{"id":163,"date":"2007-09-09T13:36:07","date_gmt":"2007-09-09T13:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/at-the-monastery.html"},"modified":"2007-09-09T13:36:07","modified_gmt":"2007-09-09T13:36:07","slug":"at-the-monastery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/at-the-monastery.html","title":{"rendered":"At the monastery"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the Pope’s last activities today in Austria was a visit to the Heiligenkreuz Abbey<\/a> – the oldest continuously active Cistercian Abbey in the world. Here’s the official site in English.<\/a>
\n(Cistercians<\/a> are a reformed, more severe observance of the Benedictine Rule, originated in the 11th century at the Abbey of C\u00eeteaux. Trappists are a branch of the Cistercians.)
\nHere is the text of the Pope’s remarks today, a lovely meditation on prayer in general, the Liturgy of the Hours, specifically, and the value of the monastic life for all of us. <\/a>
\nThe soul of prayer, ultimately, is the Holy Spirit. Whenever we pray, it is he who \u201chelps us in our weakness, interceding for us with sighs too deep for words\u201d (Rom 8:26). Trusting in these words of the Apostle Paul, I assure you, dear brothers and sisters, that prayer will produce in you the same effect which once led to the custom of calling priests and consecrated persons simply \u201cspirituals\u201d (Geistliche). Bishop Sailer of Regensburg once said that priests should be first and foremost spiritual persons. I would like to see a revival of the word \u201cGeistliche\u201d. More importantly, though, the content of that word should become a part of our lives: namely, that in following the Lord, we become, by the power of the Spirit, \u201cspiritual\u201d men and women.
\nAustria (\u00d6sterreich) is, in an old play on words, truly Kl\u00f6sterreich: a realm of monasteries and a land rich in monasteries. Your ancient abbeys whose origins and traditions date back many centuries are places where \u201cGod is put first\u201d. Dear friends, make this priority given to God ever more apparent to people! As a spiritual oasis, a monastery reminds today\u2019s world of the most important, and indeed, the only decisive thing: that there is an ultimate reason why life is worth living: God and his unfathomable love.
\nAnd I ask you, dear members of the faithful: see your abbeys and monasteries for what they are and always wish to be: not mere strongholds of culture and tradition, or even simple business enterprises. Structure, organization and finances are necessary in the Church too, but they are not what is essential. A monastery is above all this: a place of spiritual power. Coming to one of your monasteries here in Austria, we have the same impression as when, after a strenuous hike in the Alps, we finally find refreshment at a clear mountain spring\u2026 Take advantage of these springs of God\u2019s closeness in your country; treasure the religious communities, the monasteries and abbeys; and make use of the spiritual service that consecrated person are willing to offer you!
\nFinally, I have come also to visit the Academy, now the Pontifical Academy, which is 205 years old and which, in its new status, the Abbot has named after the present Successor of Peter. Important though it is that the discipline of theology be part of the universitas of knowledge through the presence of Catholic theological faculties in state universities, it is equally important that there should be academic institutions like your own, where there can be a deeper interplay between scientific theology and lived spirituality. God is never simply the \u201cobject\u201d of theology; he is always its living \u201csubject\u201d as well. Christian theology, for that matter, is never a purely human discourse about God, but always, and inseparably, the logos and \u201clogic\u201d of God\u2019s self-revelation. For this reason scientific rationality and lived devotion are two necessarily complementary and interdependent aspects of study.
\nThe father of the Cistercian Order, Saint Bernard, in his own day fought against the detachment of an objectivizing rationality from the main current of ecclesial spirituality. Our situation today, while different, nonetheless has notable similarities. In its desire to be recognized as a rigorously scientific discipline in the modern sense, theology can lose the life-breath given by faith. But just as a liturgy which no longer looks to God is already in its death throes, so too a theology which no longer draws its life-breath from faith ceases to be theology; it ends up as a array of more or less loosely connected disciplines. But where theology is practised \u201con bent knee\u201d, as Hans Urs von Balthasar (3) urged, it will prove fruitful for the Church in Austria and beyond.
\nThis fruitfulness is shown through fostering and forming those who have vocations to the priesthood or the religious life. Today, if such a vocation is to be sustained faithfully over a lifetime, there is a need for a formation capable of integrating faith and reason, heart and mind, life and thought. A life devoted to following Christ calls for an integration of one\u2019s entire personality. Neglect of the intellectual dimension can give rise all too easily to a kind of superficial piety nourished mostly by emotions and sentiments, which cannot be sustained over a lifetime. Neglect of the spiritual dimension, in turn, can create a rarified rationalism which, in its coldness and detachment, can never bring about an enthusiastic self-surrender to God. A life devoted to following Christ cannot be built on such one-sided foundations; half-measures leave a person unhappy and, consequently, also spiritually barren. Each vocation to the religious life or to the priesthood is a treasure so precious that those responsible for it should do everything possible to ensure a formation which promotes both fides et ratio \u2013 faith and reason, heart and mind.<\/strong><\/em>
\n
\n\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the Pope’s last activities today in Austria was a visit to the Heiligenkreuz Abbey – the oldest continuously active Cistercian Abbey in the world. Here’s the official site in English. (Cistercians are a reformed, more severe observance of the Benedictine Rule, originated in the 11th century at the Abbey of C\u00eeteaux. Trappists are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pope","category-religion"],"yoast_head":"\nAt the monastery - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/at-the-monastery.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"At the monastery - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of the Pope’s last activities today in Austria was a visit to the Heiligenkreuz Abbey – the oldest continuously active Cistercian Abbey in the world. Here’s the official site in English. (Cistercians are a reformed, more severe observance of the Benedictine Rule, originated in the 11th century at the Abbey of C\u00eeteaux. Trappists are…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/at-the-monastery.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-09-09T13:36:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/img293.imageshack.us\/img293\/6561\/r23778401862f75160xx1.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"At the monastery - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/at-the-monastery.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"At the monastery - Via Media","og_description":"One of the Pope’s last activities today in Austria was a visit to the Heiligenkreuz Abbey – the oldest continuously active Cistercian Abbey in the world. Here’s the official site in English. (Cistercians are a reformed, more severe observance of the Benedictine Rule, originated in the 11th century at the Abbey of C\u00eeteaux. Trappists are…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/at-the-monastery.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2007-09-09T13:36:07+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/img293.imageshack.us\/img293\/6561\/r23778401862f75160xx1.jpg"}],"author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/at-the-monastery.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/at-the-monastery.html","name":"At the monastery - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/at-the-monastery.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/at-the-monastery.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/img293.imageshack.us\/img293\/6561\/r23778401862f75160xx1.jpg","datePublished":"2007-09-09T13:36:07+00:00","dateModified":"2007-09-09T13:36:07+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/at-the-monastery.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/at-the-monastery.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/at-the-monastery.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/img293.imageshack.us\/img293\/6561\/r23778401862f75160xx1.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/img293.imageshack.us\/img293\/6561\/r23778401862f75160xx1.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/at-the-monastery.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"At the monastery"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}