On the Contemplative Life
Attwater, Donald
404 THE COMMONWEAL September 1, 1926 ON THE CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE ...
...Of course he the Benedictines of Farnborough, Quarr, and Buck- was merely repeating hoary old legends accepted by fast, draw most of their subjects from abroad, but many Catholics and non-Catholics alike...
...Heroic characters are of communities of such is of the greatest importance to wasted in an environment where energy is too often the healthy religious state of any country...
...I am glad to say that later editions of this...
...Only in the cloister can be formed any ademonk's work is to supply their deficiencies...
...from sorow and contrition and such penance as God will It is now more than two centuries since the worthy require of us personally...
...Yet we continue to pass is filled with grief and resentment to hear the [contem- over many without recognition...
...Thinking of this profound truth, one down to us from the past...
...It cannot be denied present, when western civilization is under the influence that among otherwise exemplary people, the exercise of a degrading materialism to an extent not equaled of self-sacrifice and spiritual works, hidden from the even by the grossness of the eighteenth century, the eyes of the world and known only to God, is often held contemplative monasteries are refuges of sane and holy to be of little account...
...correctly...
...Our French professor, versities and colleges, its institutions and associations, a native of France, once remarked that these monks its energy in every form of Christian activity, the dig a portion of their own graves daily, that they most astonishing thing of all is a scarcity of purely con- sleep in their coffins, and that they always salute each templative communities of men...
...This, with the conventual celebraa fairly accurate idea of the meaning of the ex- tion of the sacred liturgy, forms a daily labor of love, pression, the "contemplative life...
...Not that my learned preceptors were actu. . . but who also atone for the sins of other men still ated by any unfairness of motive...
...ous bodily or mental activity-and that, as a rule, not But though most English-speaking Catholics know much more than half of the working day is spent in roughly what the contemplative life is, it is regret- prayer...
...As for the errors of plative] life . . . described as a "useless and selfish life...
...us as so very necessary...
...Everything else, private prayer and meditaTeresians, Poor Clares, whose life has certain definite tion, enclosure, silence, and fasting are only subsidiary obligations, as the observance of the vows of religion, to the same end...
...Yet it may be just the one thing Although, as Browne shrewdly observes, any work wanting to make the rest of our works efficacious...
...he cannot point, with toward God, exercised directly to His honor, and, the friar-preacher, to crowds moved by eloquence to secondarily, for the good of men...
...nor, with the Franciscan, to vicious slums rebe unceasing, in season and out of season...
...And at results through a brazen trumpet...
...dealing with vulgar errors "is not to be performed upon one legg," and, in fact, "should smell of oyle, Pius XI, in confirming the revised statutes of the if duly and deservedly handled," nevertheless I think Carthusian order last year, gave an unexampled pane- it may prove profitable (or at least, amusing) to scrugyvie of the contemplative life tinize a few errors concerning Catholicism which still All those who, according to their rule, lead a secluded flourish in certain quarters...
...The Carthusians at Parkminster, might be a book by Sarah Bernhardt...
...inactive" men is incalculable ; there are many English The first edition of Pierre Larousse's Universal DicCatholics who can confirm it by personal experience...
...It may bring to a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and is the heart their minds, first of all, hermits and semi-eremitical of the monastic system and the chief means of attainorders such as the Carthusian...
...Since, from formed...
...but to draw down by their ex- doctor died, and still every day sees the downfall of traordinary penance that extraordinary mercy and those some common error, and the rise of another to take superabundant graces, without which this country will never its place...
...voluntary, of mind and body-such, indeed, must be said After all, a certain amount of ignorance must be predito have chosen the best part...
...but each one forms a family of which every templative ideals that even among Catholics there is member strives after union with God by fixing upon too great a tendency with those who wish to do good Him the faculties of the soul, and withdrawing as far to rush into all forms of activity, without pausing to as possible from all worldly distractions...
...all con- taken...
...Saint Benedict, in particular, provided for being directed toward an increase of spiritual life and the health and recreation of his monks by careful regunearer approach to God...
...The chief quate idea of the spiritual force generated by these men work of the contemplative "to which nothing is to be of prayer-and then it is inferred rather than seen...
...The same authorreviled, but still Catholic, doctrines of vicarious expiation and communion of saints...
...When fits are in a great measure hidden also...
...The contemthat idea has once been grasped, the scope of the con- plative cannot present a spiritual profit and loss account templative life becomes clearer...
...and then, in greater ment to a life devoted to God's personal and direct numbers, monks and nuns, Benedictines, Cistercians, service...
...The presence ask: "Is there a better way...
...They are, if dissipated in solicitude over material things, and noth- the expression may be used, spiritual powerhouses from ing is accepted as good that does not proclaim its which virtue goes forth throughout the land...
...his cell...
...and certain definite absten- lations about manual labor...
