In Response to a Weekend at a Monastery

I just spent my weekend (Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday until lunch) at St. Gregory Palamas Monastery in OH with a few guys from church. Although I came out of the weekend very tired, I also think that it was a great 'retreat' and would do it again in a heartbeat.

We arrived at the monastery around 11:30pm on Friday. As we settled ourselves we noticed a sign that informed us that the monastery practices silence from 8:00pm - 9:00am and thus we finished getting settled in silence.

In order not to bore you all with a lengthy more detailed account of the days let me just list our general schedule:

Friday:
11:30pm - Arrive

Saturday:
4:00am ~ 8:30am - Prayers, Matins, Liturgy at the Chapel.
Noon - Prayers and then lunch (in silence)
5:00pm - Prayers and then dinner (in silence)
7:00pm - Compline
8:00pm - 9:00am - Silence throughout entire monastery

Sunday:
6:00am ~ 11:30am - Prayers, Matins, hours, Liturgy
Noon - lunch (in silence)
1:30ish - depart in peace.

So that's the basic schedule. Since the three major emphasis of monasticism are Prayer, Work, and Silence even during the times that were not specifically designated as silent times we tried to remain quited and respectful. We were, however, able to have a few sit-down conversations with the Abbot of the monastery. Father Joseph (the Abbot) was an amazingly wise man and he said some very simple yet profound things to encourage us in our walks with the Lord.

Aside from the general tiredness from the early hours, I think the hardest part for me was the silence. It was wonderfully meditative, but it was also very hard. So often I just wanted to talk to one of the guys I was with, but had to remain silent. I think it was a good practice and it helped me to realize how much "idle talk" comes out of my mouth. It was particularly hard to eat in silence, though to be fair it wasn't complete silence. During the meals there was one monk who was assigned to read from a commentary, a sermon, or another spiritually edifying book. While everyone ate in silence he read. Even though I didn't grab everything that was read, I still caught bits and pieces of it and I thought the practice was healthy. Despite this, I still longed to just have a conversation during the meal. Maybe I'm just entrenched in the practice from society, but it seems like talking with the others one is eating with is only natural. I appreciated the vast amounts of silence. The Silence was really good, and I should probably focus on curbing my speech and talking less, but it was also really hard (though I guess that might be the point).

Another thing I struggled with was keeping my mind focused on the Lord during the long services. This was especially hard given the fact that I was very tired. Even while my thoughts during those hours were not sinful they still were unfocused and tended to stray towards football, lunch, and other randomness. When one of the guys from our group asked Father Joseph if he had any suggestions to help us focus more attentively on the Lord during the longer prayer vigils and liturgies, he said that people can focus on two things at once, but seldom three. Thus ,while listening to the liturgy (or the long sermon) it may be helpful to pray the Jesus prayer, or the Lord's prayer while listening in order to drive the distracting and/or sinful thoughts from our mind.

Another thing that Father Joseph said that I thought was very profound was that the goal of the monastic is to quench the passions which means in part being equally non-reactive to both compliments and insults. He told us a story of a young monk who struggled in not reacting to the insults hurled at him. The Abbot of this monk told him to go to the grave yard and hurl insults at the monks buried there. When the young monk returned the Abbot asked him what reaction he received. The young monk told him that they did nothing. The Abbot then told the monk to go cast compliments at the monks buried at the cemetery. When he returned the Abbot again asked him what reaction he received, and again the young monk said that the monks buried there gave no reaction. The Abbot then told the young monk that he should express the same reaction when confronted with both insults and compliments saying that we should neither be offended or angered by insults, and neither should we swell with pride at compliments.

While this isn't a full synopsis of the weekend I think it is a good representation. The weekend was great, though short and tiring. The monks were incredibly kind and what few conversations I had with them were enlightening. Like I said, Father Joseph was a very wise and holy man and his insight into spiritual things was full of great wisdom brought forth from the experience of walking closely and intently with the Lord for many years. I think it may be a very sad thing that Protestantism doesn't have a form or monasticism which could serve as pillar and exemplar of truth and piety.

- Ben

Coming up: A few book reviews from the semester and maybe some advent thoughts.