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| Brother Philip ocso Nunraw |
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| 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..
