Os Guinness Divorce Full Monastic Training#

He wrote his famous Rule late in his life as a statement of monastic principles and a guideline for life in a monastery.Still others, like Casey Sheehan, are called to put on a uniform, pick up a gun, and defend their country in times of war. Benedict lived from approximately 480 to 547 in Italy and is credited with the founding of the Benedictine religious order and the building of the famous Benedictine monastery, Monte Cassino. Skye talks with Os about the re-release of his classic book, The Dust of Death and how the 60вЂ™s counterculture planted the seeds for the cultural upheaval and division weвЂ™re seeing in 2020.St. Author and cultural commentator, Os Guinness, says, If people donвЂ™t understand the 60вЂ™s, they canвЂ™t understand today.

Presently there are 25,000 oblates in fifty countries around the world, representing most Christian denominations. These individuals are known as Benedictine вЂњoblates.вЂќ These individuals live secular lives, while at the same time maintaining a formal attachment to a monastery where they have taken vows to: вЂњвЂ¦as my state of life permits, Stability of Heart, Fidelity to the Spirit of Monastic Life, and Obedience to the Will of God.вЂќ This lay aspect of the Benedictine order has grown over the years. Os Guinness Biography and Wiki Os Guinness is an English author and social critic who was born in Hsiang Cheng, China and has lived in the United States.Almost from the very beginning, laypeople were attracted to the Rule and sought to apply it to their own lives. It comes from two Greek words, leitos (people, from which we get the term.

StabilityIn his book, Dining with the Devil, Dr Os Guinness told a story about the Mall of America. In significant ways these three principles can contribute to a successful marriage. They are: stability, obedience, and conversatio morum (or what one might call вЂcontinual growth in the spiritual lifeвЂ™). There are three basic principles that lie at the heart of the Benedictine lifestyle. Planet, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, and The Chronicles of Narnia series. Timothy Keller was educated .

Os Guinness Divorce Full Monastic Training

Benedict thinks the cenobitesвЂ”those who remain in one monastery under the rule of an abbot or abbessвЂ”are the best because they remain in one place to work out their salvation, instead of wandering about seeking only to satisfy their own, self-perceived needs like the sarabaites and the gyrovagues.For this purpose then, partners in a marriage surrender their wills to the will of the other, with the understanding that the final purpose of this surrender is to discover the will of God in their lives.While it may seem odd to compare life in a monastery with the institution of marriage, the principle of stability is common to both lifestyles. The sarabaites are monks who reject formal training and make up their own rules to govern themselves, and the gyrovagues are monks who wander from one monastery to another, again to pretty much satisfy their own personal needs. The third and fourth types of monks are the sarabaites and the gyrovagues. These individuals, according to Benedict, must be seasoned monks who have had full monastic trainingвЂ”and it is definitely not a lifestyle for novices. The first are the cenobites, who вЂњare based in a monastery and fulfill their service of the Lord under a rule and an abbot or abbess.вЂќ The second are anchorites or hermits.

Finally, the young monk persuades the old monk to sit down with him to see if they canвЂ™t find something they can agree on. Every time the younger monk tries to engage the older monk in conversation, the older man rebuffs him, often rudely. One Benedictine writer recounts a case where two monks, one old and rather testy and the other younger and very sincere, have problems relating to each other. There are humorousвЂ”and sometimes rather poignantвЂ”stories of monks with radically different temperaments and outlooks on the world struggling to live together in the same community. In some way the situation is actually more difficult for monks because they have not initially chosen the individuals they are living with the way married couples have.

But several points of similarity exist. Once again, the monastic meaning of this term, which involves (as stated above) fulfilling oneвЂ™s вЂњservice of the Lord under a rule and an abbot or abbess,вЂќ seems quite different from the situation one finds in a marriage. ObedienceThe second core principle of the Benedictine lifestyle is obedience. Underlying all of this, of course, is the love of God and of one another that exists as the source of stability and serves as its empowering force. While it is true that some marriages should be endedвЂ”when there is abuse or infidelity, for exampleвЂ”going into a marriage with the idea that вЂif it doesnвЂ™t work we can always get a divorceвЂ™ (or some other such qualification) violates the commitment to stability that is crucial to any successful relationship. In both settings, stability in the vows they have taken require both monks and married couples to work within the context of the lifestyles they have chosen and not to be like the sarabaites and the gyrovagues that Benedict describes, who seek only their own short-term happiness.Thus, monastic life and marriage both require long-term commitments that are not to be taken lightly.

As one commentator on the Rule puts it: stability вЂњimplies perseverance,вЂќ obedience вЂњrecognizes the need for guidance,вЂќ and conversatio morum represents the вЂњcore element of monastic commitmentвЂќвЂ”attaining вЂњthe Kingdom of GodвЂ¦ purity of heart.вЂќJust as for Benedict humility stands as perhaps the greatest monastic virtue, so in a similar manner it is crucial in a marriage as well.This can be seen in both a secular and a religious sense in marriage. It needs to be cultivated over time, and this practice of вЂobedience to each otherвЂ™ is one way of giving expression to it.Finally, there is the principle of conversatio morum , or what can be called вЂcontinual growth in the spiritual life.вЂ™ Neither stability nor obedience has as its purpose stultifying or extinguishing spiritual growth, and conversatio morum then stands as the third pillar of Benedictine spirituality. It is a subtle process, and it does not exist automatically in a marriage. In marriage this entails listening to each other and jointly discerning the direction to be taken when major decisions or problems arise. For this purpose then, partners in a marriage surrender their wills to the will of the other, with the understanding that the final purpose of this surrender is to discover the will of God in their lives.

Nothing is more destructive in a marriage relationship than arrogance or a sense of superiority on the part of one marriage partner for the otherвЂ”or even worse, a вЂbattle of egosвЂ™ between the two partners. It is just such an exchange that we need to establish in our own lives, but with this difference for us: our proud attempts at upward climbing will really bring us down, whereas to step downwards in humility is the way to lift our spirits up towards God.Just as for Benedict humility stands as perhaps the greatest monastic virtue, so in a similar manner it is crucial in a marriage as well. In this connection he writes:On that ladder angels of God were shown to going up and down in a constant exchange between heaven and earth.