes its meaning from the end. but no one can simply will a different final end. st thomas and aristotle both say we cannot deliberate about our ultimate end, it is given. so we must lack this end. what is it about or material culture or catechesis or liturgy or child rearing these days that i guess cuts people off from this end. its given in baptism and or confirmation to those so called. i read a book called "the desert, a city" about the original scetis and one thing that struck me was that the desert fathers would simply say or pray, "eternity, eternity" over and over in their cells as they suffered in the cold.
Apropos of this, Lewis wrote in one of his letters once, “I sometimes have the feeling that the big mass-conversions of the Dark Ages, often carried out by force, were all a false dawn and the whole work has to be done over again."
Lewis also noted that he believed Europe would have to become pagan again first before it would become Christian again.
And he was probably right
Excellent article on a topic very dear to me. My vocation is marriage and fatherhood, but I still return again and again to the monastic well to reorient myself when things are slipping, in my reading (John Cassian all the way to Michael Casey), in retreat (have a week scheduled at Clear Creek this May), and in trying to integrate the attitude that I live in a domestic monastery and that every moment of my life must be lived from that vantage point. Try it. You'd be amazed how powerfully it changes the way you see and interact with the desert of modernity. Also, I was very pleased to see the video of Fr. Lazarus. I've watched dozens of interviews with him. The story of his conversion and journey into the desert is fascinating and he's incredibly enthusiastic, forthcoming and articulate when relating it.
I can heartily recommend Fr. Alexander Schmemann's "The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy" as a supplement to your argument here. One of the central themes of this book is how the intertwining, confusion, and ultimately submission of the The Church to state power has been the source of much mischief in both the East and West (taking different forms, of course, but sharing in the same same core problem), as such confusion blunts the ability and the willingness of The Church to call out the very worldly corruptions of the state and the society which supports it.
Bonhoeffer's "The Cost of Discipleship" also has some instructive and pondering-worthy passages about the co-option of the original spirit of monasticism into organs of institutional church and state power.
This is exactly right. The Church as a whole is NOT merely a building. Its US. Hearts and souls utterly sold out to Jesus. And that's a big, big difference we saw begin to manifest during the covid lockdowns of 2020, and I see it widening every day. We have the people who are All In, and we have the ones who are lukewarm Christians, and the ones who profess Christianity yet live like pagans.... Until we have people willing to live on their faces in prayer daily, until we have people willing to be the hands and feet of Jesus, to pray for the sick and see them healed, to cast out demons, walk in the spiritual signs miralces and wonders.... All the fancy, beautiful, and humble buildings won't make one iota of difference. Our faith should not be in a building, but in our Lord Jesus Christ.
I once spoke with a woman who had been part of a Benedictine option community gone awry. She spoke about how this sort of rejection of modernity is ultimately still a post-modern approach to the world. Ie. you get to choose the story you live in.
I’m just a dumb working class guy so take it with a grain of salt when I say that it seems to me that the crucifixion suggests we do not turn away from the world but face it and bear its suffering. That seems to have been Christ’s answer to Pilate’s “what is truth?”
Modernity is the desert. This is one of those ideas that is so obvious once someone says it.
Yeah, there is a whole stream of thinking among the traddie world where the solution is to band together - with strangers, mostly - and "create a community". But I've never seen one I'd be interested in joining, with the possible exception of the Tipi Loschi in Le Marche. And certainly not one made up of dreamy, idealistic North Americans. There are a lot of people pretty desperate for a solution to Modernity, or a way out, and the whole stream of "off-grid cabining" on YouTube is a part of that. Prepping and homesteading and all that. I really don't have anything against LARPing. I think it gets a bad rap, and I was in the SCA myself for 20 years, and I grew up in a kind of socio-cultural subgroup - SCA, sci-fi nerds, comic-book reading neo-pagan-friendly... None of us liked Modernia and we all wanted out pretty badly. But at the same time, no matter how deeply we got into our feudal households in the SCA or whatever, it was still Modernians trying to cope by escaping.
Rod Dreher irritates the crap out of me, and his "cultural appropriation" of my monks - to whom he would never make a serious commitment by oblature, as was obvious with his dilletantish approach to Catholicism - really got under my skin. "Yeah, buddy, your flirtation is my real life. Get some ability to commit." He came to Norcia when I lived there, and I was hanging around the shop that afternoon, shooting the breeze (about our mutual love of Stargate SG1, if I recall) with Br. Evagrius who was on the desk that day, when in comes Rod, with his obnoxious hipster glasses. I think Br. Ignatius introduced us bcs he knew it would annoy me. But at least that was when I realised I was in for reals, and wasn't just LARPing.
