Today, on Vivificat, Teófilo de Jesús posted a quote by a Carthusian monk. Interestingly enough, when I tried to visit his site, Google told me to stay away because his site was infected by Malware…
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Today, October 6, we celebrate the feast of Saint Bruno of Cologne (1030-1101), founder of The Chartreuse Order of cloistered monks (the Ca...
God was calling me to live these graces out more clearly in my life and I felt I was being called to Mepkin and sensed God saying “you're home.”
Could the menu at la Tonnelle accommodate six people including two children? Yes. L'ile Saint Honorat has an eight hectare vineyard where production is
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Pedro I "El Cruel" o "El Justiciero", curiosa la dualidad de apodos, reinó en España entre 1350 y 1369, y se ganó sus sobrenombres a sangre y fuego; por ello no es raro que de él se cuenten mil y una historias, unas reales, otras inventadas, y que sea protagonista de leyendas. Un personaje popular, querido u odiado a partes iguales no merece menos. La leyenda de la Calle Cabeza del Rey Don Pedro, la historia de Doña María Coronel, y ahora esta nueva leyenda que paso a relatar. Cuentan que Pedro I acudió a un convento sevillano, el Convento Casa Grande San Francisco, para ver a su prior, persona que gozaba de justa fama de persona sabia, pero que llegando al claustro el Rey fue informado de que el prior se encontraba predicando fuera de Sevilla, lo que encolerizó al monarca que, a gritos, pidió que en cuanto llegase a Sevilla, el prior se presentase a él. Al llegar a Sevilla y enterarse de la solicitud del monarca el prior no pudo por menos que estremecerse, la cólera del rey era de sobras conocida en la ciudad y de la orden dada nada bueno se podía presagiar. Así pues el prior se debatía entre presentarse al rey, con el lógico miedo de sus trágicas consecuencias, o huir de Sevilla y buscar refugio en otro convento de la orden. Ante estas cábalas que preocupaban al prior, uno de sus legos, joven pendiente de tomar los votos y que trabajaba mientras tanto en la cocina del convento, le propuso una solución; - Yo os sustituiré en la visita al rey, y veréis la habilidad que muestro en frenar su cólera. No teniendo nada que perder el prior aceptó y respiró aliviado. Al día siguiente el lego se presento ante el rey y le expuso mil y una excusas para no haber estado en el convento el día de la visita real. El rey, harto de tanta disculpa pregunto al lego si era real esa fama que le precedía de hombre sabio, pensando que hablaba con el prior. El lego, humíldemente, se excusó no dando importancia al dato, pero el rey estaba empeñado en saber si era meritoria la fama del prior, así que le planteo un reto, - Os haré tres preguntas, si las respuestas con correctas os marchareis, pero si no quedo satisfecho os mandare decapitar y nombrare nuevo prior. El lego, confiado en su habilidad y su ingenio aceptó el reto, bien es verdad que poco más podía hacer ante el rey salvo aceptar sus órdenes, y esta era una de ellas. El rey comenzó sus preguntas. - Decidme, pregunto el rey, cuanto valgo. - 29 monedas, nuestro Señor Jesucristo fue vendido por 30, no creo que creáis valer más que nuestro Salvador, fue la primera respuesta del falso prior. - bien, me parece una respuesta muy justa, contesto el rey, que a continuación lanzo su segunda pregunta, ¿ Donde está el centro de la tierra ? - El centro de la tierra está bajo vuestros pies, no por ser rey e importante, sino porque al ser la tierra redonda, en cualquier punto que os pongáis estaréis situado sobre su centro. En el salón se oyeron murmullos por la solidez y lógica de la respuesta y en señal de aceptación, el monarca sonrió también dando por buena la respuesta y alabó el ingenio del lego. - Ahora mi tercera pregunta, habló Don Pedro, decidme algo en lo que yo esté equivocado. sin duda era una pregunta de difícil respuesta, era poco producente llevar la contraria al rey, se corría el riesgo de ser decapitado por ello, aún así el lego respondió con aplomo - Majestad, no es difícil responder, pensáis que habláis con el prior del convento casa grande de San Francisco, pero realmente lo hacéis con un lego de cocina de dicho convento, y diciendo esto se retiró la capucha dejando a la vista su rostro. Ante la respuesta el rey, tras la lógica sorpresa sonrió y, habida cuenta del ingenio que había demostrado el joven, decidió nombrar al lego prior del convento, destinado al actual a otro convento de la orden. Hasta aquí la leyenda, pero hay que hacer constar que hechos similares, en mayor o menor medida, son también asignados a otros monarcas en épocas anteriores y posteriores a Pedro I, por ello, es posible que este caso solo sea la adaptación de una leyenda anterior.
