Monks

'Monasticism' is literally the act of 'dwelling alone'. A monk is someone who has separated himself from what might be called the "world". Since he often lived in a community being alone did not mean he was not with others.

The levites of Israel called out by Moses from an organized society established around the Golden calf made themselves a separate society belonging to God. While they had areas that were separate from the general population they also served a purpose within the greater needs of society.

Being separate from the world has been a common theme and practice of religious orders from the beginning

But to be a separate religious society one must practice religion which requires service to the homes of the people.

The ascetic life stile is characterized by or suggesting the practice of severe self-discipline and abstention from all forms of indulgence, typically for religious reasons.

But to truly be an ascetic one must sacrifice their own comfort, wealth and social security for the benefit of others. We are all to love our neighbor as ourselves but the ascetic loves his neighbor more than him or herself.

The self imposed ascetic life style of deprivation or austere sacrifice without a religious purpose of fulfilling your duty to God and your fellowman is in essence vanity.

While a true monk does not lay up wealth his vow of poverty does not mean he may punish himself with sacrifice just for sacrifice sake. What he gives up must be for strengthen the poor in the hope that they be not poor in spirit but will also seek to give and forgive freely.

Monasticism had been structured, ordered and significant part of the Church life since before Christ. It had a local character in each community with its own customs, practices and collection of rules, which would change with time.

Benedict of Nursia was born around 480AD into a wealthy family and a world at war. Benedict did not invent the idea of monasticism as part of the Christianity. Benedict brought structure to monasticism and provided some stability if not uniformity.

Rules of St Benedict
http://www.osb.org/rb/text/toc.html#toc

Columbanus was an Irish missionary who founded a number of monasteries in Europe around 590 in the Frankish and Lombard kingdoms. The most notable was Luxeuil Abbey in present-day France and Bobbio Abbey[1] in present-day Italy.

Columbanus taught a Celtic monastic rule and Celtic penitential practices for those repenting of sins, which emphasized private confession to a priest, followed by penances levied by the priest.

Benedict of Aniane advanced the establishment and interpretation of those rules with the support of Charlemagne during the end of the 8th century. By 843 with the decline of the Caroglian Empire monasteries were often plundered driving the monks to become wandering groups of mendicants.

These rules have lasted for centuries in part because they survived the cleansing efforts of the inquisitions which also had the spirit of control.

The Cistercian order was founded when Robert, Abbot of Molesme, left the Benedictines with twenty fellow monks to found a monastery in Cîteaux, near Dijon in France in 1098.

The were reacting against the wealth and opulence of many Benedictine monasteries. They sought to restore monastic life to the original spirit. Th spread rapidly, and by the year 1200 had founded over 500 Cistercian houses in Western Europe.

The Cistercians followed the Rule of St Benedict more literally, placing a strong emphasis on simplicity, austerity and isolation.

Rules will not hold man's soul in check.

Rules are the tools of corruption.

Without virtue all fails.

Virtue thrives in the love of service.

In England there was a period called the ‘Dissolution of the Monasteries’. Henry VIII had become king in 1509. At that time there was nearly 900 religious houses in England and Wales consisting of abbeys, and smaller houses often called priories or nunneries with term friary used to describe the smallest of these religious houses.

Some were open and some were closed. The members of an open house worked with the local sick and poor in the local community. They also provided teachers for the young. Their practice of compassion and service for the welfare of the people often kept them poor and loved by the people. Closed religious houses were closed to all those outside of those who lived in that religious house and many were very wealthy.

There had been many factors that had contributed to the wealth and therefor the corruption of monasteries. There was a centralization of power with the rise of kings in the world. Those kings could take and take and take and could confiscate the wealth of families. This often caused families to pledge land to religious orders. Often at the same times members of their families would enter those orders to secure some interest in their property id not influence. Wherever there was a concentration of wealth corruption would fester.

