Life
Monastic life is distinct from the "religious orders" such as the friars, canons regular, clerks regular, and the more recent religious congregations. The latter have essentially some special work or aim, such as preaching, teaching, liberating captives, etc., which occupies a large place in their activities. While monks have undertaken labours of the most varied character, in every case this work is extrinsic to the essence of the monastic state. Both ways of living out the Christian life are regulated by the respective Church law of those Christian denominations that recognize it (e.g., the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, the Anglican Church, or the Lutheran Church).
Christian monastic life does not always involve communal living with like-minded Christians. Christian monasticism has varied greatly in its external forms, but, broadly speaking, it has two main species (a) the eremitical or solitary, (b) the cenobitical or family types. St. Anthony the Abbot may be called the founder of the first and St. Pachomius of the second. The monastic life is based on Jesus's exhortation to "be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). This ideal, also called the state of perfection, can be seen, for example, in the Philokalia, a book of monastic writings.
Monastic asceticism is a means to removing obstacles to loving God. Monks remember that: "The greatest way to show love for friends is to die for them" (John 15:13)CEV, for, in their case, life has come to mean renunciation. Their manner of self-renunciation has three elements corresponding to the three evangelical counsels: poverty, chastity and obedience.
Monks and friars are two distinct roles. In the thirteenth century “…new orders of friars were founded to teach the Christian faith,” because monasteries had declined. While friars take vows, they live outside of a monastery.
Read more about this topic: Christian Monasticism
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Is it not enough to make me come back to life out of spite, to have someone who spat in my face while I existed come and rub my feet when I am beginning to exist no longer?”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“We’ve only just begun to learn about the water and its secrets, just as we’ve only touched on outer space. We don’t entirely rule out the possibility that there might be some form of life on another planet. Then why not some entirely different form of life in a world we already know is inhabited by millions of living creatures?”
—Harry Essex (b. 1910)
“It is a conquest when we can lift ourselves above the annoyances of circumstances over which we have no control; but it is a greater victory when we can make those circumstances our helpers,—when we can appreciate the good there is in them. It has often seemed to me as if Life stood beside me, looking me in the face, and saying, “Child, you must learn to like me in the form in which you see me, before I can offer myself to you in any other aspect.””
—Lucy Larcom (1824–1893)