The author Rowan
Williams will characterize the monastic life as follows: “A humanity
serving God in steady engagement with the material world and in mutual giving
and receiving…a humanity shaped by Christ.”
He
goes on to remind us that the monk’s life is "incarnational," always lived in and
through Christ Jesus. As Williams writes, the monastic life is: “always modeled
on Christ’s human life (and) open to the divine at every moment; it is not
that God the Word deigns to take up residence in those parts of our lives that
we consider important or successful or exceptional. Every aspect of Jesus’
humanity and every moment of his life is imbued with the divine identity,
so that if our lives are to be images of his, they must seek the same kind of
unbroken transparency. Likewise, Jesus lives out in his humanity a
complete dependence on God as Father, the eternal dependence of the Word on the
divine Source, and is thus also capable of living a human life that is not
anxiously in search of the highest degree of autonomy: he receives gifts, receives
friendship and hospitality. A life that values every dimension of experience,
including the routine, the repetitive and prosaic, one that assumes mutual need
and invites generosity at the same time as offering it in hospitality – this is
a life that is not merely apostolic but Christlike and illustrates
the freshness of what the Gospel makes possible.”
Christ Jesus longs to be ordinary in us and with us and through us.
Photographs by Brother Brian.