The Church was established by Christ to be the social welfare of the people through faith hope and charity. Only people who loved one another could remain free souls under God. The covering of the Church comes from the service to the people by the free will offerings of the people which provides for the people fulfilling the duty to God and our fellowman. With out the practice of that in pure religion there is no covering for the Church

Henry VIII had spent a great deal of this inheritance by the 1530. Some of the monasteries were the wealthy. Men like Thomas Cromwell falsely spread the idea that a great deal of their annual wealth went to the Vatican. Some that wealth certainly did go to the Vatican and with that churches influence all over Europe the Vatican could was made rich. But the greatest wealth was in the influence local controlled wealth could exercise over the political environment within each nation.

Wealthy and powerful men could win popular support of the people by donating to the open priories, nunneries and friars. But corruption of centuries under the influence of kings and not so noble Nobles had taken its toll on what should have been His Church.

Where is the spirit of Christ in the modern Church?

What minister will make himself poor to provide the benefaction of Christ?

If we look back at the history of the Church where is the history of repentance?

Before Henry Cardinal Wolsey and eventually Thomas Cromwell had shut down religious houses in England because they were no longer effective. Property had been confiscated and sold by the cardinal to provide for charitable purposes such as a school in Ipswich.

We can see an attempt at change in religious houses around 1535. Cromwell as vicegerent oversaw the running of the Church not merely from the top of the Church hierarchy but by the State through his Valor Ecclesiasticus. That power now corrupted the state because it could muffle and even control the Church through its centralized top down authority.

Should there have been a Church hierarchy or a king to take its place?

The highest in the Church should be the best servant of the church not a ruler. This means that the people must keep the church pure by their wise and benevolent offerings given to those they see serving the true needs of the people and serving to strengthen the poor.

When elders of families are slothful in their duty to God and their fellow man the kings and fathers of the earth will take power until the people "cry out" but "the LORD will not hear you in that day."

The protection of the Church is the virtue of Christ dwelling in the hearts and minds of the people.

You would think with top down authority of the state over the Church that the most corrupt abbeys would be rooted out first. But power corrupts and the reverse took place.

The Suppression of Religious Houses Act of 1535 stated that any monastery with an income of less than £200 a year, which was assessed by the Valor Ecclesiasticus), was to be dissolved. Their property would pass to the Crown.

The heads of the houses were to be offered a pension. But the monks and friars who often did the work of the Church were forced to enter larger religious houses.

They could also choose to abandon their vows of poverty and loyalty to the leaers of their orders and go live in some other society but still keeping their vow of chastity.

Forty percent of the religious houses fell within this category of having little income. Most were closed but at least 60 or 70 were given royal permission by Henry to remain open if they would pay the king what often amounted to their entire year’s income. This meant an increase in revenue for the king from £13,500 to £15,500 per year and a devastation of the better part of the Church.

Those commissioned by the king set upon the small monasteries quickly so that valuable metal including gold, silver, bronze and lead could be taken by the government and melted down. Tenants were often removed if they did not swear allegiance to the king or were expected to have loyalty to the Church and the land was rented out.

Some locals would complain but the government was sure to auction off to the local population or allowed them to be looted with impunity. Many monasteries became dismantled ruins. The farther from London you went the more virtue you found in the people. In the North were one of the causes of the [Pilgrimage of Grace and the Lincolnshire Rising] along with the Bigod's Rebellion, some of the most serious Tudor rebellions.

But their efforts were doomed and they were indicted of high treason against the King, and that day condemned by a jury of knights and esquires for the same, whereupon they had sentence to be drawn, hanged and quartered, others were " hanged, bowelled and quartered, and their heads set on London Bridge and divers gates in London"

The people as a whole did not support their courage as they had to long been weakened by serfdom and servitude. If people are to be free the Church must always strive to give power and liberty to the people. The purpose of Christ was to aid everyman in becoming head of his house and priest to his family. The higher Liberty is the original right to choose the distribution of your time, labor and wealth.

MARRIED MONKS AND NUNS.

A brief history

Some think today that Monastic life is bound by ascetical practices expressed typically in the vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience, called the evangelical counsels.

