Saturday, 8 November 2014

‘Wednesday Talks’ on Rule of St. Benedict. talk by Br. Philip

"To become a Cistercian..."
Brother Philip ocso Nunraw
Community Chapter ‘Wednesday Talks’ on Rule of St. Benedict
Nunraw Abbey, South Cloister sunset Silhouette  


Community Chapter ‘Wednesday Talks’ on Rule of St. Benedict
5 November 2014. Br. Philip –  

CLOISTER - To become a Cistercian.

To become a Cistercian is to undertake to live in a separate place, which is the monastery. It also implies we ‘leave the world’. What this means, in effect, we leave behind all those ties which have been part of our lives up to now. We leave family & friends, we leave the family home. We are attracted by another place, by its ethos and spirit.

These speak to us of a presence, of someone who live there, who has made his dwelling in this place, and now he invites us to join him, to dwell with him. He has chosen the men who are there and has given them to one another as brothers. If these new ties are to grow, we must distance ourselves from the others we love. But they will grow strong in the trial, and will find family and friends again in a deeper and more abiding union. For that union will be enriched with the newness of God and we will live again in the true new communion of Spirit. However,, this separation from family & friends, even though generously desired and sought is powerful. It involves saying goodbye to those whom we love, and entering a new way of life, a whole new set of relationships.

This is the first experience of what we call ‘cloister’. It sets the bounder of this place, is its distinguishing characteristic, and lends an air of mystery to the monastery and its life No one can understand the meaning of ‘cloister’, with solitude and loneliness and its aloneness unless he comes to the monastery on more than one passing visit. If he is to understand it he must come to live there. A person who comes to join the monastery does this because he has chosen the place that he wishes to be faithful to the cloister. The Lord who dwells here will not allow his search to end in failure.

Perhaps later on the aspirant will feel he has failed to find God in the monastery, and decide to leave, if this happens, the vey shape and appearance of the cloister, speaking to him as it does of peace and prayer and rest in God, will recall him to his purpose, and in this he will hear the last appeal of his Lord. The very stones will speak to him.

The Community has a special character of its own. This group of monks and nuns has entered a whole the tradition and this is so even if the monastery is recently founded. It incarnates its own spirit in a life style both old and new, and to a large extent it is through this life style that the community spirit is pass on to others.
Br. Philip..


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