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Father Thomas Merton, on the virtues of Solitude, Faith, + Doubt.
Thomas Merton Photo by John Howard Griffin Today is the 97th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Merton. My Catholicism is not the religion of the bourgeoisie nor will it ever be. My Catholicism is of all the world and of all ages. It dates from the beginning of the world. The first man was the image of Christ and contained Christ, even as he was created, as savior in his heart. The first man was destined to be the ancestor of his Redeemer and the first woman was the mother of all life, in the image of the Immaculate Daughter who was full of grace, Mother of mercy, Mother of the saved. -- Thomas Merton Introductions East & West, 35-6HT: Jim Forest
Columbia Business School Publishing is releasing my book, Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks, today. The book is based on this article that originally appeared on Forbes.com in 2009. I especially want to thank Fred Allen, the leadership editor here at Forbes.com: it was his idea to turn this piece into a book. I also want to thank you, my readers at Forbes.com for your continued support and encouragement.
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Thomas Merton (1915-1968) died 40 years ago today, which I observe as a feast-day in my own customized liturgical calendar. He entered the...
(photo by John Howard Griffin - I think this might be my favorite Merton photo.) The Abby of Gethsemani is a Trappist monastery of the Cistercian tradition. Their style of monastic life follows ancient patterns that have been in place for at least a thousand years. The monks begin their first service of Matins at 2AM in the morning followed by Lauds at dawn, Prime at the first hour; Tierce at the third; Sext at the sixth; None at the ninth. Vespers are celebrated in the late afternoon and Compline just before retiring. Within that liturgical framework of public prayer the monks celebrate a communal Mass and have long periods of work and/or study. The life is staunchly communal – brothers living side by side. The life is rigorously self-conscious and penitential. It was said of Dom Frederic, half humorously, that he had two basic rules for the community: “Do what you are told” and “Do what you are told”. Merton’s longing for a solitary life was not, at first, understood by his community or his Abbot. Merton’s essay, “A Philosophy of Solitude”, is not only an attempt to justify to his religious order his own desire for a more solitary life, it is also an appeal to the monastic tradition to fully understand the very religious concept of solitude. Here are some excerpts from that essay in which Merton attempts to sort out the meaning of solitude, and how it is to be distinguished from loneliness or alienation. “The true solitary is not one who simply withdraws from society. Mere withdrawal, regression, leads to a sick solitude, without meaning and without fruit. The solitary of whom I speak is called not to leave society but to transcend it: not to withdraw from the fellowship with other men but to renounce the appearance, the myth of union in diversion in order to attain to union on a higher and more spiritual level – the mystical level of the Body of Christ.” “The solitary is one who is called to make one of the most terrible decisions possible to man: the decision to disagree completely with those who imagine that the call to diversion and self-deception is the voice of truth and who can summon the full authority of their own prejudice to prove it…” “… the vocation to solitude is not a vocation to the warm narcissistic dream of a private religion. It is the vocation to become fully awake …” “… eccentric and regressive solitude clamors for recognition, and seeks to focus more pleasurably and more intently on itself by stepping back from the crowd … what they want is not the hidden, metaphysical agony of the hermit but the noisy self-congratulations and self-pity of the infant in the cradle. Ultimately what they want is not the desert but the womb.” “… the call of solitude (even though only interior) is perilous. Everyone who knows what solitude means is aware of this. The essence of the solitary vocation is precisely the anguish of an almost infinite risk.” “Only the false solitary sees no danger in solitude.” “[the false solitary’s] solitude is imaginary … the false solitary is one who is able to imagine himself without companions while in reality he remains just as dependent on society as before – if not more dependent. He needs society as a ventriloquist needs a dummy. He projects his own voice and it comes back to him admiring, approving, opposing or at least adverting to his own separateness.” “The true solitary does not renounce anything that is basic and human about his relationship to other men. He is deeply united to them – all the more deeply because he is no longer entranced by marginal concerns.” “The Christian solitary is fully and perfectly a man of the Church.” “The true solitary is not called to an illusion, to the contemplation of himself as a solitary. He is called to the nakedness and hunger of a more primitive and honest condition.”
Benedictines, Dominicans, Templars, Franciscans and more - have fun with this quiz!