But celibacy is an aberration and not a part of the original Church established by Christ. The English word celibacy derives from the Latin caelibatus, "state of being unmarried". Being caelibatus or being a virgin as mentioned in Revelation may not have meant being unmarried.

• "Many of the early monks and nuns married— They lived in their own

houses— These persons led stricter lives than others in their ordinary dwellings — They gave much time to devotions and Bible study — Such was the course of Pelagius — Bingham on married monks — Athanasius on monks who were fathers of children— Augustine's statement— Many of St. Patrick's monks and "virgins of Christ" were no doubt married— Devoted much time to Scripture reading— Probably conducted cottage Bible schools very extensively— There is no evidence that Patrick ever established a monastery."

• "... St. Augustine, writing against the hereticks who called

themselves " Apostolics," says : "They arrogantly assumed to them- selves that name because they rejected all from their communion who had either wives or estates, of which sort the Catholic church had many, both monks and clergy."

• "And yet, the greatest theologian of the Christian ages, during Patrick's

ministry in Ireland, denounced the heretical Apostolics for excommunicating the many monks and clergy of the Catholic church who had either wives or estates."

Peter and the apostles that Jesus chose were, for the most part, married men. The New Testament implies that women presided at Eucharistic meals in the early church. In he Second and Third Century most priests were married.

But things changed as a different Church rose to power. From the beginning God created man and woman to be one flesh but there was an influence that crept in to the church to divide and conquer what God Joined together.

In 306 a Council of Elvira, in Spain, decreed that a priest who sleeps with his wife the night before Mass will lose his job. Decree #43

By 325 at the Council of Nicea some chose to exercise authority one over the other and decreed that after ordination a priest could not marry and also proclaimed the Nicene Creed.

Later in 352 another Council of Laodicea ruled that women are not to be ordained. This suggests that before this time there was ordination of women. Both Paul and Peter talked highly of women and early Christians were marked if not mocked for their stand on equality of both men and women as vessels and instruments of the Holy Spirit.

Pope Damasus who had overturned the popular choice for "bishop of Rome" in 366 declared that priests could continue to marry, but that they were not allowed to express their love intimately with their wives. Those who opposed the presence of women in the Church as wives of their husbands also favored and used force of arms to secure their position.

Jerome, around 400 AD, believed that women were bad news for men and that they were uncontrollable, excessively passioned, and unreasonable. Although, the writings and opinions of Jerome and others were enormously influential in defining what has been historically touted as the Church in the medieval world, their conclusions seem to fly in the face of God’s creative instincts.

• “And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.” Genesis 2:22

Jerome inferred that women were inferior “they degraded men.”

• “And Adam said, This [is] now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” Genesis 2:23, 24

By 385 we see Siricius left his wife and children in order to become a pope although there is little evidence such office existed at that time. He even went so far as to decree that priests may no longer sleep with their wives but was unable to enforce compliance.

By the 40 century Augustine who knew most Christians priests and monks were married wrote, “Nothing is so powerful in drawing the spirit of a man downwards as the caresses of a woman.” Of course there was equal criticism of such positions but to the victor goes the power to write history.

Later at the 2nd Council of Tours in 567 it was said that any cleric found in bed with his wife would be excommunicated for a year and reduced to the lay state. This seems to have nothing to do with Christ who is not seen telling his apostles things like this and directly contradicts the teachings of Paul.

The Pope Pelagius II offered a policy that no one was to bother married priests as long as they did not hand over church property to wives or children. Here is where you find the motivation for celibacy.

The Church was growing in power and wealth and with that a desire to control. Divide and conquer was the plan used to undermine God's natural union of man and women.

During the 7th century we find the majority of priest in France were married. And as late as the 8th Century St. Boniface reported that in Germany there were almost no bishop or priest who were celibate.

But we also see Pope Gregory “the Great” saying that all sexual desire is sinful in itself. But by 1930 Pope Pius XI would shift back to sex can be good and holy.

