Posted on 08/20/2010 4:39:07 PM PDT by NYer
Perhaps you've seen the rotating ads on CMR promoting the Mystic Monk coffee. Well, they do more than roast beans. They are a newly-founded energetic community of contemplative Carmelites known as the Monks of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel who are serious about what they do: "strict monastic enclosure, two hours of contemplative prayer daily, study and spiritual reading, and manual labor." While the community is currently still small (under 20) they are being inundated with vocation inquiries and are planning to build a new monastery on a striking site in Wyoming to be known as the New Mount Carmel of America.
Their architect, James McCrery, has been working furiously to prepare initial drawings for their building complex (a once-in-a-lifetime dream commission), which has now been brought to the end of schematic design. (Schematic design means that it is only the initial, approved conception of the building. It will then go through design development to receive its final details. For that reason, many of the images shown are not highly detailed or use what are called "place holders" meant to give a general idea. In other words, if you are an architectural nit picker like I am, hold your nits for a few months.)
The Carmelites asked for a decidedly French Gothic design centered around a large chapel. Small hermitages are located to the east of the chapel since the monks live much of their day as hermits. The plan also provides for other needs: refectory, chapter house, infirmary, novitiate, offices, etc.
Here are more images sent by our friend Mr. McCrery. Enjoy!
(click to enlarge).
Ping!
I wish them Godspeed!
It looks absolutely beautiful.
” two hours of contemplative prayer daily,...”
Gee, that much??????????????????
What kind of monastics are these? They should spend at least that much time in a simple vespers service.
Great!
That’s pretty. Very European. Can’t wait to see it completed.
Very beautiful.
The two hours of (usually) solitary contemplative prayer are in addition to the communal chanted prayers of the Office.
Where does the bible teach eastern mystic meditation?
Beautiful. Just beautiful. May it be an inspiration to all.
Thank you for your input, dear Kolokotronis!
Wow. Can one not see the Hand of God in this?
Wow. Can one not see the Hand of God in this?Indeed. Here's a picture of our front yard for instance. (Photo snapped at ten paces out our front door.) *smiles*
That’s what Christian monks have been doing since the 1st century AD
“The two hours of (usually) solitary contemplative prayer are in addition to the communal chanted prayers of the Office.”
Did I miss that in the article? Did I also miss, even with your additions, the Compline, Orthros, Liturgy and Vespers or have those gone out of style since Vatican II?
The article states quite explicitly that they are Carmelites - so they obviously say the entire Divine Office as all Carmelites always have.
Moreover, the link to their website specifies that they follow the Primitive Rule of the Discalced Carmelites, which means that they say the Divine Office according to the even longer, more ancient usage.
“The article states quite explicitly that they are Carmelites - so they obviously say the entire Divine Office as all Carmelites always have”
Oh come on, w! That’s the ultimate in inside baseball. Why should readers here know that Carmelites have “always” prayed the entire Divine Office each day? You know as well as I do that there are multiple orders of Latin rite monastics who do not and live “in the world”. The article says what it says. It is sloppily written and does a disservice to these monks.
if you've honestly never heard of them and honestly don't know that all ordered religious in the Catholic Church say the whole Office as a basic requirement, then you should have refrained from comment until you did some elementary research.
if you've honestly never heard of them and honestly don't know that all ordered religious in the Catholic Church say the whole Office as a basic requirement, then you should have refrained from comment until you did some elementary research.
I’m trying to raise $1.5 million for a high-quality Christian school for underserved children in South America. The goal is to raise the students into the ranks of community leaders with high spiritual standards, rather than simply get educated. It isn’t easy to raise funds, even for a project that has well-defined practical consequences.
Who is funding these 20 young monks’ building project? Don’t find any info on the CMR page, although I might have just missed it.
“Carmelites are one of the oldest and largest religious orders in the Church.”
I know, w. I grew up around Carmelite nuns.
“They precede the Great Schism.”
No they didn’t. They were founded about 100 years after the Schism. I’m very surprised you didn’t know that.
“St. John of the Cross? St. Theresa of Avila? They’re hardly obscure.”
Not in the least. In fact both are among my favorite Post-Schism Western saints, especially +John of the Cross.
“...honestly don’t know that all ordered religious in the Catholic Church say the whole Office as a basic requirement, then you should have refrained from comment until you did some elementary research.”
But the truth is, w, that all “ordered religious” do NOT pray the full Office every day, not anymore. I am pleased to hear that the Carmelites do. As I said, the article does them a disservice.
Moreover, the 1983 Code of Canon Law gives all religious the Office, unless their institute specifically modifies it. No major order reduces it, let alone eliminates it.
What happened there? :/
It would appear they follow the usual means of raising money - donations and selling their products.
Ha! We live on a major four-lane highway, and our particular intersection is a “popular” one for crashes. No one was hurt in this accident.
Yes, I imagine so. I was just thinking that that’s a lot of coffee beans in the architect’s renderings.
Same place it teaches fishing for red herrings.
All professed religious and all clerics are required to say the Office every day. I believe the requirement is for Lauds, Readings, Vespers, and one or two of the other hours.
The Western office is much simpler and shorter than the Byzantine version; even solemn sung Vespers only lasts about 30 minutes.
Not to rain on their parade, but wouldn’t it be less expensive to occupy one of the myriad of abandoned church facilities?