Gee, I hope I will meet some Catholic nerds at the church I go to.
I hate to think of your chances. The mainstream, NovusOrdoist church isn't doing well these days.
I go to a TLM one though.
Oh well then. I'm sure you'll find weirdos to hang out with.
Very true.
The dreamy, idealistic North Americans indeed have a big obsession to "create community." Drives me nuts.
This is such a great article! I don't know how I missed it when it was published earlier (or maybe I just wasn't ready for it yet). I think this is the sort of thing that's been rattling around in the back of my head for a long time, but I hadn't been able to put it into focus. I think people tend to get caught up in the height of things and desperately wanting all that back. As you said, it's impossible from this state of decay. There's just not enough left to reclaim at this point. I also think many of us across the ocean don't have a clear understanding of the level of loss there actually is. There can be deceptive pockets over here that look healthier than they are (I'm not talking about the monasteries you mentioned but actual mainstream areas of the Church). It makes it very difficult to get a clear picture of reality.
I recently read Fr. Seraphim Rose’s translation of St. Gregory of Tours’ Vita Patrum (“The Life of the Fathers”), which are a series of brief lives of holy men from Western Europe (mainly France) during the 3rd to 6th centuries, and which focused in particular upon the establishment of Orthodox monasticism in Europe during that time.
Nearly half of the book consists of a series of introductions by Fr. Seraphim Rose in which he sets the stage and explains the context and background of the lives, and most importantly, explains why he saw this translation project as so relevant and necessary to our age. One of these reasons is because our age is in certain respects analogous to that faced by those fathers. We need to “recreate the desert” and build up an ascetical, hesychastic and monastic spirit in the West anew. The men (and women) in Vita Patrum felt this need deeply, but they did not necessarily have many tools or models on which to pursue it. Yes, they were able to do it and do it authentically and well.
In the last part of the introduction, titled “Orthodox Monasticism Today in Light of Orthodox Monastic Gaul”, Rose went through the different ways in which one might go about recreating that monastic spirit and life, and also the risks that are inherent in each. I mention this because I think we do not really appreciate how far we have fallen in terms of ability to deny ourselves and how incredibly worldly we all are, even those of us to feel a call to a more ascetical way of life. We have to be aware of these risks and pitfalls lest we attempt something that is way beyond our strength and capacity or is simply pursued in a prideful and deluded manner that will be guaranteed to result in spiritual harm to oneself and others.
With that, I will quote and summarize what Rose had to say about the possibility of, and risks and pitfalls to, pursuing monasticism in today’s world. I have not used ellipses or other indications of redactions; just know this is a partial and not continuous quote. This is a difficult book to find, and expensive second-hand. It is possible to find it online in PDF format with some searches. Rose’s reflections on the situation in the West still have much to teach us. The situation may be a bit more “mature” than the time at which he wrote, but much of what he had to say continues to apply to us here today.
“The [monastic] aspirant who wishes to undertake the monastic life today finds before him three general types of monastic situation:
“1. A long-established institution with a definite place in the church ‘organization’. … Such institutions perform an immense and difficult – and usually thankless – labor in handing down the Orthodox monastic tradition as well as possible in a world that is profoundly hostile to it: these monasteries are actually citadels of Orthodoxy in a foreign world. Monastic aspirants today, however, are easily disillusioned by such monasteries, looking at their faults (both real and imagined) with an overly-critical eye, and regarding them as ‘idiorhythmic’ and as having departed from pure monastic traditions; those who do stay in such monasteries can find it a heavy burden, due most of all to the immense disharmony between the Orthodox spiritual life and the life of the contemporary world. But the unbroken connection with the past in such communities, and the very suffering required to remain in them, continue to produce spiritual fruit. Those who can remain in them without falling into apathy, carelessness, or discouragement can attain to a high spiritual state; but very often the young aspirant will leave them in order to seek something more ‘correct’ or ‘perfect’.
