Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Were All Monks Now America Magazine 1 PDF
Were All Monks Now America Magazine 1 PDF
[Don’t miss more stories like this one. Sign up for our
newsletter.]
Covid-19 cannot but remind us of our mortality and fragility, and so it can help us to
rethink our priorities. “All life is lived in the shadow of death,” said Brother Quenon,
“and we forget that.”
Without diminishing the catastrophic loss of life and jobs caused by the
pandemic, Michael Casagram, O.C.S.O., at Gethsemani said that perhaps
Covid-19 is “a divinely disguised moment for human breakthrough.” Our
society revolves around the notion that power and wealth give meaning to
existence, that they allow us to take control of our lives. But, Father
Casagram continued, “power and wealth create an illusion of meaning
When we are busy with our daily routines and tasks—and most of us
would admit that we are too busy—it is easy to feel as if we are in control
and that the life we are pursuing bestows ultimate meaning. Yet our
pursuit of meaning through power and wealth leaves us spiritually
impoverished as we scurry about, consumed by the busyness of life.
Covid-19 cannot but remind us of our mortality and fragility, and so it can
help us to rethink our priorities. “All life is lived in the shadow of death,”
said Brother Quenon, “and we forget that.”
Brother Quenon described quarantine as “a chance to get over the fear of solitude
and find the actual comfort in being with something that transcends a life
scurrying from this to that.”
“So much depends on persons simply taking the time to read,” said Father
Casagram. “I feel God is speaking to us through all kinds of circumstances
if we are present, attentive with our heart to his loving presence.” And it
is through being present to our thoughts and feelings as well as to God’s
loving presence that we can become more fully present to those with
whom we are living in isolation.
We can take this opportunity to recognize that “our happiness depends largely on
living in communion with those our lives are naturally intertwined.”
“Awareness of how we are one, especially one in our fragility,” said Brother Quenon,
“is the ground from which we build community.”
The monks have a great deal to teach us about living in community in our
temporary enclosures, but it is admittedly difficult to focus on the
spiritual life in the midst of the anxiety so many of us feel right now. The
monks I spoke with acknowledged this, but at the same time they
suggested that we can use this moment to live into and be freed by the
realization that there is much we cannot control. So much of our anxiety
revolves around wanting to control the uncontrollable, and the pandemic
can teach us the futility of this.
This article also appeared in print, under the headline “We’re all monks
now,” in the May 25, 2020, issue.
More: CORONAVIRUS / RELIGIOUS LIFE / THOMAS MERTON