“Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, ‘Woman, behold your son!’ Then He said to the disciple, ‘Behold your mother!’ And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home.” (John 19:27)
Here is the first monastic family. They’re called communities, because they want all who care to become members to feel they are entering a new society; but they really are new families similar to the bonding of the Mother of God and the disciple whom Jesus loved. And of course Jesus Himself always heads them, as we might imagine from the above words. What else did the two of them discuss except the life of Christ? Who could interest them other than He? Aunt Mary had her husband Clopas, he of the road to Emmaus fame (Luke 24:13-33). How or where Mary Magdalene may have lived is a joyful mystery, a subject for tradition and speculation.
But it was those two bathed in an aura of suffering love that becomes a prototype for all monastics. The first condition is to be so obsessed with Jesus Christ that nothing else matters but to be with Him constantly. Everything else is incidental. Can you imagine the Theotokos and St. John thinking about where they shall live, what they shall eat, what they shall wear, or any of the mundane matters that consume so much of our ordinary lives? Nothing like that is of great concern, only the way to be in touch with the living Lord. His presence is so overwhelming that to live in Him, with Him and for Him is the only matter of interest for those consumed by His Being.
So it is with true monastics ever since, and even in this new millennium. Here in America it’s a tremendous challenge. So many temptations are strewn before us that to sort them all out in our minds and choose to ignore most of them is an enticement more tempting than ever before in history. Television alone is a threat to anyone seriously interested in a life of prayer and meditation. Cell phones now make it possible to communicate with just about anybody on earth and nobody beyond it. Web sites offer an electronic garden of earthly delights for those who yearn to waste time chatting with their fingers.
We in the secular world have all the good intentions of giving ourselves wholeheartedly to the Lord, but so many other concerns invade our lives and shove aside our commitments. Yet the monks and nuns with similar needs to support themselves find ways to pay their bills and meet the expenses of a money-driven society such as ours, nevertheless, keep to the guidelines of a liturgical life with its cycles of fasts and feasts. They form their own extended family because they realize the complexity of doing so in a world such as ours.
We must all the more encourage those who feel a vocation to enter our few monasteries for women and men, because one measure of a healthy Orthodox Christian nation is the number, size and discipline of their monastic communities. In our spiritual homelands the tradition of monastic life has long been established. Now with the death of Communism, an enormous revival of spirituality is taking place. Once a haven for elderly, now young persons are seeking to find the joy of knowing the Lord Jesus in the lives of the living saints in such communities.