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MARRIED
MONASTICISM
The Companions of New Skete, a
married monastic community, was founded as the third New Skete community in
1983. The following year, His Beatitude, Metropolitan Theodosius, primate of the
Orthodox Church in
America
, officially visited our community and blessed our dwelling and our life as
married monastics. The members of this community live a monastic life in common.
As a monastic community in the church, it exists for the spiritual growth
of its members in fellowship with the monks and nuns of New Skete, according to
the principles of monastic life, consecrated to the vows of poverty, chastity
and obedience.
Monastic life is a life of prayer, contemplation,
liturgical worship, and work, most often lived in community. When we are asked,
“What is essential to monastic life?” Our response is, “A consuming love
for God, above all else.” Love
of God is primary, and is never in competition with any other relationship. Our
human condition impels us to transcend ourselves, to seek the creator. This is
the lifelong quest of every human soul. If one is married, one’s spouse is not
in competition with this love, but strengthens it through mutual love for each
other in the sacrament of marriage.
Married monasticism is a uniting of two seemingly
different modes of being, marriage and monasticism.
To most people, it seems incongruous; to those of us who have been living
it for twenty three years, it is very natural. From our experience, we would say
that it is essential that any couple who desires this life must first be
dedicated to their marriage as a sacrament and Christian vocation; marriage must
be vigorous and growing in depth and love in order to accommodate the various
demands of living a communal life, in addition to a spousal life. Further, each
partner in the marriage must individually also desire to embrace monastic life.
Both modes of being present a variety of challenges in new ways of experiencing
reality and understanding the depths and breadths of human existence. When these
commitments are present, there is the possibility for a real witness to Christ
in our midst. When two people are dedicated to each other and to seeking God in
each other, they serve not only themselves, but also all others whom they
encounter. Marital love is not
exclusive, rather, it is the opposite – it overflows to all.
This is not to say that the usual married life is
deficient somehow, and monastic life is a higher calling. Any person, married or
single, living in community or in the world can respond to the call of Christ. The
decision to enter monastic life is a decision to accept this life as a new
profession. Monastics are no longer
doctors, accountants, teachers, or whatever, even if they are called upon to use
these skills to assist the community. Dedicating ones life to seeking God with
people of like mind in a monastic community is changing the direction of one’s
life from involvement in the plethora of competing demands on one’s time and
energy to a refocusing of concentration on one area, the one thing necessary.
Monastic life provides all of the tools necessary to assist each person to
transcend oneself, to come to some insight, some understanding of ultimate
reality. In this way, married monasticism serves the entire church, as it
witnesses to all married couples who can see the value of emulating this life to
whatever degree they are able, although living in the world.
As married monastics we dedicate
ourselves to achieving a full flowering of human life, as embodied in Christ,
through our shared liturgical and communal life. As we believe that spiritual
traditions must continue to evolve in order to be a living reality, and the
practice of faith must be in relation to a given society and culture, we hope
that our witness will encourage others to consider this life.
As a married monastic community,
we strive to grow in faith and wisdom by willingly exploring, evaluating and
challenging all areas of our lives in loving, dynamic inter-relationship.
Balancing times of solitude, prayer, study, silence and work, we offer
ourselves to God as witnesses of married monasticism in contemporary
America
.
Recognizing the need for married
couples and individuals to make time to deepen the spiritual aspect of their
lives, we have set up three guest suites. Our non-directed retreats are intended
to immerse our guests in the daily rhythm of our monastic life.
Our desire is two-fold: to provide a place of beauty, solitude and
silence which will encourage guests to seek quiet reflection and prayer, and to
provide the opportunity for guests to interact with us, as well as members of
the monks’ and nuns’ communities, both in informal settings and in our
worship. By sharing our lives, we
try to bridge the gap between secular and monastic life. We hope that our guests
gain a better understanding of monastic life by participating in it, albeit for
a short time, and will return to secular life with a strengthened heart and
deeper commitment to Christ.
The following quote is an apt summation.
“Jesus calls
us to seek our unity in and through him. When we direct our inner attention not
first of all to each other, but to God to whom we belong, then we will discover
that in God we also belong to each other. The
deepest friendship is a friendship mediated by god; the strongest marriage bonds
are bonds mediated by God.”
Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Road to Daybreak
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