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Called to Connect

Family, Community and communion with God and one another are increasingly under siege.  This “social corrosion” has many faces and monastic life is certainly not exempt from the fraying of social fabric.

There are many unknowns in the ways humans around the world are trying to re-connect, but I am most certain that monasticism is both a prophetic and alternative means given by God to humankind where this “re-connection” can take place.   

As we experience the slow vanishing of opportunities for people to connect, we monastics are being called to a kind of re-searching for God.  In fact, the Rule is about walking together, seeking the same goal – seeking God.  Monasteries are not “nests”, but “ways” of life.  And we, monks and sisters, have made a mutual commitment to “going to God together”.  Our monastic profession is entering lovingly and willingly into a covenant that is made between the members, the community and God.  (see Sister Aquinata Bockmann OSB, Wisdom Leadership.)

The people in the world have suddenly become deaf to one another; their ears are stuffed with two little headphones connected to computers, ipods, Walkmans or cell phones.  They are dazed and lost in their personalized world, oblivious to what is going on around them, and even more so, to what is going on within them.  In fact, many have exchanged their inner life for this virtual reality.  The resulting social autism adds to the ongoing list of unknown human consequences that we monastics will have to deal with more and more as young men and women, victims of this creeping disconnection, ask for admittance to the monastery. (see Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence)

With this intensification of social isolation, we see that the ability to love is weaker.  It becomes ever more difficult to grasp the mystery of God’s love made manifest through Jesus Christ; and therefore, true acts of charity for one another are visibly diminishing.  We end up treating one another simply as objects and not as persons.

The world of Internet, e-mail and cell phones has practically replaced any face to face contact with friends, coworkers, and family. The need for others that comes from the mystery of having been created in the image and likeness of God reveals an immense dark hole in our hearts. We are designed to connect. And as Norman Nie, director of the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society puts it, “You can’t get a hug or kiss over the Internet.”

Today all of us are being “questioned to death” by the vast social and political currents of our time.  Much of what “progress” has brought to us is dividing us and fragmenting our collective empathy and compassion for one another.  Even in the Catholic Church, we are experiencing bitter antagonisms and real divisions that verge on hatred.  The social corrosion with its immense but enticingly quiet force has blinded the eyes of our hearts, making us incapable of life giving choices.  As the poet, W. H. Auden, so pungently prophesied, “We must love one another or die.”

Monasteries must become once again schools of love that have as their curriculum: Presence, Silence and Communication.  In this sense the Rule of St. Benedict will make known its social brilliance.  In a prophetic but alternative way, our re-search for God will re-teach us this truth:  we are wired to connect!