A
monk or nun is a person in search of God, and in
some way a person who is called to monastic life
will be someone who is at least beginning to realise
that he needs to make this search a priority in life.
They are people who are able to let God give meaning
to their lives.
Our search for God is
already a response to the fact that God is calling
us, and one of the signs that he is calling us to
be a monk, will be our sense of attraction to monastic
life. People find monastic communities attractive
for many reasons. The community context of a life
of faith and prayer is often the reason people will
give when asked. For some it will be the dedicated
life of service that appeals to them, for others
it will be the life of contemplative prayer. Not
many newcomers will see themselves as school teachers,
but the value of a life of study and the desire to
share their love of faith and culture may well be
things that will grow during their early years in
the monastery. If they had wanted to be parish priests,
they could have gone to a seminary, but the sense
of solidarity they find in a monastic community,
and the way a monastery puts itself at the service
of a much wider community can awaken a strong sense
of the place of a monastery in the pastoral life
of the Church.
In general the monastic
path combines a serious desire to pray with a readiness
to give one’s life generously to serve God in the
practical ways of a community’s life and work, so
that God may be glorified in all that we are and
do.
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