“2. An individual struggler, usually a convert, inspired with the highest monastic ideals (often skete or hermit life), ‘opens a monastery’ and begins to live according to his idea or adaption of the great monastic strugglers of the past, sometimes attracting a few disciples. This is the most dangerous of the monastic path open today. Its great temptation is over-reliance on oneself; its great pitfall is loss of contact with the age-old monastic tradition. The 20th century has already had a rich experience of eccentric ‘elders’ whose ultimate authority is their own opinions. Prof. I.M. Kontzevitch, in his classic work Monastery and its Epoch felt compelled to write a special section on the false elders’ who cripple and ruin so many souls in their spiritual pretentiousness; among converts this is an especially dangerous temptation. Even when they do not go far astray, such ‘elders’ are seldom able to offer the monastic aspirant anything more than their own inexperienced human opinions of what monastic struggles should be. Often, in such monastic attempts, spiritual wounds remain unhealed through a lack of mutual trust between spiritual father and spiritual child; thus deeply-rooted sins and inclinations may remain unconfessed and untreated. (This can happen in the ‘established monasteries also, but usually with less serious spiritual consequences since the authentic monastic environment itself can at least partially compensate for any personal deficiencies.) Sometimes, also unknown to the aspirant himself, the energy for struggles comes more from the passions, especially from hidden pride and vainglory, than from a genuine thirst for God. Numerous examples from the past, to be sure, show that such a path is a _possible_ one; but the conditions of today’s world render the probability of success and spiritual soundness in such an undertaking rather small. When his own spiritual energy and resources are exhausted, the individual struggler on such a path often collapses and gives us spiritual struggle (and sometimes Orthodoxy) altogether. …
“3. More often in recent years: a group of two or more young strugglers rediscovers the ancient traditions of monasticism and begins to struggle together, usually in a coenobitic way of life. Traditional monastic phenomena are spoken about and sometimes strictly followed: ‘hesychasm,’ ‘elders,’ ‘confession of thoughts,’ strict obedience, and the like. Such groups open new monasteries or move into old monasteries and ‘renew’ them, and often they have notable success, especially if their leader has personal ‘charisma’. The leader is characteristically Orthodox ‘by blood’, not a convert, although the group as a whole may seem to have definite ‘convert’ characteristics. Such groups have a rather good chance of relative stability and outward success, but they face special dangers which should not be underemphasized. Among the chief temptations to such groups, especially if they are very successful are: outward success can blind them to inward deficiencies, community solidarity and well-being can cause them to become inflated with a false sense of their own importance, and the appearance of ‘correctness can produce spiritual smugness and disdain of those outside of the group who are not so ‘correct’. If these temptations are not overcome, a deadly ‘group pride’ can take the place of individual pride and lead the whole community on a fatal path which none of its members can recognize because it is not his _personal_ doing; the ‘renewed’ community can become so much out of harmony with the ‘unrenewed’ rest of the Church as to form a virtual ‘jurisdiction’ of its own, and even end in a schism brought about by its own exaggerated feeling of ‘correctness’.
“In view of these contemporary monastic situations, all of them with their particular dangers and temptations, it would not be an exaggeration to state that Orthodox monasticism as a whole in the late 20th century, despite a few appearances of outward prosperity, is weak, fragile, shallow-rooted and mostly immature. Any of the three paths that have been described (and other paths) _could_ produce sound monastic fruit; but the probability of failure, as well as of spiritual fakery, is greater than ever before.
“Monasticism, despite its other-worldly goal, is still in the world, and its state cannot but reflect the state of the world contemporary to it. The pampered, self-satisfied, self-centered young people who form the vast majority of those who come to monasticism today cannot but bring with them their worldly ‘baggage’ of attitudes and habits, and these in turn cannot but affect the monastic environment.
“To commit oneself to a conscious battle against the principles and habits of modern comfort is a rare and dangerous thing; and thus it is no wonder that our monasticism is so weak – it cannot but reflect the feebleness of Orthodox life in general today.
“In all humility let us admit the poverty of our Christianity, the coldness of our love for God, the emptiness of our spiritual pretensions; and let us use this confession as the _beginning_ of our monastic path.
“The monastic life, indeed, even in our times of feeble faith, is still above all _the love of Christ_, the Christian life par excellence, experienced with many patient sufferings and much pain.”
Found it:
https://archive.org/details/vitapatrumlifeof0000greg
Great. I’m familiar with that one. That site you to digitally “borrow” it an hour at a time and cannot be downloaded. Here is a PDF version that you can save as a file and also print:
https://payhip.com/b/Jxa8z
Oo, thanks!
Got it. I donated US$5.00. I don't know if that was appropriate.
Great. I’m sure he appreciates the donation. He has a wealth of Orthodox works there as something of a public service since many works are out of print and difficult to obtain otherwise. Hope you enjoy it.
