The Society of Saint John the Evangelist in Cambridge, MA will be closed for the month of August. The brothers do this every year so they can have some personal retreat time, visit family, and gather together to make plans for the coming year. Because of their new/pandemic initiated ministry of live-streaming their services, they especially need the time to regroup individually and collectively and to step out of the limelight.
I will miss attending the in-person Sunday services and social hour in the cloister that follows, which began in June. Chatting with the brothers has opened up examples of ways we lay people can create a monastic life for ourselves. These monks are not ‘cloistered’; they live a social life out in the world. They are called to prayer and service.
The call to prayer and service! Isn’t that what all God’s children are called to do? I believe yes; I certainly can’t offer any reason to refute it. One of my challenges is to remember the call to prayer and service in the midst of all the ego stuff I want to accomplish. The brothers are the first to admit that ego stuff gets in their way all the time, and that they have each other to call them to account. That’s no excuse for me—if I only lived in a religious community I’d be without all those living problems! We learn in whatever community we live in. My family, friends and church community is a wonderful place to learn it all.
I will miss attending the in-person Sunday services and social hour in the cloister that follows, which began in June. Chatting with the brothers has opened up examples of ways we lay people can create a monastic life for ourselves. These monks are not ‘cloistered’; they live a social life out in the world. They are called to prayer and service.
The call to prayer and service! Isn’t that what all God’s children are called to do? I believe yes; I certainly can’t offer any reason to refute it. One of my challenges is to remember the call to prayer and service in the midst of all the ego stuff I want to accomplish. The brothers are the first to admit that ego stuff gets in their way all the time, and that they have each other to call them to account. That’s no excuse for me—if I only lived in a religious community I’d be without all those living problems! We learn in whatever community we live in. My family, friends and church community is a wonderful place to learn it all.
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