For those looking for the ideal religious life...
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Yet all you keep running into is lax communities - or maybe just find yourself in one already.
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"Not every one can change his outward situation. It is usually our outlook, not our outward situation, that needs changing. It is not the place that sanctifies us, but by a holy life we can sanctify both the place and ourselves." - Archbishop Brianchaninov (1807-1867), The Arena: An Offering to Contemporary Monasticism.
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Just a thought.
I keep on encountering quotations from Ignatius Brianchaninov, and he always seems to hit the nail on the head.
ReplyDeleteHow I needed to hear this today. Thank you for this gem, Terry...
ReplyDeleteWe have two good religious communities here in Utah....Trappist monks and Carmelite nuns....both could use a good hearty dose of vocations..
ReplyDeleteFor those in the health fields we have Benedictine sisters just up the street from where I live..they work in a local hospital. Habits optional but good community...the time I visited a few years back they chanted the Hours..
Sara
Question at each stage of Dominican monastic life:
ReplyDeleteWhat do you ask?
ANSWER
God's mercy and yours!
Monastic life is for conversion. This means we are sinners on the way to becoming holy.
If monastic communities were perfect most of us wouldn't persevere!
"We have to build, while the others are demolishing.
ReplyDeleteThe crumbled citadels have to be rebuilt, the bastions of Faith have to be reconstructed; firstly the holy sacrifice of the Mass of all times, which forms saints; then our chapels, our monasteries, our large families, our enterprises faithful to the social politics of the Church, our politicians determined to make the politics of Jesus Christ – this is a whole tissue of Christian social life, Christian customs, Christian reflexes, which we have to restore."
http://www.ourladyofguadalupemonastery.com
This is no sissy mary Monastery.
It is where I go to beg for mercy; it is where Charity abides for worthless like myself.
The Father Prior and the Monks are Traditional Roman Catholics.
Please say a Hail Mary for them.
God Bless Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
“By their fruits shall you know them”
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