Actually this specific thing is of great interest to me personally. I became an Oblate at Norcia, and soon learned the very early history of monasticism in the Valnernina. A group of Syrian monks in the 4th century, chased out of their desert by Nestorian heretics, came to Italy to ask the pope for a place to live their monastic life. Many of them headed up to Umbria where I live, and settled here and did much to convert the still pagan population here; one of them became the first bishop of Narni. Another, St. Isaac of Spoleto, settled on the site of an ancient pagan "sacred forest" at Spoleto, up on the mountain called Monteluco (Mountain of light) and set up a great monastic foundation there. Its direct descendant survives to this day in the form of a Franciscan monastery. From Monteluco monks of the Syrian type spread into the Valnernia and established a monastery at what is now called San Eutizio. And it was there that Sts Benedict and Scolastica travelled as young people to learn the monastic way of life. This is a fascinating story I want to tell on the website at some point.
That's fascinating. I think you will enjoy the book. There are maps and detailed geographical descriptions and photos included in the book, and you can still visit some of these sites and villages. Rose's narrative of the brothers Sts. Romanus and Lupicinus and of their sister Yole, who was a nun, provides a fascinating view into the pioneering efforts of these strugglers to establish an authentic monastic presence in Gaul.
The reason why Rose decided to translate this book was to try to show that the West also has "Eastern", i.e. Orthodox roots. It was Rose's spiritual father, St. John Maximovich, who had been biship of Paris before he went to San Francisco, who taught Rose of the importance of investigating and reintroducing the Western experience of Orthodoxy. Rose dedicated the translation to St. John: "himself the most recent of the great Orthodox Hierarchs of Gaul and new Apostle to the lands of the West."
While its a bit further afield, Rose also translated a book called The Northern Thebaid, about the early pioneers of Russian monasticism and hermeticism in the "deserts" of the North. Again, can be found in pdf form online:
https://archive.org/details/northernthebaidm00rose
Erm... among them, I see, is Mein Kampf...
???
Huh. I've visited that site only because there are a lot of Seraphim Rose's works available there. I wouldn't necessarily read too much into that; it looks like he uploads various books. For what it's worth, he also has made available Seraphim Rose's book "Nihilism", which is staunchly anti-fascist and anti-Nazi.
Beautiful reflection. thank you for introducing me to Fr. Seraphim.
Ms. White, I recall you writing that you knew your time as a journalist and activist was over, while still being unable to see a door that would open onto the work to come. Until one day you stood before an art supplies shop (as I recall), which pointed to the passageway you'd been seeking.
Your offerings here at the Sacred Images Project feels to me like such a door. I have been wandering in a circle for so long. Somehow you have pointed to the possibility of a very concrete direction. Thank you. May God bless you always and in all things.
I'm extremely pleased to see this. Feel free to drop a message if you need anything.
Thank you! I will be in touch.
It was an extremely difficult period, and because it's me one fraught with a great deal of anxiety about the future - because apparently even at this age I still haven't learned that things *happening* in life isn't the most important part - and quite long. I had moved to Norcia in 2014, but didn't leave Lifesite until the following year, and continued to write about All That, in various ways until 2017. After that a feeling like a cone of silence fell over me and I lost all ability to write. That time, 4.5 years in a farm house in the middle of nowhere, was like entering a cocoon stage. I felt it was correct for me to live through it and wait for whatever was next, but it was still very difficult. I'm the sort of person who likes to solve problems, and just sitting quietly in the countryside with no real plan, waiting for a signal from God, was not in my nature. It was an eremitical period in a way, and I understand a little more how difficult true eremitical life would be. One never asks, while marvelling at the apparent miracle, how the caterpillar feels being transformed that way. It can't be easy.
I saw in your story quite similar parallels with my own struggle since I came to Germany long ago, which became steadily more difficult after I started freelancing. I only returned to the Church in May of last year, and since I recently started going to Mass and receiving Communion every day, mental barriers that always had seemed impregnable have been falling. Germany as a nation is a horrible place to be Catholic. So my paramount worldly concern now is to be in a better location. Better in the sense that it will make it less difficult for me to serve. While accepting that it may be God’s will for me to remain here. That is why I am praying my version of your art supplies “window” will appear soon. To be continued
Yes, I love Germany and get on probably best with Germans of all the European national characters, but the country itself, politically and socially, is extremely depressing. I think the only place that's worse would be the UK.
I can recommend Italy, though.
I love you, Hilary, God bless you.
I bet your Sts Benedict and Scolastica story will make a great YA book with your beautiful art, to cancel out all the trash out there. So much of what we’ve written is lost on the interwebs, it’s ridiculous. Therefore, why not permanence? You know so much & can weave all you know for God’s Glory.
God be with you.🔥