...Such a spirit is so unfavorable to con- do not...
...within comparatively recent years that standard works while the Benedictines of Caldey Island are all natives of reference have begun to report the Trappist rule of the British Isles...
...We all acknowledge penance...
...preferred," is the Opus Dei-i.e., the solemn singing Many of those who criticize contemplatives would in choir of the Divine Office-the seven offices at the name the Society of Jesus as their ideal of what the Septetnber 1, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 40 religious life should be...
...living in a world plague-stricken with mad pleasure"The essential idea of the monastic and contem- seeking-places of refreshment, light, and peace within plative life is to give oneself wholly and without the borders of what indeed seems very like a reserve to God...
...ing standards of monastic observance in this as in other The spirit of the times may be summed up in the respects...
...in some monasteries there is stricter silence than noting feverish activity and an exaltation of material in others...
...nor with the Jesuits, to a continent evangelthe necessity and efficacy of prayer...
...404 THE COMMONWEAL September 1, 1926 ON THE CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE By DONALD ATTWATER P ROBABLY all instructed Catholics, though per- proper hours, Matins and Lauds by night, and the haps not able to give an exact definition, have remainder by day...
...There are, of course, varyabsolute necessity, but even its essential propriety...
...tionary of the Nineteenth Century (of which the volAnd we marvel that the Church in the United States, ume containing the article, Trappe, appeared in 1876) with its fifteen or more millions of members, has found not only recounted the grave-digging and mementoto few men to go into a desert place apart, to pray, mori legends but also stated that every Trappist or to stand on a hill with arms upraised to God to keeps a human skull for purposes of meditation in reinforce the combatants for Christ in the plain below...
...KNOWLEDGE," wrote Sir Thomas Browne, How can we fast and pray whose daily work suffers from "is made by oblivion, and to purchase a clear our lack of time and strength to do it...
...Different forms of manual labor are underwords, enjoyment, efficiency and competition...
...It doubtless surprises critics tions as from public preaching, mission work, and of the contemplative life to learn that among contemabsorption in any other form of what is commonly platives the daily routine includes many hours of strenuknown as religious activity...
...A sense of the "dignity of labor" is one of the tably true that some of them dispute not merely its great Benedictine traditions...
...It was only one of many such offenders...
...Not until its eleventh edition (I9Io-I I ) We have the word of the Supreme Pontiff to the did the Encyclopaedia Britannica cease to propagate Church in England that the value of these bodies of these errors...
...It is only two at least of these houses include English monks...
...the singing in choir of the Divine Office, and the de- But activity toward God does not consist entirely votion of fixed periods to private prayer-the whole of prayer...
...some abstain entirely from flesh-meat, others prosperity...
...but prayer should ized...
...God Himself has told us that He devil's garden...
...There is comfort and warrantable body of truth we must forin the principle of the division of labor, and in those much get and part with much we know...
...They merely remore than for their own by mortification, prescribed or peated innocently what they had received uncritically...
...other with the "memento mori...
...When asked for tangible results, he cannot necessity, few Christians in the world can give the say, "Lo, here I" nor "Lo, there 1," but just, "Come time they should to devotion, not the least part of a and see...
...cated even of pedagogues...
...It is activity-but for the confounding of the critic...
...To a foreigner observing the greatness of the Some of the most curious errors heard in the classChurch in America, its millions of adherents, its uni- room concerned the Trappists...
...is not served exclusively, or even primarily, by those But as the contemplative is a hidden life, so its benewho are "troubled concerning many things...
...We must have some of our ity called the things of which it is a gain in wisdom number to go apart, and fast and pray and do penance for to clear one's mind, "vulgar errors," and indeed these the rest of us-not certainly to excuse us in sin, not to latter furnished both theme and title for a famous cover our idleness and neglect of duty, not to exempt us volume of his...
...We may be quick to discover errors handed be brought to God...
...life, remote from the din and follies of the world, and As a student in various large universities, I soon who not only assiduously contemplate the divine mysteries learned that it is not only the mob which cherishes and the eternal truths, and pour forth ardent and con- misconceptions of the dogma and discipline of the tinual prayers to God that His Kingdom may flourish Church...
...But a well-known and revSOME VULGAR ERRORS erend Jesuit, Father Rickaby, has said: By ROBERT J. KANE We could have more conversions, if we did more penance to procure them...
...Later, upon my In Great Britain, with a doubtful two and a half asking for the source of this information, he answered million of Catholics, there are five monasteries of that he was unable to recall it exactly, but thought it contemplative men...
...our own day, they, of course, are often accepted as "To pray for the living and the dead," and to add fasting to the prayer of intercession, as Tobias did, does not strike more or less valuable contributions to knowledge...
...That is not a pleasing thing to think of...
Vol. 4 • September 1926 • No. 17
