Tag: Spirituality

In the 1940’s Roger Schutz, a Swiss Protestant man began to live a monastic life in a farm house in a small village in France. Soon others joined him from a variety of Christian churches and the ecumenical Community of Taize was born. Now, seventy years later they number almost one hundred brothers and annually welcome thousands of young people to join them in prayer and conversation.

Sometimes it is useful to think of a “monastic” as someone who is leading a “consecrated life” – a life consecrated to the service of God in whatever way God designs for them. This might mean a life of seclusion and solitude, or it may mean a life of social engagement, or it may mean a life of radical prayer (radical as in radix).

In monastic life, in the life of the Church, agitation is a disease. Chomping at the bit to jump at the next thing, without properly stopping before to pray for assistance from God and upon completion for a prayer of thanksgiving is like trying to hammer cold iron: a lot of noise and effort, not much result.

In the ancient Church of Syria and Iraq, emphasis was placed on the spiritual value of “wonder.” The fathers of the Syriac Church understood that to attempt to fathom the sacred truths of God was a difficult exercise for the faithful Christian to say the least — and nearly impossible if approached in the wrong way.

A longtime member of the congregation, active for years in many causes for justice began to speak and to weep. “Where is God?” she asked. “Where is God in the lives of children whose bodies are distorted by hunger? It is easy to feel that God is here when I am holding my well fed grandchildren in my arms. But there…” She found it hard to continue.