Our world seems to be increasingly fractured. Sadly, our Church is becoming increasingly fractured as well. We’re still reeling from the festering wound of the sexual abuse crisis. We’ve seen recent ...

Recently, the German news magazine Der Spiegel ran an article on the decline of religious communities in Germany. It makes for depressing reading, telling of large religious houses with ever-dwindling ...

Pope Benedict XVI today told members of the Vatican Congregation dedicated to helping consecrated religious that monastic life must challenge the faithful to love God before all else. The Holy Father ...

For some, the term monasticism may bring up images of chanting monks or helpful nuns. For Matt Scraper, monasticism is an important part of his life and faith as an elder in the Oklahoma Con­ference ...

When COVID-19 led health officials to urge people to shelter in place, it even affected the already-cloistered monks at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers. Public prayers and services with ...

(The Conversation) — The symbolic image of the silently meditating nun or chanting monk often embodies the Buddhist religion. Such representation may make it appear that Buddhist teachings and ...

“When a monk gives his life to God, he has to express that in a physical way, not just an intellectual way, and singing involves the whole body and the mind and the soul, and so it’s a wonderful way ...

Benedict’s Rule became the gold standard of monastic life. Listen!” wrote Benedict at the beginning of his monastic Rule. Writing around A.D. 540, he offered a way of listening in a setting where ...

The monastic alternative, at least in the West, has become so deeply unfashionable that most people no longer consider the possibility, but there is, at least to me, something deeply appealing about ...

(The Conversation) — Christian monasticism developed in part because people were seeking the solace of quiet places. But for them, like us, it was a struggle. In some parts of the world, a mysterious ...

Monasticism developed, in part, because people were seeking silence. Mario Mifsud In some parts of the world, a mysterious “droning sound,” similar to a “a diesel engine idling nearby,” has been ...