I believe it was St Theresa of Avila that wrote the Interior Castle. Good reading, but St johns Dark night of the soul was too deep for my little pea size brain..
What a lovely place that will be. I pray they have many young, and maybe even older men, to fill it, ready to pray and praise God, as soon as it’s ready!
Oftentimes, the cost of rehabilitating an abandoned property can equal or exceed the cost of building a new one. Notice too that this property will include hermitages, something that is unique to the monastic life.
Wow. That must be nerve wracking at times. We had an accident in front of our driveway a few years ago. The car went up in flames, the tires exploded and sadly, the driver died. This street, while off the beaten path, frequently has serious and not so serious accidents because it is steep and winding.
That does not make it biblical or God pleasing
Early on Monks came under the influence of those that practiced eastern meditation..they reasoned it that pleased their gods it would please their as well
There is no biblical example laid were men were led to do inward meditation.. we are only told to meditate on the word of God, nothing else..
When we look inward we are not looking at God, we are looking at ourselves.. we are never told to "empty; our mind..
Hmm,
The Bible was COMPILED at least partially by monks, who behaved just as described.
Cute but God is not laughing
Deut, 12:29-31"The LORD your God will cut off before you the nations you are about to invade and dispossess. But when you have driven them out and settled in their land, and after they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about their gods, saying, "How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same." You must not worship the LORD your God in their way..."
Jer 10:2 Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.
Eze 20:32 And that which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say, We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone.
Eph 4:17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
But that does not mean they were or are pleasing God in using the Hindi /eastern method of prayer .
Some of the comments at the link are a bit contentious.
No, compiled.
The texts in question were collected, preserved, and translated in large part by monks. They were responsible for the facts that: any given book of the Bible is in the Bible at all; that the versions we have are what we have and not some others; that other texts that are no longer existent were neither included nor preserved.
Therefore, even a Biblical literalist (or perhaps especially a Biblical literalist) has to conceive of the ancient monks as agents of the divine.
And it isn’t “Eastern” meditation. That is silly. Christianity has an ancient contemplative tradition of its own, some of it of Classical origin, some of it Jewish (the Qumran community may have been a prototype), some of it indeed is in imitation of Christ.
A is MAn example: A Christian prays. A Hindu prays. Therefore, a Christian is a Hindu.
B is M
Therefore, A is B.
All things called M are not equivalent, though described by the same word.An example: A junkie cooks heroin. I cook steak. But it's illegal and immoral to use drugs so I am a sinful criminal when I cook steak.
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.Furthermore, you haven't demonstrated, beyond a similarity of words, that the activities are identical or that the practice of the Hindu is something inherently evil. While it's not immoral to eat meat, and it is immoral to eat other people, the act of eating, though, has no moral content. You may as well claim that if a Hindu unbeliever loves his children and cares for them and designates that with a certain term then God will be displeased if a Christian loves his children and cares for them and designates that with the English (or French or whatever) equivalent of that term.
--Joshua 1:8
But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
--Psalm 1:2
The meditation of the Christian in prayer seeks to grasp the depths of the divine in the salvific works of God in Christ, the Incarnate Word, and in the gift of his Spirit. These divine depths are always revealed to him through the human-earthly dimension. Similar methods of meditation, on the other hand, including those which have their starting-point in the words and deeds of Jesus, try as far as possible to put aside everything that is worldly, sense perceptible or conceptually limited. It is thus an attempt to ascend to or immerse oneself in the sphere of the divine, which, as such, is neither terrestrial, sense-perceptible nor capable of conceptualization....
With the present diffusion of eastern methods of meditation in the Christian world and in ecclesial communities, we find ourselves faced with a pointed renewal of an attempt, which is not free from dangers and errors, "to fuse Christian meditation with that which is non-Christian." Proposals in this direction are numerous and radical to a greater or lesser extent. Some use eastern methods solely as a psycho-physical preparation for a truly Christian contemplation; others go further and, using different techniques, try to generate spiritual experiences similar to those described in the writings of certain Catholic mystics. Still others do not hesitate to place that absolute without image or concepts, which is proper to Buddhist theory, on the same level as the majesty of God revealed in Christ, which towers above finite reality. To this end, they make use of a "negative theology," which transcends every affirmation seeking to express what God is, and denies that the things of this world can offer traces of the infinity of God. Thus they propose abandoning not only meditation on the salvific works accomplished in history by the God of the Old and New Covenant, but also the very idea of the One and Triune God, who is Love, in favor of an immersion "in the indeterminate abyss of the divinity." These and similar proposals to harmonize Christian meditation with eastern techniques need to have their contents and methods ever subjected to a thorough-going examination so as to avoid the danger of falling into syncretism.
LETTER TO THE BISHOPS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON SOME ASPECTS OF CHRISTIAN MEDITATION
That too. Well done.
Though I think that the application of logic to religion is mostly a Catholic thing, and not very useful in discussions with certain sorts of Protestants.
When you empty your mind it gives space to the devil to enter and place his thoughts..
Christian mysticism today say "Embrace the silence!" The Bible says, Test the spirits and flee from deception (I John 4:1), hold fast to what is true (1 Thess. 5:21) and don't assume immunity from deception (Matthew 24).
See my #45
Please point me to, in this posted thread, the claim that these monks practice “eastern mysticism”.
She could be confused by the title of the article which refer to them as “Mystic monks,” which is actually a reference to the name of the coffee line they produce.
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