The Church was not homogenous and many ideas had crept into the thinking of Christians and clerics alike. Monasticism was often trying to impose an unnatural purity and behind walls of cloistered abbeys where men began to exercise authority more than brotherhood unnatural approaches to relationships and life began to bear their fruit. Ninth Century.

Council of Aix-la-Chapelle in 836 admitted that abortions and infanticide took place in convents and monasteries. Bishop Ulrich who would be declared a saint, argued from scripture and common sense that the only way to purify the church from the worst excesses of celibacy was to permit priests to marry.

As late as the 11th Century a Benedict IX dispensed himself from celibacy and resigned as Pope in order to marry but by 1074 Pope Gregory VII decreed that you must first pledge celibacy before you are to be ordained and that ‘priests [must] first escape from the clutches of their wives.’ By 1095 Pope Urban II who ordered the first bloody Crusade. He empowered the Norman ruler Roger I to appoint bishops rom the top down and collect taxes for the Church and forward them on to Rome.

At the Synod of Melfi, enforces clerical celibacy by granting to secular rulers the authority to reduce the wives of clerics to slavery and children were abandoned.

While 12th Century Popes Calistus II and Innocent II during the First and Second Lateran Councils decreed that clerical marriages were invalid Pope John Paul II said "Celibacy is not essential to the Priesthood." This may at least bring in debate over the 1869 claim in the First Vatican Council to the infallibility of pope.

Celibacy was about control and property. Even in different imperial kingdoms those in charge of the treasury were sometimes required to be virgins or celibate, even to the point of becoming eunuchs. But that was not the way of the early Church or Christ.

All this imposed rules of Celibacy and top down rule would go away if people would simply listen to Christ and the Church would return to being the Benefactors who do9 not exercise authority one over the other.

• "Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures" Dr. Johnson Rasselas

Lost Monks

Abbey of Cambron http://kenstraussposts.blogspot.com/2007/06/160607-abbey-of-cambron.html

The story of a Cistercian Abbey founded in 1148 by Saint Bernard. Its monks served the poor for the first several-hundred year.

In appreciative local landowners gave the abbey many tracts of fertile land that by the 1600’s it extended over more than 6000 hectares (nearly 15,000 acres).

Austerity vanished until their monks were known more for their wealth than servie ‘riche comme un moine de Cambron’ (‘as rich as a monk from Cambron’).

Drawn by greed for the abbey’s treasures and resentment of its political power Louis XIV attacked it with 12,000 men and 18 cannon and through the 18th century corruption and decadence were rife.

In 1789 the Austrian emperor, Joseph II, withdrew financial support, alleging that it had become ‘useless’ as a religious order.

Today the ruins of this abbey have been converted into one of the largest bird sanctuaries in Europe.

Modern Monastic life

Mepkin Abbey

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Modern Monastic life part 1-3 of many

on YouTube The Monastery 2005 episode 1 of 3 http://youtu.be/ch0SY2pHkDg

Interesting examination of monastic life as seen through the eyes of 5 volunteers.

It is really all about and the psychology and even the deception of a mental prison monastic life may form. The institutionalizing of monks as you sometime see with prisoners is common and not part of Christ's plan.

Monastic life is not without its own merits. It this isolated life where many distractions are stripped away you see men dealing with the problems of relationships.

Of course the same problems can be confronted by married monks as with any married people. What seems to be in short supply amongst some modern Monks and Churches in general is pure religion.

The purpose of the Church as an institution of Christ has been very much abandoned by most religions and Churches.

So what should real monastic life be like?

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Monks | Minister | Titular Servants | Elder | Deacon | Bishop | Overseer |
ordain | appoint | Orders | Religious Orders | Rules of St Benedict |
Married Monks | Mendicant | Lost Monks | Monasticism | Modern Monastic life |
Churches | Levites | Vow of poverty | All things common | Guidelines |
Liturgy | Priests | Eucharist | Daily ministration | Christian conflict |
Diocletianic Persecution | Altars | Fringes | Breeches | Red heifer | Sabbath |